Turns out, some things don’t change.
When the muddy waters of the Tar River coursed through eastern North Carolina on Sept. 16, 1999, it was Princeville that bore the brunt of the flooding. All told, the rising waters killed six people; destroyed or damaged 1,183 homes; and, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory, “all but erased the town.”
Sadly, Princeville isn’t an isolated case. Worldwide, the most vulnerable communities are the ones hit hardest by natural hazards like droughts, floods, and storms— threats that are becoming more frequent and severe, owing to climate change.
This summer, Oxfam commissioned Susan L. Cutter and Christopher T. Emrich of the University of South Carolina’s Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute to map social vulnerability in the southeastern US—site of the country’s most persistent poverty. Cutter and Emrich identified counties in 13 states that reveal a high level of vulnerability to floods, hurricane-force winds, sea level rise, drought, or a combination of these hazards.
What makes a community vulnerable? A mix of physical factors and social characteristics, including demographic, economic, and housing conditions. In Miami-Dade County, FL, for example, over 50 percent of the land lies within a flood zone and 100 percent within a hurricane wind hazard zone. So, faced with a major hurricane, people in socially vulnerable neighborhoods in the county—like Miami’s Little Haiti, home to many poor immigrant families—are at greatest risk of property loss, injury, and death. And it is these families that have the fewest resources to respond to or recover from a disaster.
As a next step, the institute will share its Social Vulnerability Index with policy makers, emergency management officials, and community leaders. The institute and Oxfam hope these findings will inform smarter disaster preparation plans for the nation’s most disadvantaged areas.
As for Princeville, in late 1999 town leaders voted against a federal buyout that would require residents to relocate, opting instead to rebuild with stronger buildings. That recovery process continues 10 years later.
“[At first] I said there is no way I’m going back, I was so devastated,” one Princeville resident told The New York Times shortly after the floods. “But then I thought about it, and I said, ‘Why should I give up what my ancestors worked so hard to leave us?’”
At the national level, we need to:
Click here to learn more and see the full set of social vulnerability maps.
]]>But a hungry child exists in a larger context: if we nourish communities, they can nourish their own children.
The woman on our cover, Fatou Doumbia, and other women in her village in Mali, pooled their resources last year. They set aside nearly a ton of millet as a defense against the hunger they’d seen as food prices spiked. Hers is another face of hunger: determined, resourceful.
After the last harvest, Oxfam reached out to supporters to respond to the food crisis. We’ve devoted much of this issue to looking at what communities have done to avoid the kinds of hardships they confronted. When people living in poverty are hit by a food crisis or natural disaster, they lack resources to tide them over.
Oxfam works to help people build their resilience. Let respect and hope fuel your efforts to support women like Doumbia.
]]>Achieving farm resilience requires building up the resilience of vulnerable farmers by developing their skills, expertise and voice while supporting their use of agro-ecological farming practices. Building resilience depends not just on how farmers manage resources, but on how well local, national, and global institutions support farmers. Agro-ecological practices can empower vulnerable small-scale farmers, offering them both greater control over their lives and an accessible means of improving their food security, while decreasing their risk of crop failure or livestock death due to climate shocks. Vulnerable farmers can use agro-ecological practices to build resilient farms and improve their livelihoods, achieving multiple benefits: 1. improved food security; 2. adaptation to a changing climate; and 3. mitigation of climate change.
People-centred resilience consists of five principles which should guide how investments in vulnerable farming communities are designed and implemented. They are:
Following these principles ensures that investments support farmers in their efforts to become food-secure and adapt to climate change. Four institutions central to delivering people-centered resilience are: secure land rights; dynamic farmer associations; responsive agricultural advisory services; and public support for environmental services.
]]>Coston admits that co-leading a group of local volunteers takes time and effort. But it’s worth it, she says, because of the great people she’s met—and the feeling of shaping world events as they happen.
“I believe so strongly in the fact that people en masse can make a change, so why not let it be us?” she says. “That’s what keeps me going every day.”
Meet the Oxfam Action Corps: grassroots activists, based in 13 US cities, who play an increasingly crucial role in Oxfam’s climate change campaign. With climate legislation in Congress and the Copenhagen UN talks fast approaching, these volunteers are calling on leaders to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and help vulnerable communities here and abroad respond to the catastrophic effects of climate change.
