Research

Pricing Farmers Out of Cotton

mborum — 2009-05-27T22:25:39Z

With global trade talks stalled at the World Trade Organization (WTO), rich-country cotton subsidies remain unabated, hurting poor cotton farmers. World Bank led reforms to privatize the Malian cotton sector, including the adoption of a new price- setting mechanism, are further exacerbating the dire conditions in cotton-producing communities. A minimum level of price stability is vital for income security in the cotton sector and to prevent further slides into poverty. The wider donor community should provide adequate funds to finance a cotton-sector support fund, as well as invest in rural extension services and sustain capacity building of farmers to enable them to maximise their returns from new market opportunities.

Public Health at Risk

rbaker — 2010-08-10T20:49:10Z

New stringent drug patent and marketing rules being negotiated in a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the US and Thailand would limit competition and reduce access to affordable medicines in Thailand. This would threaten the future of existing successful Thai HIV/AIDS treatment programmes, which rely on inexpensive generic drugs, and thus deprive thousands of people of effective treatment. Oxfam opposes an FTA with intellectual property rules that exceed the standards agreed at the World Trade Organization.

This document is available for download (below) in English, French, Thai, Khmer, Vietnamese, and Indonesian translations.

Reducing vulnerability to HIV before and after disasters

ktighe — 2010-01-25T16:54:56Z

In the fall of 2006, Oxfam undertook a partnership with the Swasti Health Resource Center of Bangalore to study what impact the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami may have had on the risk of contracting HIV in India's coastal villages. The purpose of the research was to understand whether and why the tsunami and its aftermath led to an increase in vulnerability to HIV, with the goal of helping aid providers and communities understand how to minimize the risks in future disasters.

Rising to the humanitarian challenge in Iraq

rbaker — 2009-05-29T20:45:04Z

While horrific violence dominates the lives of millions of ordinary people inside Iraq, another kind of crisis, also due to the impact of war, has been slowly unfolding. Up to eight million people are now in need of emergency assistance.

This figure includes:

four million people who are 'food-insecure and in dire need of different types of humanitarian assistance'
more than two million displaced people inside Iraq
over two million Iraqis in neighbouring countries, mainly Syria and Jordan, making this the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world.

Seeking Common Grounds

mborum — 2009-05-27T22:30:27Z

The International Coffee Agreement (ICA) establishes the only dedicated intergovernmental forum for coffee-related matters: the International Coffee Organization (ICO). The ICO brings together various stakeholders--including coffee importing and coffee-exporting countries, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)--to discuss, negotiate, and cooperate on shared strategies and policies regarding the global coffee economy.

The current ICA expires in September 2007. Negotiations regarding the next ICA are an excellent opportunity to implement policies to advance international cooperation on the development of a more sustainable, participatory, and equitable coffee supply chain. Oxfam urges reforms along three general themes:

Enhancing participation by small-scale producers.
Promoting sustainability.
Providing tools for small-scale farmers to compete in challenging and changing markets.

Sheltering people after disasters

ktighe — 2009-06-30T16:11:40Z

Twenty months after the tsunami, construction of permanent homes in Tamil Nadu, India, was plagued by delays, and more than 120,000 households continued to live in temporary shelters in poor and deteriorating conditions. Oxfam partnered with the department of social work at Loyola College in Chennai to assess the state of the temporary shelters; the report and video that resulted helped convince the state government to release $1.4 million for repairs.

Shut Out

mborum — 2009-06-08T16:11:46Z

The current version of the US Farm Bill represents a broken promise to America's rural communities particularly African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian farmers and ranchers. Farm policies have created a faulty system that favors big farms over small farms, rewards overproduction of commodity crops instead of conservation and diversified operations, and disproportionately benefits white farmers. US minority farmers receive 1 percent of all commodity payments. The remaining 99 percent is distributed to their white counterparts. Reauthorization of the Farm Bill, which is currently being debated in Congress, provides a rare chance to redress these inequities.

Signing Away the Future

mborum — 2009-05-27T22:24:19Z

The quiet advance of trade and investment agreements between rich and poor countries threatens to deny developing countries a favourable foothold in the global economy. Driven by the USA and the European Union, these agreements impose far-reaching rules that place severe restrictions on the very policies developing countries need in order to fight poverty.

