The Urgency of Now: The Time for Action

Lishia Ezra reviews The Urgency of Now

This is the bigger version A visitor to Moscow’s annual Millionaire Fair with a Swarovski crystal-encrusted Mercedes Benz car Fight Climate Poverty campaigners at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Dec 2007

Reading the Urgency of Now is like watching a movie trailer for its larger book, From Poverty to Power. It’s enough to tell you about the important stuff, but you need to read more to get the whole story. This is a book of invitation to act, and it tells you why.
The issue of inequality has been the talk of the century if not longer. How the rich seems to be even richer while the poor drifts farther away from decent living. For the generation in which iTunes, movies and fashion dominate, inequality sounded mythical. The Urgency of Now brings back perspective into people who are oblivious or even misinformed about the world today. Not just the young, but practically anybody who wants to make the world a better place but is clueless as to what is going on or where to start.
Intended to set out some of the major challenges in today’s world through a 62-page book seemed far fetched, but Duncan Green and Isobel Allen nailed it to a large extent. In a relatively small book, it tells you enough about the important stuff, although you need to get deeper involved if you want to get the whole story (by being active citizens or at least by reading the larger book – From Poverty to Power by Duncan Green).
Inequality in power, wealth and health is not a fictitious story some hotshot Hollywood script writer comes up with. It’s real. The book figuratively explains both challenges and ways to reduce ill effects of inequality. Most important of all, the book is a voice that calls upon us to start defending our humanity.
The book starts off by describing inequality in a language we all understand: facts & numbers. What do you know? Apparently child under-nutrition causes more deaths than excess weight and obesity by almost a million lives, and women in Sierra Leone die 40 years younger than in Norway.
With an understanding of what inequality is, we begin to wonder: Can’t the rich do something about it?
Subsequent chapters answer emerging questions that naturally pops into our minds: Why power is not evenly distributed? What is the relation between citizen and states? How come with all the talk about economic growth and stability, poverty alleviation looks like an endless journey? What are other issues we are dealing with today?
Climate change is probably one of the loudest campaigns today. Celebrities begin to set example by riding hybrid cars, reduce their carbon footprint by using recyclable products, everybody is going green. The Urgency of Now reminds us that it is not merely a matter of lifestyle shift. Our movements to encourage political and economic policy changes in governments and international institutions play an important role in making sure that going green is not just a fad.
Furthermore, in chapters four and five, the book suggests that the duet of active citizens and effective states can reduce vulnerability; and that the web of global governance (international institutions, laws, regulations and agreements) also affect the relations of active citizens and effective states.
While women and men in rich countries can manage risks and avoid insecurities in life (e.g. health, housing, jobs), people in developing worlds often cannot. As stated in the book, poor countries’ governments are either unable or unwilling to provide the protection for their citizens that people in rich countries take for granted.
The book closes nicely with an invite for us to take action. No matter how small, the butterfly effect applies. Even to those who never read newspapers, once they read the book they will find themselves understanding why inequality is immoral, unsustainable and a waste of human potential.
Having read the book, I find myself to understand these things a little better: current international trade system needs reform and include developing country exports instead of the opposite, donor institutions’ strategy for development is based on flawed economic model, transnational corporations can be both forces of good or ill (bringing wealth or exploiting resources – human and environment), and that donor aid can make governments put donors’ demand before those of citizens.
Compact by size, colourful illustrations, and easy to follow analysis. This is definitely a book you can read cover to cover when you’re at the airport, on a bus, or simply waiting for your date to show up. Guess what! You can even start your way to becoming an active citizen by passing the book to someone else.