I first met New York Oxfam Action Corps co-leader Winnie Lee, a Manhattan-based legal clerk, during the Human Countdown event in Central Park. “It’s amazing that over 1,000 people were willing to give up their Sunday to be here,” says Lee of that day’s turnout. “We proved that there are a lot of people out there who actually care about this issue and want to learn more about it.”
Lee says that many New Yorkers already feel connected to the human side of the climate crisis. “We have lots of immigrant communities here, so people can tie the effects back to Bangladesh or the Dominican Republic, to rising sea levels or hurricanes. They realize it’s their family, or other people they know, who are living in affected communities.”
To get people mobilized, the Oxfam Action Corps taps into the city’s vibrant music scene, organizing benefit concerts and setting up tables at events like the All Points West music festival.
“If a band [supporting Oxfam] plays four shows in a week, we can get 500 signatures for a petition,” says Lee, who first encountered Oxfam at a concert by the band Bell X1. “Or we have people at the tables call or write their member of Congress. That’s democracy in action … empowering people to contact their elected officials, who are supposed to represent them.”
The volunteers also reach out to elected officials in person at legislative meetings. Thanks to their efforts, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand recently signed on as the first US senator to become a Sisters on the Planet ambassador.
Next up? An Oxfam America Hunger Banquet® on the New York University campus, which they hope will bring in 150 to 200 participants.
The day after the Human Countdown, the Austin Oxfam Action Corps organized a “Climate Wake-up Call” on the local University of Texas (UT) campus. For the attention-grabbing stunt—which coincided with similar events worldwide—25 volunteers, students, and residents set their cell phone alarms to go off simultaneously. Amid the din, participants formed the shape of ticking clocks with their arms, symbolizing that time is running out to negotiate a global climate deal at Copenhagen.
“We held the Wake-Up Call in between classes in the middle of campus, so we got a lot of traffic,” explains Coston, who coordinated the event with the UT-Austin Oxfam Club and Oxfam CHANGE Leaders. The high-profile location led to dialogue with students and an article in the daily campus paper.
Meanwhile, the Oxfam Action Corps is working with environmental groups to organize a climate change rally in Austin later this month, where over 200 people will walk a half-mile from the UT-Austin campus to the state capitol building.
“We definitely want our negotiators [at Copenhagen] and President Obama to know that there are a lot of people in Texas supporting a global deal. It’s important for them to know that people in our state have gathered together for this purpose,” says Coston.
She adds that in an eco-conscious community like Austin, people respond to Oxfam’s message about the human cost of the crisis.
“We’re trying to help people adapt to climate change: something that is really necessary. We’re getting [poor communities] the resources they need,” she says. “People grasp that fact—instead of going in after a disaster and spending millions of dollars, you can go in before.”
]]>Historically, studies about climate hazards and social vulnerability have been conducted in separate silos. The Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) is the first study of its kind to examine both the potential impact of natural hazards and which populations are most likely to be negatively affected. The SoVI statistically examines the underlying social and demographic characteristics of the population and how they impact certain segments of the population in disabling ways when it comes to climate change-related hazards.
This research, commissioned by Oxfam America, includes a series of layered maps that depict social and climate change-related hazard vulnerability. The maps assist in identifying hotspots in the US Southeast, which are at significant risk in the face of four particular climate change-related hazards: drought, flooding, hurricane force winds, and sea-level rise.
The specific region of focus is the 13-state region of the US Southeast: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Roughly 80 percent of all US counties that experience persistent poverty (defined as a county in which at least 20 percent of the population experiences poverty for three decades or more) lie in this region.
For more details and to view interactive maps, visit oxfamamerica.org/adapt.
]]>"Climate change will impact everyone, but not everyone will be impacted equally," said Oxfam America President Raymond C. Offenheiser. "Social factors like income and race do not determine who will be hit by a natural disaster, but they do determine a population’s ability to prepare, respond, and recover when disaster does strike. This report will serve as a critical tool to help us identify especially vulnerable communities and invest wisely in their climate resiliency and preparedness."
The study covers 13 states in the US southeast from Arkansas to Virginia, measuring the underlying social and demographic characteristics of populations and how some of those characteristics negatively affect their ability to cope with climate change-related hazards, such as flooding, drought,hurricane force winds and sea-level rise. Poverty is deepest in the rural South where more than one in four people live in counties with persistent poverty, and it is therefore one of the country’s most socially vulnerable regions to climate change.
"We have already seen that climate-related disasters hit some populations worse than others," said Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP. "From drought in western Alabama to hurricanes in Louisiana, this research is instrumental in helping to identify those areas that are most vulnerable, so that we can better prepare and help before disaster hits."