Sink or Swim

lmcfarlane — 2009-05-29T20:41:32Z

International development agency Oxfam calls for a radical rethink in the way South Asian governments implement policies to defend against floods and respond to their aftermath.

Smart Development

mborum — 2011-07-13T17:02:15Z

Forty percent of the world's population lives on less than $2 a day. As poverty and injustice persist, so do the transnational security threats they help to generate. To tackle these threats, the US government seeks to use "smart power" that balances the hard power of the military with the soft power of US diplomatic and development efforts. But Oxfam is concerned that the drive to use smart power is not adequately focused on smart development.

Instead of getting smarter, US foreign aid is increasingly overwhelmed by short-sighted security concerns and a fixation with "results" of the wrong kind. Current US aid policies face two paradoxes:

US foreign aid will not make the world safer for all while it remains overly focused on short-term security;
The more that policy makers aim to control US foreign aid to make it effective, the less effective it becomes.

If the US wants to become a global leader in smart development, it must reform the legislation, organizational structure, strategy, and implementation of its foreign aid to empower effective states and active citizens to lead their own development.

Song of the Sirens

mborum — 2010-08-10T20:50:14Z

US free trade agreements with Peru and Colombia, as well as the possible agreement with Ecuador, were negotiated under the promise of great opportunities in the world’s richest market, but the truth is that these agreements will have a devastating impact on the livelihoods of small farmers, public health, and the regulation of investment to protect the public interest.

Furthermore, they will weaken existing regional processes of integration and co-operation. Trade rules with the Andean region need to be substantially modified in order for development to become a priority once again.

Square pegs in round holes

rbaker — 2009-05-27T22:20:17Z

When trade ministers from 35 countries gather in Geneva at the World Trade Organization [WTO] for what is being billed yet again as a last-ditch attempt to forge a Doha trade deal, they will be forced to meet an unwelcome guest: the 2008 US Farm Bill. With a host of newly bolstered subsidies that will hurt farmers in developing countries, as well as higher farm payment rates, squeezing the new Farm Bill into the 'boxes' defined under existing WTO obligations will be a remarkable trick. That speaks poorly about the willingness of the US to accept new disciplines on agricultural subsidies, and demonstrates that the US Congress is unwilling—thus far—to take the necessary steps for a new trade agreement that would prioritize development.

Targeting Small Arms

mborum — 2009-02-25T23:08:59Z

One million people have been killed by small arms since the last UN conference on the issue in 2001. While the death toll rises, governments have failed to take concerted action to combat the problem. In pursuit of the "war on terror", some arms producers now supply arms to allies with poor human rights records. It is time states took effective control of small arms from the factory door to the arms affected community. They should back the call for the Arms Trade Treaty and fulfill their duty to protect their citizens.

Tarnished Gold

mborum — 2010-01-12T16:57:59Z

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) continues to dress up money-making gold mining investments as development, yet it fails to demonstrate how these projects actually reduce poverty. On its “golden” 50-year anniversary, we challenge the IFC to “prove it” by reporting its development impacts on a project-by-project basis.

Tarnished Legacy

mborum — 2009-06-30T22:16:14Z

In Mali, gold recalls the greatness of the Malian empires, and evokes images of the Trans-Saharan salt and gold trade, of Islamic scholars and the ancient cities of Timbuktu and Djenné. Yet at the same time, a popular Bamanankan saying warns, "Sanu ko balaw ka ca": gold mining stirs problems.

In modern day Mali, it remains to be seen which of these images most accurately depicts reality. Gold production is growing quickly in Mali, which is now the third largest gold producer in Africa (after South Africa and Ghana). Gold has replaced cotton as Mali's leading export and has been promoted by the Bretton Woods Institutions as a key driver of Mali's national development. The Syama goldmine discussed in this report was the first large mine constructed during Mali's current gold boom. In a country ranked 164 out of 172 on the Human Development Index and with 90.6 percent of the population living on less than $2 per day, it is hard not to see the allure of gold's earning power.

This study, drawing on the lessons learned from Syama, examines the contribution of Mali's gold industry and its potential as a tool for development and poverty reduction. It presents data on a range of impacts (direct and indirect, positive and negative), tied to the operation and closing of the Syama gold mine.