In July 2008, world food prices reached their highest peak since the early 1970s. Food stocked on grocery store shelves was out of reach. Riots ensued. Millions were afflicted. Another 100 million people were pushed into the ranks of the hungry, raising the total to nearly one billion worldwide. And these numbers could climb again as food prices remain high, and continue to rise in many local markets.
Topic:
Agriculture, Poverty, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
Climate change is a reality and its effects are apparent right now. The scientific predictions are shifting continually – they almost always look bleaker. But Oxfam's experience in nearly 100 countries is definitive: hundreds of millions of people are already suffering damage from a rapidly changing climate, which is frustrating their efforts to escape poverty. This paper is the story of the 'affected'.
Topic:
Climate Change, Poverty, Natural Resources, Food, and Famine
The Green Line: Term used following Israel's occupation of the West Bank and GazaStrip in 1967 to refer to the post-1948 war ceasefire line (Armistice Line of 1949). The demarcation line (laid down in the cease fire agreements of 1949) is the internationally recognised border between Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territory (Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem).
Topic:
Imperialism, International Law, and Power Politics
In 1984, one million Ethiopians died during a catastrophic famine. The government at the time hid the scale of hunger until a shocking BBC television report ignited a massive relief effort, supported by the Band Aid movement. Though this was too late for too many, thousands of lives were saved.
Access to medicines poses a critical challenge in developing countries, largely because prices are high, and new or adapted medicines and vaccines to address diseases of the developing world are lacking. More than 5 million people in low and middle income countries still lack access to the anti-retroviral medicines needed to treat HIV and AIDS. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have unleashed a new epidemic of suffering across the developing world. Pandemics are a serious threat in rich and poor countries alike, but while rich countries can stockpile medicines, these are often unaffordable for poor countries. Most people in developing countries pay for medicines out-of-pocket, so even a slight price increase can mean that life-saving medicines are unaffordable.
An international financing mechanism, intervening for market impact to scale up access to treatment of HIV and AIDS, TB, and malaria in developing countries.
The timing of rain, and intra-seasonal rainfall patterns are critical to smallholder farmers in developing countries. Seasonality influences farmers' decisions about when to cultivate and sow and harvest. It ultimately contributes to the success or failure of their crops. Worryingly, therefore, farmers are reporting that both the timing of rainy seasons and the pattern of rains within seasons are changing. These perceptions of change are striking in that they are geographically widespread and because the changes are described in remarkably consistent terms. In this paper, we relate the perceptions of farmers from several regions(East Asia, South Asia, Southern and East Africa, and Latin America) of how seasons are changing, and in some cases, how once distinct seasons appear to be disappearing altogether, and the impacts that these changes are having. We then go on to ask two critical questions. Firstly, do meteorological observations support farmers' perceptions of changing seasonality? Secondly, to what extent are these changes consistent with predictions from climate models? We conclude that changing seasonality may be one of the major impacts of climate change faced by smallholder farmers in developing countries over the next few decades. Indeed, this may already be the case. Yet it is relatively unexplored in the literature. We also suggest some of the key adaptation responses that might help farmers cope with these changes.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, Development, and Energy Policy
In 2006 the United Nations voted to start work towards an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). This was recognition by a majority of nations that the current patchwork of laws, regional agreements, and embargoes is ineffective, and insufficient to limit the catastrophic effects of easily available weaponry.
Topic:
Political Violence, Arms Control and Proliferation, United Nations, and War
In May 2009, Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province became the site of the world's biggest and fastest human displacement in over a decade – and the largest internal displacement ever witnessed in Pakistan's history. Within the space of only a few weeks, an estimated three million Pakistanis fled their homes to escape their army's military offensive against armed insurgents.
Harnessing Agriculture for Development is the result of a process of research and consultation conducted within Oxfam International from the end of 2007 to mid 2008, before the full impact of the current financial crisis was felt across the developing world. It is being published at a time when we face a particularly uncertain and unstable future, with heightened perceptions of risk, but when we also have a unique opportunity to generate the kinds of policy change required to achieve a new global balance.
Climate change affects poor people first and worst. It is a major obstacle to development and poverty alleviation, as well as a serious threat to business supply chains and markets in developing countries.
