All Publications

Hygiene promotion: determining what works

Elizabeth Stevens — 2012-04-27T13:21:52Z

In 2011, we engaged the Swiss research institute Eawag to study the relationship between Oxfam hygiene promotions and safe hand-washing practices in Haiti in the wake of the earthquake and cholera outbreak of 2010.

Sahel food crisis

bgrossmancohen — 2012-04-10T14:43:06Z

Ever since the first warnings of drought and poor harvests in Africa’s Sahel region emerged in late 2011, vulnerable communities in many areas of the region have been threatened by a looming food crisis. That crisis is now real, and 15 million people across seven countries are vulnerable to its impact. Support to protect lives and livelihoods is urgently needed before the crisis becomes an emergency. To meet the challenges of the current crisis, an estimated $724 million was needed in January of 2012. This brief calls on the United States to take the urgent actions needed to save lives now and break the cycle of hunger.

Saving lives: Oxfam partners take center stage

mborum — 2012-04-23T18:35:26Z

In El Salvador, the landscapes are stunningly beautiful. From the coastal plain, wide expanses of pasture and cropland reach to a distant skyline of volcanoes and jagged mountain ranges. But the natural forces at work here are powerful. Earthquakes are an ever-present danger; hurricanes sweep in from east and west; and even the volcanoes erupt from time to time. For those who can’t afford sturdy home on a safe piece of land, fear is a constant companion.

Saving Money and Lives: The Human Side of U.S. Food Aid Reform

bgrossmancohen — 2012-04-09T20:45:05Z

The report puts a human face on the negotiations over the Farm Bill, calculating the number of additional people US food aid programs could reach if long-overdue reforms are enacted. This includes increasing flexibility in food aid programs to allow for the local and regional purchase (LRP) of food, as well as ending the monetization of US food aid programs whereby aid agencies are forced to sell off US grown food in developing country markets to finance development projects.

Oxfam’s work with water

aperera — 2012-03-22T20:07:57Z

For Oxfam, tackling the root causes of poverty often means addressing the water-related injustices and the power dynamics behind them. It means challenging international oil, gas, and mining companies to respect the right of communities to know what impact water-intensive extractive industries will have on their land and water supplies—and to decide if they want those projects. It means working with people to find ways to get water to their fields and closer to their homes so they can count on robust harvests and assure the health of their families. And it means helping the most vulnerable build their resilience in the face of disaster.

Local capacity in humanitarian response: Vision or mirage?

nhailu — 2012-03-14T19:35:31Z

In theory and in spirit, there has been some progress in promoting local participation and empowerment in recent years, from the principles and standards outlined in the Sphere Project and the Red Cross Code of Conduct to the mechanisms and guidelines laid out by the Humanitarian Accountability Project. But if the framework is in place for bringing about a real transfer of power to local populations in humanitarian emergencies, why is it not taking place?

In the current humanitarian system, the dominant principle is action-reaction. A crisis happens, money is donated, and those funds are expected to produce immediate results – tangible results that donors sense are meeting the needs on the ground. It is a fast-paced sequence that provides little room for building on local capacity or even for listening carefully to local voices.

Two major changes to this model are needed: the expansion of the moral and financial commitment from reactive to preventive-reactive, and a shift in power from external to local actors. This paper will analyze the ways in which the current system interferes with disaster-affected communities taking charge of their own recovery; it will also share examples of local organizations, supported by Oxfam America and others, which have succeeded in leading responses to humanitarian crises.

Horn of Africa Risk Transfer for Adaptation (HARITA) quarterly report: October 2011–December 2011

aperera — 2012-03-12T17:16:22Z

For the 1.3 billion people living on less than a dollar a day who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, vulnerability to weather-related shocks is a constant threat to security and well-being. As climate change drives an increase in the frequency and intensity of natural hazards, the challenges faced by food-insecure communities struggling to improve their lives and livelihoods will also increase. The question of how to build rural resilience for climate change adaptation is critical for addressing global poverty.

In response to these challenges, Oxfam America, Swiss Re, and their partners developed an integrated risk management framework to enable poor farmers in the drought-prone northern state of Tigray in Ethiopia to strengthen their food and income security through a combination of improved resource management (risk reduction), insurance (risk transfer), and microcredit (prudent risk taking): the Horn of Africa Risk Transfer for Adaptation (HARITA) project.

HARITA brought together a network of partners including Ethiopian farmers, the Relief Society of Tigray (REST), Nyala Insurance Share Company, Africa Insurance Company, Dedebit Credit and Savings Institution (DECSI), Mekelle University, the government of Ethiopia, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), Swiss Re, and Oxfam America. The project is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and Swiss Re.

Existing approaches to providing drought insurance to the poorest have not been effective owing to high administrative costs and the inability of cash-poor smallholders to afford premiums. In the HARITA team’s conversations with farmers, the farmers themselves suggested a solution; they could pay for insurance with their labor. Oxfam America worked with the Relief Society of Tigray and the government of Ethiopia to build an “insurance-for-work” program on top of the government’s “foodand cash-for-work” Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), a well-established program that serves 8 million chronically food-insecure households in Ethiopia.

The resulting innovation allows cash-poor farmers the option to work for their insurance cover by engaging in community-identified projects to reduce risk and build climate resilience, such as improved irrigation or soil management. In the event of a seasonal drought, insurance payouts are triggered automatically when rainfall drops below a predetermined threshold, enabling farmers to afford the seeds and inputs necessary to plant in the following season and protecting them from having to sell off productive assets to survive. In partnership with local microfinance institutions, the model facilitates the farmers’ option to collateralize credit with insurance.

