All Publications

The climate finance cliff

bgrossmancohen — 2012-12-13T19:39:11Z

At the 2009 Copenhagen talks, developed countries committed to pay $100 billion per year by 2020 of climate finance and agreed to make a down payment of $30 billion for 2010-12, called ‘Fast Start Finance.’ At the 2011 Cancun talks the Green Climate Fund was established to channel the $100 billion commitment. In just over a month, the Fast Start Finance period will end but the Green Climate Fund remains empty.

Commodities of War

ebhatti — 2012-12-13T19:39:52Z

Recent waves of displacement in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, affecting more than 760,000 people since the beginning of 2012 in the Kivu provinces alone, reflect a new dimension to the country’s ongoing crisis. As the Congolese army fights M23 rebels, localised armed groups are springing up, and areas that were relatively stable are again under attack. Evidence gathered by Oxfam in 2012 shows that government soldiers, armed rebels, police, and civilian authorities are all vying for the right to exploit local communities and extort money or goods from them, pushing people further into poverty and undermining their efforts to earn a living.

Harvesting data

jedwards — 2012-11-20T16:34:50Z

This Research Backgrounder paints a picture of overall US government spending on agriculture during the 10-year period 1998-2007 using a macro, evidence-based approach and treating “official development assistance to agriculture” as it was defined prior to the global food price crisis. The author hopes to thus provide researchers and others with a baseline against which to track shifts in spending patterns that result from the whole-of-government approach that emerged from L’Aquila.

OXFAMExchange, Fall 2012

akramer — 2013-01-07T18:21:58Z

During this election season, our mission to eliminate injustice and poverty is more important than ever. Our voices must remain strong and steady.

Our goal is to help people make fundamental changes in a world that often denies the basic rights that many in the US take for granted: protection under the law, clean water, education—the list goes on. Many of you have joined Oxfam because of our collective willingness to engage powerful interests as we tackle the systemic inequalities that keep nearly one in three people worldwide living in poverty. But some of you may not be aware of the depth and breadth of the campaigns we undertake. In the pages ahead, you’ll read about two of them and the years of steady and focused effort required to bring about deep and lasting shifts in policies that have direct bearing on the well-being of millions of people. It’s a long, laborious process, often as exhausting as it is exhilarating, and worth every minute invested.

One campaign—aided by tens of thousands of messages from supporters—has been to help stem corruption in resource-rich countries by encouraging oil, gas, and mining companies to disclose the payments they make to host governments. That’s money poor countries could be spending on clean water, roads, and education that would benefit everybody.

The second campaign—launched nearly a decade ago, propelled forward by a petition signed by a million people, and now so close to its goal—aims to see world governments agree to a global treaty that would regulate the transfer of arms and ammunition across international borders and make the planet a safer place for all of us.

An unflagging commitment to addressing injustice is the thread that binds these two campaigns, and your loyalty and commitment contributed to producing these results. There’s still a great deal of work to do. We need you with us!

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Planting Now (2nd edition): Summary

mhart — 2012-10-15T14:33:16Z

Agriculture in Haiti has suffered three decades of crisis and institutional neglect. Nevertheless, almost 60 percent of Haitians live in rural areas and rely on farming for their livelihoods.

For that reason, agriculture must play a central role in post-earthquake reconstruction. However, the plans and programs of the Haitian government and the international community have proven insufficient to revitalize the sector and improve conditions for small-scale farmers, and have failed to recognize the important roles of women in agriculture.

The Haitian government and the main actors in agriculture should continue to prioritize agricultural development, while putting greater emphasis on long-term programs to assist Haitians to get back on their feet and improve their living conditions with dignity.

Click here for the full report.

Planting Now (2nd edition)

mhart — 2012-10-15T14:35:22Z

Agriculture in Haiti has suffered three decades of crisis and institutional neglect. Nevertheless, almost 60 percent of Haitians live in rural areas and rely on farming for their livelihoods.

Summary available here.

Annual Report 2011-2012

Oxfam America — 2012-12-12T15:07:50Z

As we look to the future, we feel fortunate to do so with a sound financial base and remarkable donor loyalty. And we are grateful to have earned the confidence of generous institutional supporters. Increasingly, foundations are identifying Oxfam as a global leader. After an independent evaluation of major policy organizations, in May 2011 the Gates Foundation endorsed Oxfam's policy and advocacy skills by awarding us $13.5 million—one of the foundation's largest grants of this kind.