The study was conducted using the Social Vulnerability Index and overlaying it with data of climate change-related hazards. The tool was developed by Dr. Susan Cutter and Dr. Christopher Emrich at the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina.
"While the USGS was not involved in the Oxfam report, our recent work revealed very similar findings about vulnerability hotspots in the Southeast," said US Geological Survey scientist Virginia Burkett. "It is vitally important that we understand vulnerabilities at a regional and local scale so that they can be incorporated into future risk assessments and adaptation planning. Our decisions today will determine the severity of climate change impacts in the future."
"Climate change is happening and it’s affecting the poor—socially and economically vulnerable communities—first. As climate change increases and intensifies floods, storms, and heat waves, many of the world’s poorest communities, from Biloxi to Bangladesh, will experience unprecedented stress," said Offenheiser. "Congress must act now to address climate change and invest in the resiliency of poor communities on the frontlines of climate change at home and abroad."
]]>“Oxfam extends our most heartfelt congratulations to President Obama for such a great honor. In these difficult economic times, with war and conflict ever present, President Obama's leadership has succeeded in setting a new tone that has instilled hope for a better future and spirit of cooperation. Now it is most urgent that the US and all nations work together to secure the necessary results.
“We hope this recognition builds momentum for the US to use diplomatic leverage and conflict response capacity to prevent mass atrocities around the globe. US civilian agencies must be organized and resourced to prevent and mitigate conflicts and protect civilians when violence does occur. Oxfam also hopes that this recognition will strengthen US resolve to use US leadership and resources for a better world.
“As the President heads to Oslo for the award ceremony in December, we also hope he will join thousands of negotiators and world leaders in nearby Copenhagen to hammer out a global deal on climate change. President Obama’s direct involvement in the negotiations can shift the momentum towards a deal. Global investment in climate change solutions and adaptation can help pave the path towards food security, disaster preparedness, and prevention of disease and war.”
]]>The economic crisis arrived as poor countries were already struggling to cope with high food prices and floods, droughts and food shortages linked to climate change.
“Green shoots of economic recovery have not reached the poorest countries which are now suffering severely in the global downturn,” said Max Lawson, Oxfam senior policy advisor.
Oxfam analysis of economic data has discovered that governments in Sub-Saharan Africa will be $70 billion worse off this year as a result of the global slump. Unlike rich countries they cannot borrow their way out of trouble. Without outside help governments will find it increasingly difficult to respond to the climate, food and economic crises and to avoid cutting spending on schools, clinics and other anti-poverty programs.
“Despite feeding their own economies a much-needed stimulus, the G20 has not yet provided even half the $50 billion bailout it promised poor countries in April.”
Oxfam is calling for a $290 billion package of measures to ease the burden on developing countries without hitting ordinary taxpayers. The package includes a ‘Tobin tax’ on currency transactions, a debt moratorium and a crackdown on tax havens.
“Existing aid levels are not enough to protect the status quo never mind reduce poverty in the face of the economic crisis, climate change and rising food prices,” said Lawson.
“The G20 has the chance to change the bad habits of the past and come up with new solutions to the problems facing poor people. A currency transaction levy on the banks that helped cause the global slump could bring in $50 billion to help those suffering in a crisis they did nothing to cause. It is time bankers paid a bonus to the world’s poor.”
Oxfam is also calling on G20 leaders to fulfill a promise made by President Obama in July to deliver new funds to help poor countries cope with climate change. This funding is vital to break the deadlock in climate change negotiations leading up to the make-or-break UN Summit in Copenhagen in December. Oxfam calculates that $50 billion per year is needed to help poor countries cope with climate change and another $100 billion is needed to help them control their emissions.
“The clock is ticking on the chances of a fair deal to prevent misery for millions at risk from climate change. It is time for G20 leaders to stand up and deliver the money needed to protect poor people,” said Oxfam climate change advisor David Waskow.
]]>"This study will be an especially useful tool to Louisiana legislators, activists and philanthropists because it provides an evidence-based portrait of living conditions in the state. It looks at our health, our education and our economic status, leading to important conclusions about how we must proceed to create a better Louisiana that is characterized by communities of opportunity," said Flozell Daniels Jr., President and CEO of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation. "The report makes it clear that we cannot forge ahead while leaving so many people behind. It is not only unjust; it is also ineffective."
