The Urgency of Now: Pass it on!

Joanne Kelly reviews The Urgency of Now

Housing for the wealthy of Lucknow (India) rises above the shacks that are home to the rag-picking community of Shanti Busti (‘Peace Slum’) These volunteers meet regularly to learn about the risks that face the Sandia River Basin in Peru, and how they can help people to cope

‘The Urgency of Now’ (Oxfam GB, 2008) sets out to provide a simplified understanding of what Oxfam identify as the main global issues and battles that need to be faced today. Focusing on issues such as redistributing power and sharing wealth, the inequalities in existence, empowering citizens to break out of the cycle of inequality, and what governments need to do, Oxfam sets a manifesto for peace, equality and action, and the methods that need to be adopted to achieve this change.

The first thing that stands out once you pick up and open a copy of ‘The Urgency of Now’ are the stunning pictures which grace the book’s pages. Such as the startling and contrasting distinctions of both the inequality and geographical proximity between a Sau Paulo shanty town and Morumbi, an affluent district of the city, an image of Sau Paulo which many may not have been fully aware of and indeed I was unaware of such visual distinctions of inequality in Sau Paulo.

The book, being published by Oxfam, brings across an expert perspective on these issues, from the experience that can only come from expert lobbying to governments on both national and global levels. Even from this expert positioning, the book has been cleverly written and laid out to cater for someone who is new to issues surrounding global inequality. Although the text can sometimes be a bit long-winded, and consequently much of the text may be skimmed at stages, the book manages to rein the reader back in with strong case studies using hard-hitting statistics, such as the example of the empowerment of the Chiquitano people of Bolivia and how they reclaimed their human rights. Oxfam puts forth the argument that equality can be linked to economic growth in that ‘increasingly, economists recognise that inequality is damaging society by holding back economic growth’, and consequently societies should work to increase equality to increase economic prosper, and vice versa.

Crucially, the book manages to achieve what it sets out to do – to inform the reader of inequality in terms of economics – something that is not always the easiest subject to understand! In order to achieve this, the book shows unique, easy-to read charts to demonstrate some of these figures, such as a diagram showing the causes of premature deaths worldwide imprinted against the palm of a hand.

I found ‘The Urgency of Now’ a very easy read, just pressing enough to get the message across, but written in a way that not only makes you interested, but gives you greater clarification of how issues such as economy, freedom, climate change and industry are all interlinked. The book also talks of how you can found out more from reading it’s parent book, which much of the information is taken from ‘From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States Can Change the World’ (Oxfam GB, 2008). ‘The Urgency of Now’ is in line with Oxfam’s new ‘Be Humankind’ branding, which so far and hopefully will, continue to present a more pro-active inclusive type of campaigning. This book is essentially encouraging it’s readers to ‘act’, yet whilst it definitely inspires, readers are not provided with much information on how to go about getting further involved. Read this book if you are keen to grasp a basic understanding of the economic issues linked to global inequality and poverty, and once you’ve read your copy, Oxfam encourages you to pass your copy onto someone else, and they’ll send you another copy in order to keep passing the message on!