In 2000, at the UN Millennium Summit, the international community agreed a historic set of goals aimed at freeing a significant proportion of the world's population from poverty, disease, hunger, and illiteracy. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) marked a turning point for international development and brought rich and poor countries together in a shared endeavour to end poverty and suffering.
Topic:
Climate Change, International Organization, Poverty, and United Nations
User fees for health care are a life or death issue for millions of people in poor countries. Too poor to pay, women and children are paying with their lives. For those who do pay, over 100 million are pushed into poverty each year. This month will witness a global opportunity for world leaders to really make a difference to poor people by backing the expansion of free health care in a number of countries. The opportunity marks a true test of leaders' commitment to save lives and accelerate progress towards health care for all in our lifetime. The question is, will they pass it?
This weekend the finance ministers of the G20 nations will meet in London. Whilst the rich world feels that the worst of the economic crisis may be behind it, the poorest countries are being hit hardest, with those living on the margins of the global economy paying for the bankers' folly with their lives.
Topic:
Development, Education, Health, Poverty, and Financial Crisis
In February and March 2009, Oxfam conducted interviews in rural communities in three ecological zones (Terai, Hills and Mountains) and in the Mid and Far Western Development Regions to capture a snapshot of how climate change is already affecting people living in poverty. The results were remarkably consistent with regional climate change projections, and deeply worrying.
In 2009, the world is faced with a dire economic situation. No one hesitates to call this situation a crisis, most governments have rushed to prioritise it, and, in response, wealthy countries have pledged $8.4 trillion in bank bailouts.
In 2008, Oxfam commissioned the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, based at Hull University, to conduct an independent evaluation of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA). The research team found that the GLA and its licensing regime were considered effective by many labour providers, unions, retailers and representatives of vulnerable workers, for its significant work in improving labour rights standards for workers and creating a more level playing field for employers. However, a significant number of unlicensed gangmasters continue to operate, and exploitation, though reduced, is still reported. Workers' fear of the consequences of blowing the whistle – loss of job, loss of accommodation, violence, and deportation – fundamentally thwarts intelligence-led enforcement. There are clear indications that some gangmasters have switched their operations to sectors beyond the remit of the GLA in which enforcement is scarce. Exploitation is endemic in the sectors of construction, hospitality, and care.
Topic:
Corruption, Crime, Labor Issues, and Financial Crisis
The military operations launched against the FDLR since early 2009 have been presented as a bid for the unity (Umoja Wetu) and peace (Kimia II) that have so long eluded eastern DRC. In that light they have received considerable international acclaim and support, particularly through the UN peacekeeping force, MONUC. Warnings of potentially devastating consequences for civilian protection over recent months have repeatedly met with the response that this is 'the price to pay for peace'. In May 2009, Oxfam and a number of its partners interviewed residents in some of the areas of North and South Kivu where that price is being exacted.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Peace Studies, and United Nations
Multilateralism is central to the global effort to overcome poverty and inequality. All countries stand to benefit from the stability and confidence that a rules-based global trade system can provide. Developing countries stand to benefit most, as they lack the economic and political power to pursue their demands outside such a system.
Topic:
Development, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Third World
There are an estimated 1.5 million workers in the adult social care workforce in the UK, working in residential care homes or providing care to people in their own homes. And with an ageing population the number of care workers is set to rise in the next two decades.
''The situation was bad before the hurricanes in 2008 – there was a drought - but after them it got worse and more complicated people lost what little they had – houses, crops, livestock – which creates a catastrophe of hunger in this area. We feel ashamed, we have to beg from the state and other international agencies'' Lissage Geneus, a local government official (CASEC) in Baie d'Orange.
This study was commissioned by Oxfam GB to review the impact of climate change on Pakistan's rural communities. The findings of the study are remarkably consistent with global, regional national climate change projections, and alarming.
The past three decades of war and disorder have had a devastating impact on the Afghan people. Millions have been killed, millions more have been forced to flee their homes and the country's infrastructure and forests have all but been destroyed. The social fabric of the country is fractured and state institutions are fragile and weak.
