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Half a century Later Oxfam Faces Daunting Tasks

Born in 1942 as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, Oxfam entered its 50th year in October. Organisers plan to use the anniversary to raise more money for its hundreds of projects in 71 countries. Senior Oxfam officials are swift to extol the virtues of a half-century's effort, but they wonder aloud whether the odds are still stacked against them. As Gemini News Service reports, conditions in most of the developing world have worsened considerably over the past decade, by Allan Thompson
OXFAM. the British has cd agency whose name Is now almost synonymous with Third World aid. is entering Ite 50th year. The organisation's leaders arc celebrating that half century and hope to use the occasion to drum up more donations
Yet looking back they admit that despite their best efforts, not enough progress has been made in the battle against poverty In the past decade poverty has deepened in much of the developing world, and the gap between North and South has widened, the agency says in a comprehensive report
Said Oxfam Overseas Director David Bryer : ' Poverty is Increasing for one quarter of the world's people. One tn six families are poorer than a decade agp... The sheer scale of poverty in developing countries is not only Immoral but unnecessary and avoidable
"Oxfam's first half-century has taught us that poverty is not an Inevitable fact of life. Most of it is man-made."
More than one billion peo-Ce. a fifth of the world's popu-tlon. live in absolute poverty and must survive on £175 or less per year, the amount spent every year by atypical Briton on restaurant meals
Most disturbing to Oxfam is lire "lost decade" of the Eighties. when progress made In I Ik two previous decades was eroded In Ihe Eighties many dexvlnping countries not only failed lo keep up with industrialised ones but their Incomes fell in real terms.
In most of Africa and much of Latin America, average incomes fell by 10 to 25 per cent over the past decade; in countries such as Britain they rose by 20 per cent. In the same time, health spending per person In the world's 37 poorest countries has been slashed by 50 per cent.
In Zambia, child deaths caused by malnutrition more than doubled in the decade, whlk In Britain the number of people owning freezers has risen twofold.
By April 1991 commodity prices had fallen to their lowest point ever In real terms, according lo the Oxfam report This deterioration In terms of trade has cost developing countries an estimated £33.3 billion a year. Added to the £34.3 billion paid out In inter est on debts fast year, the new burden represents more than twice the £28.3 billion devel oping countries receive in aid every year.
The Industrialised world bears most of the blame for this predicament, according to Oxfam : "Rich countries receive more than twice as much from the developing countries as they give tn aid.'
Restrictive trade practices used by industrialised countries to block the developing world's manufactured goods from entering their markets come in for heavy criticism in the report.
Rich countries. It pointe out. prefer to buy cheap raw materials, then sell the fin fahed products back to the developing world. Such protec tlonlst policies coat the developing world about £34 billion in lost Income last year.
The burden of unpayable debt also weighs heavily on de veloping countries. Through the Eighties their debt payments to rich nations ex-
that many Third World dictators — Zaire's Mobutu. Indonesia s Suharto and Kuwait s al-Sabah. for instance — are propped up by the North
lliere has been no lack of trying at Oxfam to improve conditions tn developing countries The agency began Its work in 1942 as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. Ils main concern then was starvation In Nazi-occupied Greece where famine had killed 400.000 people during the Albcd blockade of Europe.
Later the committee began the work for which it has become famous — appealing for contributions to tackle poverty In the South Today the agency operates in 71 countries; last year it had a budget of £43 million.
Oxfam's current projects range from disaster relief pro grammes to innovative sex cd ucation clinics, from hospitals for African women mutilated by circumcision to a national park tn the Amazon and ser vices for the disabled of Lebanon.
For 20 years Oxfam has promoted fair trade by bringing handicrafts from the South and selling them in shops and by mail-order in the North. Producers are guaranteed a share of the profits.
— GEMINI NEWS
Allan Thompson is a Canadian Journalist with the Toronto Star newspaper on a one-year internship at Gemini sponsored by Canada's International Development Research Centre.
ceeded their earning capacity, tn most cases. The most indebted countries responded by cutting food subsidies, educa lion and health spending.
Oxfam also assails policies that ace nearly half all government aid go to better-off countries — such as Indonesia and Israel — for political reasons. Much of what remains Is tied aid. disbursed on the condition it be spent on goods from the donor country.
Oxfam has called on rich countries to set themselves a five-year timetable to Increase •kt budgets to 0.7 per cent of their gross national products. The average for industrialised countries Is now only 0.33 per cent.
Bui Oxfam also wants developing countries to be held partly accountable for the mess they are in. The agency pointe to lack of democracy, neglect of the environment and recurrent military conflict as key causes of deepening poverty.
At least half of the world s developing countries are under military control, it notes. Compared with nations governed by civilian leaders, countries under military rule have been dragged through twice as many wars since 1960. spent 83 per cent more on their respective militaries and now support armed forces more than twice as big. on a per-capita basis. Moreover, annual military spending In developing countries has shot up by an average of 7.5 per cent over the past 25 years.
Says Bryer : "A major key to development and to the fight against poverty is giving poor people a say tn their own futures. a voice In their own gov ernment ... The importance of a democratic system, especially one wUh freedom of press and other media, cannot be overestimated.'
Left unsaid in the report is