Concern India country strategy 2006 - 2011: Executive summary

Thursday, 1st June 2006

One third of the world’s poor live in India. According to the international poverty indicator of US$1/day the total number is 350 million, although official statistics (1999-2000) place the number at 260 million or 26% of the total population.

Orissa remains the poorest of the fourteen major Indian states and non-income indicators of social welfare also rank Orissa consistently below national averages.

Poverty is a condition created by an unjust society, denying people access to and control over the resources that they need to live a fulfilled life.

It is perpetuated and sustained by structures and systems which ensure that the few remain powerful whilst the majority are excluded. We need to take the side of the poor and the marginalised as they struggle to realise their civil, political, economic social and cultural rights.

We need to understand their analysis and not be afraid to confront and challenge the systems and structures which keep people in poverty.

We have a responsibility to speak out for the voiceless, to make visible the invisible, to promote justice and equality and to use our experience and that of our partners to challenge socially accepted norms, ensuring at all time that what we do and how we do it reflects our core values.

Our work will increasingly focus on the fulfilment of individual and collective rights, promoting self-respect and dignity whilst advocating for increased government responsibility and resource allocation in support of these groups.

Increasingly our work will be focussed on developing the ‘demand' side for poverty alleviation. This will require a range of actions; from state and national level advocacy on land, natural resource management and agricultural policy, social mobilisation and capacity building of local institutions, to specific actions at the community level aimed at diversifying coping strategies and improving the access of communities to basic services.

Within this strategy we will remain focussed on working with tribal communities whose livelihood security is threatened and whose basic rights and entitlements are being ignored and unmet.

Twenty two out of 35 states and union territories in India are multi-disaster prone. For any country this would be a challenge, but for a country which is still developing the necessary infrastructure to respond to these types of emergency, it can and does present a big obstacle to development.

We will respond to national level emergencies, where our presence and involvement can help to alleviate suffering and ensure sustainable recovery of affected communities.

One of the biggest challenges we face is how we increase our capacity to respond to emergencies and how we work to reduce community vulnerability to disasters.

We need to adopt a much more integrated approach to disaster risk reduction, ensuring that this part of our existing livelihood programmes and not viewed as a separate set of activities.

We will continue to work with and to strengthen state and national coordination mechanisms for improved emergency response and management, promoting internationally recognise standards in emergency response.

HIV/Aids remains largely a hidden emergency in large parts of India despite the fact that in some parts of the country responses have been effective in stabilising infection rates (and even, in some recently reported cases, bringing rates down).

In Orissa there is a lack of leadership and awareness of the issue and yet despite Orissa not being considered a high prevalence state HIV/Aids is likely to become a major challenge over the next ten years.

Concern cannot ignore the challenge of HIV if we are serious about fighting poverty and the root causes of poverty in India and Orissa.

Our work will be in support of the existing national plan and will emphasise programmes which promote greater awareness of and attention to issues surrounding HIV/Aids, whilst contributing to breaking the silence and discrimination that surrounds the illness.

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