Topic:
Human Rights, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, and War
Another World Food Summit is being held in Rome to discuss world food security, in the midst of a chronic global food crisis in which one billion (one in six) people go to bed hungry every day of their shortened lives. During the two-and-a-half days of the Summit, more than 60,000 people, 70 per cent of them children, will die of hunger-related causes.
Jules Siedenburg, Kimberly Pfeifer, and Kelly Hauser
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Worldwide, 1.7 billion small-scale farmers and pastoralists are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. They live on marginal rural lands characterised by conditions such as low rainfall, sloping terrain, fragile soils, and poor market access, primarily in Africa and Asia. Such farmers are vulnerable because their farms depend directly on rainfall and temperature, yet they often have little savings and few alternative options if their crops fail or livestock die.
Bolivia is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change for six basic reasons: It is one of the poorest countries in Latin America and suffers from one of the worst patterns of inequality. Low-income groups in developing countries are the most exposed to climate change impacts. It is the country in South America with the highest percentage of indigenous people, where much of the poverty and inequality is concentrated. It is one of the most bio-diverse countries in the world, with a wide variety of ecosystems that are vulnerable to different impacts from climate change. More than half of the country is Amazonian, with high levels of deforestation which adds to the vulnerability to flooding. Located in a climatically volatile region, it is one of the countries in the world most affected by 'natural' disasters in recent years. It is home to about twenty per cent of the world's tropical glaciers, which are retreating more quickly than predicted by many experts.
Topic:
Climate Change and Development
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, Bolivia, and Amazon Basin
Copenhagen was a unique opportunity to turn the world's course away from climate disaster, towards a safe future for all of us on this small planet. Massive global public mobilization demanded it. But leaders of the major powers negotiated for their national interests, instead of safeguarding our shared destiny.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Poverty, and Treaties and Agreements
This paper, based on two pilot projects conducted by Oxfam with LSPs in Sunderland and Thurrock in 2008-9, looks at how local authorities can increase the representation and participation of women in LSPs, and how needs differ by gender. The evidence from the pilot projects clearly shows that LSPs can, and must, take concrete steps to involve women more effectively in local decision-making – and take their particular needs into consideration in setting targets for services such as transport, unemployment, and housing – in or der to improve their economic and social well-being and tackle the poverty and social exclusion they face. The paper makes a series of recommendations to those involved in LSPs as to how to do this, and gives examples of good practice.
Despite being a wealthy country, in the UK poverty is an ongoing problem. According to Oxfam GB today 1 in 5 people in the UK don't have enough to live on. There were 2.9 million children and 2.5 million pensioners living in poverty in the UK in 2006/2007. Children go to school hungry, or to bed without enough food. Poor communities are in poorer health and have shorter life expectancy.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Globalization, and Poverty
The cocoa tree is an important source of income for millions of farming families in equatorial regions. Cocoa originates in the river valleys of the Amazon and the Orinoco in South America. Its discoverers, the Maya people, gave it the name 'cocoa' (or 'God's food'). Cocoa was introduced to Europe in the fifteenth century. Cocoa imports were heavily taxed, and as a result it was consumed as a drink only by the wealthy. Investment from Great Britain and The Netherlands, combined with the launch of the chocolate bar in 1842 by Cadbury, resulted in a greater demand for chocolate. This led to the gradual expansion of cocoa production, spreading to Africa in 1870.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Britain, Africa, Europe, South America, Netherlands, and Amazon Basin
One night in March 2007, soldiers arrived in the village of Buramba in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). By the time they left at least 15 people were dead. 'At 5.30 in the morning', one survivor said, 'I saw the soldiers coming to our house...They kicked down the door, and killed eight people inside. Only my four grandchildren survived. [They] continued firing in the village. I fled into the bush. I returned three days later to see the bodies of my children and my mother. The bodies were in latrines; I could see the feet of my mother sticking out.'