"A Portrait of Louisiana" is the second state-specific report produced by the authors of The Measure of America: American Human Development Report 2008-2009 since its release last summer. It applies the American Human Development Index—a single measure of well-being for all Americans based on indicators in three key areas: health, education and income—to life in Louisiana. Using U.S. government statistics on longevity, educational attainment and enrollment, and earnings, the American Human Development Report revealed where America is today and set a benchmark against which we will be able to assess where we are tomorrow. In countries around the world where similar studies have been done, Human Development Index findings have proven that strategic investments in health, education and employment boost people's well-being as well as national prosperity.
Some surprising findings of "A Portrait of Louisiana" include the following:
"This report explores actions needed to build an infrastructure of opportunity so that all in Louisiana can be productive citizens and reach their full potential," said Sarah Burd-Sharps, co-author of both this report and the American Human Development Report. "Doing so is critical to the economic growth and future competitiveness of Louisiana in the knowledge-based global marketplace of tomorrow," added co-author Kristen Lewis.
"In Louisiana, where we work with 16 state and local organizations such as the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, this report clearly illustrates the conditions residents were struggling with even prior to the hurricanes of 2005—limited access to education, lower incomes, and shorter lives—and argues for a comprehensive solution for recovery," said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, which helped to fund the report with the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation and the Foundation for the Mid-South. "And it comes at a crucial time, given the financial challenges facing the state and nation, to help policymakers prioritize how to use scarce funds."
"A Portrait of Louisiana," like the American Human Development Report, was published by the Social Science Research Council. Go to measureofamerica.org for the full text of the report and interactive maps of Louisiana.
]]>However, we must also soberly assess the challenges yet before Louisiana. This report paints an often troubling picture of long-standing human disparities, some of which have been exacerbated by natural/man-allowed disaster and the global economic crisis. The report's Human Development (HD) Index is a user-friendly method of comparing the condition of communities. This analysis has great potential to guide policy-making processes and to support data-driven thinking that moves beyond the assumptions of historical parochialism.
This report was developed by the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation (LDRF) in partnership with Oxfam America and other organizations committed to fully recovering the lives of Gulf Coast citizens.
]]>“Massive government subsidies for large-scale cotton growers in the United States are unfair and hurt farmers in poor countries. The WTO confirmed today the injury caused by these subsidies and authorized Brazil to retaliate against the US,” said Gawain Kripke, policy director for Oxfam America. “American farm policy is broken and bloated, and now other sectors of the US economy may suffer as Brazil retaliates.”
Total direct support to cotton production hovered over three billion dollars in the 2008-2009 growing season, or an equivalent of 50 cents per pound of actual production, according to the International Cotton Advisory Committee.
“The global trading system depends on countries obeying rules and submitting to orderly dispute resolution,” said Kripke. “Thus far, the US has ignored the ruling of the WTO adjudication and continues large subsidies for cotton production. If the US continues this way, the integrity of the multilateral trade system is at stake.”
An Oxfam study found that with a complete removal of US cotton subsidies, the world price of cotton would increase by 6-14%, resulting in additional income that could feed an additional million children for a year or pay school fees for at least two million children living in extremely poor West African cotton growing households.
The longstanding dispute started in 2002. In 2005, the WTO ruled that US cotton subsidies harmed Brazilian cotton farmers and violated WTO rules, but the US did little to abide by the ruling and reduce its trade distorting subsidies. In September 2006, Brazil asked for a WTO “compliance panel” to determine whether the US has done enough to comply with the ruling and the WTO confirmed that the US has failed to reform its agricultural subsidies enough to comply. Today’s ruling confirms that Brazil is entitled to start retaliation procedures, and possibly cross-retaliate by lifting intellectual property protections.
]]>
"Rebuilding USAID is critical to effective delivery of US foreign assistance to fight poverty—which is recognized as key to America's strategic and security interests. We are working hard to build momentum to get reform passed this year." said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America.
"Over the last two decades, USAID has had its legs cut out from under it—its resources and staff have been slashed while more development capacity has been shifted to the Department of Defense. Along with rebuilding USAID, the US must shift its focus from development projects that meet short-term political and security goals back to long term development goals that not only help more people escape poverty, but in the long run, create greater stability and good will for the US. Rebuilding USAID gives the US and its development policy a start down the right path."