In the end, however, we rely primarily on the hundreds of thousands of Americans who support us through their gifts, emails, and presence at public events. Citizen action is what drives change. At Oxfam, our role is in large part one of public education: we help connect the dots, offering understanding about complex problems, and then offering real solutions that give citizens the power they need to advance a grievance to a positive change. We value the support of each and every person who joins us in this enterprise. You give us life and purpose.

Open publication

Summer of high food prices and hot air: CFS meeting crucial in fighting hunger

bgrossmancohen — 2012-10-12T14:10:57Z

The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) meeting in Rome should break the cycle of government inaction and agree to set a path toward an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system.

Our Land Our Lives

bgrossmancohen — 2012-10-05T20:01:50Z

With food prices spiking for the third time in four years, interest in land could accelerate again as rich countries try to secure their food supplies and investors see land as a good long-term bet. All too often, forced evictions of poor farmers are a consequence of these rapidly increasing land deals in developing countries. As the world’s leading standard-setter and a big investor itself, the World Bank should freeze its own land investments and review its policy and practice to prevent land-grabbing. In the past the Bank has chosen to freeze lending when poor standards have caused dispossession and suffering. It needs to do so again, in order to play a key role in stopping the global land rush.

Busan in a nutshell

aperera — 2012-10-05T21:18:19Z

The Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, established in Busan, South Korea in 2011, set the international standard on the principles of effective aid and good development to which all development actors should subscribe. These principles include: country leadership and ownership of development strategies; a focus on results that matter to the poor in developing countries; inclusive partnerships among development actors based on mutual trust; and transparency and accountability to one another.

All development stakeholders—including traditional donors and emerging providers—must respect and uphold these key principles by fulfilling the promises they made at Busan. For this to happen, the Global Partnership will need to rely on strong vision, high-level political engagement and a robust but flexible global accountability mechanism.

Community Consent Index

jedwards — 2012-12-11T15:53:33Z

Increasingly, around the world local communities are demanding a meaningful voice in determining whether and under what conditions oil, natural gas, and mining projects take place. This Research Backgrounder collates a representative sample of the publicly available position statements concerning community rights made by 28 major oil, gas, and mining exploration and production companies, with a primary focus on 2010 to 2012.

From Controversy to Consensus?

jedwards — 2012-11-20T16:39:41Z

In light of the urgent need to reduce conflict around extractive industry and other large-scale development projects with potentially significant impacts on indigenous peoples and local communities, Oxfam America compiled the case studies in this report highlighting lessons learned from three community consultation experiences.

Haiti Rice Value Chain Assessment

nhailu — 2012-11-01T17:20:23Z

The paper provides an assessment of the Haitian rice value chain, including an exploration of areas for improvement. Total rice production has not grown significantly over the past 35 years, despite significant financial and technical assistance provided in some geographical areas. The market share of nationally produced rice has shrunk dramatically in the face of competition from inexpensive, subsidized commercial and food aid rice imports from the United States, which have become dominant in national diets, increasing the risk of long-term food insecurity in an era of global food price volatility.

R4 Rural Resilience Initiative

aperera — 2012-12-21T20:53:23Z

R4 represents a new kind of partnership, bringing public- and private-sector actors together in a strategic, large-scale initiative to innovate and develop better tools to help the most vulnerable people build resilient livelihoods. R4 promises to leverage the respective strengths of its partners: Oxfam America’s capacity to build innovative partnerships and the World Food Programme’s global reach and extensive capacity to support government-led safety nets for the most vulnerable people. This partnership will enable thousands more poor farmers and other food-insecure households to manage weather vulnerability through an affordable, comprehensive risk management program that builds long-term resilience.

By combining HARITA’s successful model for participatory design and capacity building with the World Food Programme’s global capacity, R4 will help accelerate the scale-up and testing of this innovative approach in Ethiopia, Senegal, and two other countries in the next five years. R4 also constitutes a first step toward developing a sustainable insurance market for poor people, an essential factor in ensuring farmers’ livelihoods and food security, and in improving farmers’ resilience over the long term.

In this report we share information on project expansion in Ethiopia for the 2012 agricultural season and present outputs of the national level analysis conducted in Senegal in preparation of the pilot roll-out in 2013.

World Food Day Dinner Discussion Guide

aperera — 2012-09-12T17:09:48Z

Questions and answers to guide your conversations