Topic:
Political Violence, Human Rights, Post Colonialism, Terrorism, and War
The forecast for tomorrow is a snapshot of a country deeply torn by good and bad climate policies and actions among business, public and government - with each group inextricably bound by the actions of the others. Whether the UK succeeds in achieving its emissions reduction targets and in becoming a leader in international climate negotiations depends on whether good or bad policies prevail. At stake are the lives and livelihoods of millions of poor people around the world, who will suffer first and worst from climate change despite being the least responsible for it.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Globalization, and International Affairs
Irresponsible arms transfers are undermining many developing countries' chances of achieving their Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets. This paper shows new evidence of how this is happening in parts of Asia, Latin America, and Africa - either by draining governments' resources or by fuelling armed violence or conflict.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Treaties and Agreements, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
The recent sharp increase in food prices should have benefited millions of poor people who make their living from agriculture. However, decades of misguided policies by developing country governments on agriculture, trade, and domestic markets - often promoted by international financial institutions and supported by donor countries - have prevented poor farmers and rural workers from reaping the benefits of higher commodity prices. As a result, the crisis is hurting poor producers and consumers alike, threatening to reverse recent progress on poverty reduction in many countries. To help farmers get out of poverty while protecting poor consumers, developing country governments, with the support of donors, should invest now into smallholder agriculture and social protection.
Topic:
International Relations, Humanitarian Aid, Non-Governmental Organization, and Poverty
Cambodia is one of the most disaster-prone countries in East Asia, with its vulnerability to annual floods and droughts. One of the reasons why it is vulnerable to natural disasters is that the livelihoods of the majority of people depend directly upon natural resources, with a large proportion of its population occupied in agriculture and related sectors, including animal husbandry. Extreme poverty, which limits access to food, water, and other basic amenities, increases vulnerability. These characteristics heighten Cambodia's exposure to the impacts of climate change too. The Mekong region has recently been showing signs of climate change, as illustrated in our previous report on VietNam ('Drought-Management Considerations for Climate-Change Adaptation: Focus on the Mekong Region – Report (VietNam)', October 2007). There is evidence of greater climatic extremes: both declining rainfall in the dry season and more violent rainfall in the wet season, causing flash floods. Increasingly powerful typhoons also appear to be occurring.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Energy Policy, Environment, and Non-Governmental Organization
The unprecedented turmoil in the world's financial markets has resulted in a significant loss of trust in the global financial system. Financial institutions and the market as a whole have been criticised for short-termism, for lacking transparency, and for not being properly accountable to regulators or to wider society. The credit crisis has also raised wider questions about the proper role of investors in society, both in terms of the specific investments that they make and the manner in which they use their influence to ensure that the positive social and environmental impacts of their investment activities are maximised, and the negative impacts minimised.
The world's poor must not pay the price for the collapse of financial markets. Without immediate action, millions will suffer. Poor women and children will pay for the financial folly, failed ideology and crude self-interest that led to this crisis. Much of the burden will be borne by those least able to cope, whether it is poor families evicted from their homes in Detroit, or poor children dying in Mali for want of basic medical care.
As the leaders of 20 industrialised and emerging economies convene in Washington for their G20 Emergency Summit on 15 November, small-scale tinkering and limited financial regulation is not good enough. The world leaders gathered for the G20 meeting must heed the call of many around the world, including Ban Ki-moon, Kofi Annan1 and others, to have the ambition and will to act now to help the poorest. The decisions cannot all be taken now, but an ambitious vision can be articulated and followed by work with the UN in the coming months to rapidly build from the ashes of this crisis a new 21st century political and economic system that is just and equitable.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, Political Economy, Poverty, and United Nations
Vietnam is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. The government's impressive achievements in pulling millions of people out of poverty are seriously jeopardised by the likely increase in extreme weather events such as severe rainfall and drought, and by slow climate changes like sea level rises and warming temperatures. Poor men and women are particularly at risk.A team of Oxfam researchers travelled to the two provinces of Ben Tre and Quang Tri in May 2008 to take a snapshot of how poor families are experiencing the changing climate, and how they might deal with this in the future.