Currently, USAID has little capacity to strategize and create comprehensive development plans for the countries in which it operates says Oxfam. The bill addresses this issue by establishing USAID mission directors as responsible for coordinating all development and humanitarian assistance efforts in the field, under guidance of the Chief of Mission.
"This bill is a welcome move by Senator Kerry to help reinvigorate US foreign assistance," said Offenheiser. "Kerry is creating a scenario that will allow USAID development professionals to do what they do best—work closely with local communities and governments to deliver long-term programs that help to alleviate poverty and build prosperous communities."
"Transparency is also key to getting the most out of US development aid. Without good information, recipient governments can't plan, poor people can't hold their governments accountable, and the US taxpayers can't see results. Development professionals, aid recipients and US taxpayers need to see exactly where money is going and what the expectations are, so that there is greater accountability and success. Success means more positive change in the lives of poor people."
Key themes addressed by the new legislation include rebuilding USAID's capacity to think and implement strategically; giving the agency new tools to measure, evaluate and innovate to achieve smart development; promoting transparency and flexibility; and investing in human capital.
The aid reform debate in Washington has gained momentum in the last few months. Secretary of State Clinton recently announced that the State Department and USAID will be undertaking America's first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), in order to streamline the aid system and to put development on par with national security and diplomacy in foreign policy debates and decisions. In Congress, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) has introduced the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009 (HR 2139), which has more than 90 bipartisan co-sponsors.
]]>In a panel co-hosted by Oxfam America and Foreign Policy, journalist Andrew Mwenda of Uganda, Reconstruction Minister O. Natty B. Davis, II of Liberia, and environmental activist Wore Gana Seck of Senegal urged U.S. leaders to make U.S. foreign assistance more supportive of effective states and active citizens. In particular, the panelists called for a U.S. aid approach that is more transparent, more consistent with the needs of citizens and local governments, and more focused on giving recipient states the power to manage their own development.
"Getting to better development assistance will require that donors such as the U.S. keep a close eye on the critical task of building government capacity and institutions directly," said O. Natty B. Davis, II, Reconstruction Minister of Liberia. "This will ensure the efficacy of aid and its ability to deliver results that can have a real impact on the lives of the people in these countries in as short a time as possible."
The panel reflected growing momentum in the foreign aid reform debate in the U.S. Before leaving for Ghana, President Obama was quoted in an AllAfrica.com interview saying, "Our aid policies have been splintered among a variety of agencies... Trying to create something steady [and] basing our policies on what works and not on some ideological previous position—is going to be very important."
Last Friday, Secretary of State Clinton announced that the State Department and USAID will be undertaking America's first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), in order to streamline the aid bureaucracy and insert development more coherently into debates over national security and foreign policy. In Congress, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) has introduced the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009 (H.R. 2139), which has more than 75 bipartisan co-sponsors.
"It is a good sign that the administration and congress are talking about development in a strategic way," said Paul O'Brien, Director of Aid Effectiveness at Oxfam America and one of today's panelists. "But if new strategies are going to deliver for the world's poor, they must be poverty focused. Effective development isn't about fixing short-term political or security problems—it is about putting people in charge of their own lives. The best signal the U.S. can send to show it is serious about development is to nominate a USAID Administrator who will help rebuild the agency and bring back its capacity to be a true partner in development."
]]>"We applaud the Members of the House of Representatives who did the right thing and voted for this historic bill that takes a major step toward addressing global warming emissions and adaptation to climate change.
"While there are troubling shortcomings in the bill, it begins the critical process of putting us on a clean energy pathway here and around the world, and finally addresses the immediate needs of vulnerable communities everywhere who are being hit first and worst by the negative impacts of climate change. The bill is also a critical first step toward reasserting US leadership and building credibility to negotiate a global climate change agreement in Copenhagen.
"Thanks to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Chairmen Waxman, Markey, Rangel and many others, this bill begins to give the US some credibility at the international negotiating table.
"As Representative McGovern stated in his floor statement, 'Devoting portions of revenues from a cap and trade system to investments in international adaptation to those countries most vulnerable is a clear signal to the world that the US is ready to lead in combating global climate change.'
"The world will now watch as the debate shifts to the Senate. Oxfam America looks forward to working with Senators to strengthen this bill further.
"Doing so would help create the kinds of business and job opportunities critically needed to build a greener and more sustainable US economy. Doing so would strengthen our national security, save lives and build more secure livelihoods for vulnerable communities facing droughts, food shortages, flooding, health risks and other disastrous consequences from global warming."
]]>