All Publications

How to host a house party

akramer — 2012-08-07T16:44:25Z

In keeping with Oxfam’s belief that everyone has a part to play in the fight against poverty and injustice, Oxfam Toolkits are designed for individuals and groups looking for a hands-on way to join the effort. These practical how-to guides collect ideas and advice from Oxfam’s experts as well as supporters around the country. Oxfam Toolkits represent an entry point into the world of activism—building a grassroots movement for change, one person at a time.

How to get started: A menu of ideas

akramer — 2012-08-07T16:45:30Z

Haiti land rights, land tenure, and urban recovery

nhailu — 2012-08-06T17:46:13Z

More than two years after the earthquake in Haiti, hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) remain in tents and informal settlements in the earthquake zone. The reasons for this vary, but land rights and land tenure are central.

Rebuilding our economy, restoring our environment

aperera — 2012-08-06T17:55:27Z

The eventual allocation of funding related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill response has the potential to enable the people of the Gulf of Mexico to simultaneously restore the health and resilience of their environments, their economies and their communities. As local, state and federal governments plan for restoration of the Gulf Coast, new opportunities will arise for economic growth.

The Food Transformation

aperera — 2012-07-23T16:08:46Z

Every time you open your fridge and food cupboards, you step into the global food system. Sounds odd, but it’s true. The system is an enormously complex web of all the people, businesses, organizations and governments involved in the production, distribution, sale and consumption of food. Irrespective of who we are, or where we are on the planet, the food we eat is made available by this global food system.

Measuring Economic Progress and Well-Being

nhailu — 2012-09-05T18:36:58Z

This paper offers an overview of the long-standing debate about the use of GDP in measuring progress, paying particular attention to poverty and inequality as dimensions of progress.

Food crisis in West Africa

estevens — 2012-07-17T17:34:13Z

As the food crisis intensifies, families in hard-hit areas are employing desperate measures to find food, like foraging in anthills for bits of edible grain. Oxfam and our partners are improving access to food and clean water, while also helping livestock survive the crisis.

Tackling the food deficit in the world's newest country

estevens — 2012-08-06T15:19:32Z

This brief looks at the reasons for the current food crisis in South Sudan and draws attention to its impact on the population. It calls on the government of the Republic of South Sudan and international actors to urgently address the food insecurity crisis, ensure that resources reach the most vulnerable, and work for peace and development for the citizens of the world‘s newest country.

PREP Value Chain Climate Resilience

mborum — 2012-08-08T18:12:16Z

This guide has been developed by companies and organizations engaged in the Partnership for Resilience and Environmental Preparedness (PREP) — a pilot partnership formed to address the risks and opportunities that climate change impacts pose to businesses and the communities on which they depend. One of the primary goals of PREP is to engage and inform good practice in companies as it relates to building climate resilience in partnership with communities. This guidance has been developed on behalf of the PREP member companies Calvert Investments, Entergy, Levi Strauss & Co., Earth Networks, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc., Starbucks, and Swiss Re.

This report was prepared by Jean-Christophe Amado and Peter Adams (Acclimatise). Heather Coleman (Oxfam America) and Ryan Schuchard (BSR) were lead contributors.

Oxfam Fact Sheet: Food for all

cengstrom — 2013-05-13T17:10:15Z

One in seven people goes to bed hungry every night. Not because there isn’t enough food, but because of deep imbalances in access to resources like fertile land and water. The power to control these resources sits neither with the billion-plus farmers who produce food, nor with the billions of consumers who eat it.

Piecing it all together: Why the Arms Trade Treaty must regulate parts and components for weapons and military equipment

cmccabe — 2012-06-29T15:44:20Z

Modern weapons and military equipment cannot be made or maintained without the parts and components that are traded around the world in a globalized market. Without regulating this trade alongside the trade in complete weapons, it will be impossible to reduce the impact of irresponsible arms transfers on human rights, security, and development.

Oxfam America & the private sector

aperera — 2012-06-15T19:21:47Z

Given the reach, influence, and impact of the private sector, Oxfam increasingly engages with businesses. Although we have the capacity to take on hard-hitting advocacy directed at certain industries, we are equally committed to establishing transformative partnerships with private sector leaders.

Physical risks from climate change

bgrossmancohen — 2012-06-01T18:22:19Z

Climate change has already started to cause a wide range of physical effects— with serious implications for investors and businesses. While weather variability and extremes have always existed, the science shows that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and intense, that incremental climatic changes are already underway, and that the impacts of climate change are expected to grow more severe over the coming years and decades. Companies are already experiencing business impacts from weather-related phenomena that climate change is expected to make more common and/or intense. This document is designed as a guide to help chart a course for companies to disclose and manage such risks.

Systems, power, and agency in market-based approaches to poverty

khamilton — 2012-05-24T16:22:12Z

Market-based approaches (MBAs) have become an increasingly vital area for anti-poverty development work, spurring a wide range of new actors, partnerships, and initiatives. Many development proponents remain focused on macroeconomic growth through foreign direct investment and large-scale public-private partnerships. Others view these trends ominously and push for a return to protected markets and stronger regulation of corporations. Between these two poles, a third stream of MBA practitioners accepts globalization, but intervenes more directly in markets to ensure pro-poor impacts.

This paper reviews some of the shortcomings of these various approaches and describes the search for more holistic, systemic approaches. Specifically, the paper argues that MBAs continue to fall short of their potential because of a failure to: (i) employ “systems thinking,” (ii) address power and agency, and (iii) implement interventions with adequate political, social, and economic dexterity. A market systems approach (MSA) integrating these three essential elements (systems thinking, power/agency, and dexterity) offers the best prospect for ensuring significant and lasting change through market engagement.

OXFAMExchange, Spring 2012

jingari — 2012-05-22T14:06:26Z

For many people on our planet, increasingly unpredictable weather is leading to life threatening problems. In West Africa, 18.4 million people are now at risk of a serious food crisis created in part by erratic weather. In East Africa, drought—in some places the worst in 60 years—helped trigger a crisis in the middle of last year that affected more than 13 million people. Together, that’s over 31 million people on one continent alone confronted with profound struggles, and that’s just in the past 12 months.

Such evidence of a global climate crisis can send development experts into a tailspin, as they search for answers. But solutions may not be as hard to find as we imagine.

We can start by listening.

Listening to local people and learning from the deep knowledge they have about their communities, natural resources, and history lies at the heart of smart development. It’s the first step in empowering people to make the systemic changes that will allow them to build their resilience and ensure a better future for themselves and their families.

For Maribel Cachique and a group of other young mothers working in the Peruvian Amazon (see page 8), a garden of ancestral crops thriving deep in the forest may hold one of the answers to their battle with climate change. Their garden and others like it grew out of conversations fellow Kichwa women had about their need for food security. Hearing their concerns, Oxfam helped launch the pilot project. And now, Cachique’s determination and advice to the other growers offers inspiration to us all: Bit by bit, she says, the Kichwa women are going to move forward.

Sometimes charting a new path is not about leading. Our job here at Oxfam, and yours, is to heed the advice of leaders like Cachique—and to follow.