For the poorest and most vulnerable people in today's world, climate change is a 'triple whammy': they didn't cause it, they are most affected by it, and they are least able to afford even simple measures that could help protect them from those damaging impacts that are already unavoidable.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Globalization, and Poverty
Poor communities in the developing world are hit hardest by the impacts of climate change, while they are least responsible for the problem and most vulnerable to climate impacts, such as severe floods, drought, and storms. At the climate change negotiations in Bali in December 2007, governments recognized that adaptation should be central to the negotiations. In the Bali Action Plan, adaptation is one of the four building blocks besides mitigation, finance, and technology transfer, and the Plan provides a mandate to negotiate on 'new and additional resources' and the use of 'innovative finance mechanisms' to address urgent and compelling climate adaptation needs.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Globalization, and Poverty
This paper outlines urgent action necessary to address immediate challenges in Afghanistan and to avert humanitarian disaster. It does not seek to address all issues of concern but focuses on essential policy change in development and humanitarian spheres. While aid has contributed to progress in Afghanistan, especially in social and economic infrastructure – and whilst more aid is needed – the development process has to date been too centralised, top-heavy and insufficient. It is has been prescriptive and supply-driven, rather than indigenous and responding to Afghan needs. As a result millions of Afghans, particularly in rural areas, still face severe hardship comparable with sub-Saharan Africa. Conditions of persistent poverty have been a significant factor in the spread of insecurity.
Late in the evening of 15 November 2007, Cyclone Sidr struck Mahmouda's home and thousands of other villages across Bangladesh's southern coastal areas, leaving around 4000 people dead and millions homeless. The initial response to the disaster was prompt and vigorous, but three months after the disaster the affected communities' needs – particularly in terms of housing and livelihoods – remain staggering.
In failing to tackle climate change with urgency, rich countries are effectively violating the human rights of millions of the world's poorest people. Continued excessive greenhouse-gas emissions primarily from industrialised nations are – with scientific certainty – creating floods, droughts, hurricanes, sea-level rise, and seasonal unpredictability. The result is failed harvests, disappearing islands, destroyed homes, water scarcity, and deepening health crises, which are undermining millions of peoples' rights to life, security, food, water, health, shelter, and culture. Such rights violations could never truly be remedied in courts of law. Human-rights principles must be put at the heart of international climate-change policy making now, in order to stop this irreversible damage to humanity's future.
Existing measures to promote peace in Afghanistan are not succeeding. This is not only due to the revival of the Taliban, but also because little has been done to try to ensure that families, communities, and tribes - the fundamental units of Afghan society - get on better with each other. War has fractured the social fabric of the country and, in the context of severe and persistent poverty, local disputes have the potential to turn violent and to exacerbate the wider conflict. But there is no effective strategy to help Afghans deal with disputes in a peaceful and constructive way.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Development, International Cooperation, Non-Governmental Organization, and War
This series of programme insights papers highlights some of the work undertaken by Oxfam GB's partners in Southern Africa to popularise and lobby for the ratification, domestication, and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women (the Africa Women's Protocol).
This paper illustrates one example of how Oxfam GB Southern Africa Region supports the efforts of women's-rights organisations to popularise and lobby for the ratification, domestication, and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Africa Women's Protocol) in Zambia.
Topic:
Security, Gender Issues, and Non-Governmental Organization
Oxfam's mission is to work with others to overcome poverty and suffering. Our interpretation of poverty goes beyond lack of finances to encompass lack of capabilities, powerlessness, and inequality. Our fight to overcome poverty and suffering focuses on the right to a sustainable livelihood, water, education, health, protection and security, a voice in public life, and freedom from discrimination. The promotion of gender equality and women's rights is therefore at the heart of our efforts.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Government, Non-Governmental Organization, and Politics
This paper illustrates the efforts of women's-rights organisations to monitor the domestication and implementation of women's human-rights instruments such as the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Africa Women's Protocol) in Africa, using the example of the Africa Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Monitor (known as the Africa Gender Monitor or AGM). Oxfam GB Southern Africa supports the Africa Gender Monitor (AGM) .Oxfam GB works with others to overcome poverty and suffering and firmly believes that overcoming gender equality is critical to this endeavour.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Government, and Non-Governmental Organization
This programme insights paper highlights some of the work supported by Oxfam GB Southern Africa to popularise and lobby for the ratification, domestication, and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women (the Africa Women's Protocol) in South Africa and Mozambique.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Government, and Non-Governmental Organization