A Shift in Focus: Putting the interests of Somali people first

mborum — 2012-02-23T17:05:29Z

Responsibility for this situation lies first and foremost in Somalia, where warring factions are accused of impeding and diverting aid flows, but the international community has also been at fault. Policies focused more on international security concerns than on the needs, interests and wishes of the Somali people have inadvertently fueled both the conflict and the humanitarian crisis.

In February 2012, key governments and institutions from the region and the wider Islamic and Western world will meet in London to chart a way forward. They must seize this opportunity to refocus on the Somali people that past policies have failed, developing more coherent strategies to ensure that aid and protection reach those who need it and addressing the root causes of the protracted conflict and chronic vulnerability in the country.

Fighting hunger in Mogadishu

Oxfam America — 2012-02-07T16:39:24Z

For Raha Janaqow, country director for SAACID, Oxfam's partner in Somalia, work is the only salve for the devastation around her—work that is saving the lives of thousands of malnourished children who have made their way to one of 14 community therapeutic care centers SAACID operates across the conflict-ridden capital of Mogadishu.

OXFAMExchange, Winter 2012

Oxfam America — 2012-09-20T14:59:45Z

Oxfam's work is about structural change—a long, slow process. How slow? Well, we generally think about our field programs as approximately 15-year investments. In other words, a development program requires almost as much time and commitment as it takes to raise a child.

A shorter commitment won't get the job done. It takes time to help people build skills and infrastructure, to get policies changed, and to ensure that governments spend their money more effectively.

Smart development demands monitoring and evaluation. Organizations should be accountable to report not only what they do, but also how they measure it. Don't believe stories that guarantee long-term impact after one or two years' investment; that's barely time to lay some groundwork.

We all crave the easy answer, the quick solution, but if eradicating poverty were simple, people living in poverty would have sorted it out long ago. They may lack resources like land, but they certainly don't lack intelligence or insight. Poverty is a global challenge—one that we can overcome together, but listening and learning from people living in poverty, and developing solutions with them, takes time and sustained effort.

This issue of OXFAMExchange includes inspiring stories, but they are just snapshots from a family album: moments in a long journey together. Each story is ultimately about perseverance and the need for long-term commitment.

Crises in a New World Order: Challenging the humanitarian project

jlee — 2012-02-28T15:09:59Z

In 2010, vast humanitarian crises from Haiti to Pakistan almost overwhelmed the international system’s ability to respond. Despite years of reform, UN agencies, donors, and international NGOs (INGOs) struggled to cope. In 2011, Somalia yet again saw a response too little and too late, driven by media attention, not a timely, impartial assessment of human needs. At the same time, humanitarian action is needed now more than ever.

Western-based donors, INGOs and the UN provide only part of the answer. Already, new donors and NGOs from around the world provide a significant share of humanitarian aid. Future humanitarian action will rely on them, and on the governments and civil society of crisis-affected countries even more. The UN and INGOs will be vital, but their contribution will increasingly be measured by how well they complement and support the efforts of others, and encourage every humanitarian actor to uphold humanitarian principles.

R4 Rural Resilience Initiative: Partnership for resilient livelihoods in a changing climate

khamilton — 2012-01-24T16:32:28Z

For the 1.3 billion people living on less than a dollar day who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, vulnerability to climate-related shocks is a constant threat to food security and well-being.

As climate change drives an increase in the frequency and intensity of natural hazards, the challenges faced by food-insecure communities struggling to improve their lives and livelihoods will also increase. The question of how to build rural resilience against climate-related risk is critical for addressing global poverty.

In response to this challenge, the United Nations World Food Programme and Oxfam America have launched the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative, known as R4, referring to the four risk management strategies that the initiative integrates. R4 builds on the initial success of a holistic risk management framework developed by Oxfam America to enable poor farmers to strengthen their food and income security through a combination of improved resource management (risk reduction), microcredit (prudent risk taking), insurance (risk transfer), and savings (risk reserves).

Left behind by the G20?

bgrossmancohen — 2012-02-02T18:38:14Z

The G20 is committed to supporting equitable and sustainable growth. But new data shows that a lot needs to change if they are to live up to this pledge. The stakes are high: analysis in this paper suggests that without attention to growing inequality, strong growth is unlikely to be enough to prevent poverty increasing in some G20 countries over the next decade. Income inequality is growing in almost all G20 members, while it is falling in many low and lower middle-income countries. Meanwhile, environmentally unsustainable economic expansion is driving dangerous climate change, and depleting the natural resources upon which poor people depend most for their livelihoods. Without action, inequality will render the benefits of growth inaccessible to the poor, even as they bear the costs of this expansion through the impacts of a changing climate and environmental degradation. It’s time for the G20 to practice what it preaches.

A Dangerous Delay: The cost of late response to early warnings in the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa

jlee — 2012-02-28T15:10:43Z

Governments, donors, the UN and NGOs need to change their approach to chronic drought situations by managing the risks, not the crisis.

This means acting on information from early warning systems and not waiting for certainty before responding, as well as tackling the root causes of vulnerability and actively seeking to reduce risk in all activities. To achieve this, we must overcome the humanitarian-development divide.

Haiti Progress Report 2011: Summary

mhart — 2012-01-06T21:13:48Z

On Jan. 12, 2010, a massive earthquake hit Haiti, killing 220,000 people, injuring 300,000, and severely damaging great swaths of the country. With more than half a million people still living in camps, Haitians and their new government have struggled to recover. Oxfam remains committed to the challenge. In 2011, Oxfam reached 532,000 people as it began to shift its focus from emergency needs to reconstruction initiatives. Haiti has a long way to go, and so do all of us who support Haitians in the enormous challenge of rebuilding their country.