Background

OXFAM IN THE HORN OF AFRICA

Oxfam America has been working in the Horn of Africa region since the Ethiopian famine of 1984. Seven of our staff members are based in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. In 2005, we opened a satellite office in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum where three staff members will work on humanitarian issues related to the conflict that broke out in Darfur in early 2003.

Peace building is one of Oxfam's key objectives in the Horn where war has brought misery and suffering to all of the countries in the region. The absence of a vibrant civil society and the weakening of traditional peace building mechanisms have contributed to the spread of conflicts. Their resolution has become increasingly complex.

Oxfam's experience with community efforts to resolve clashes in Ethiopia and encourage dialogue among different ethnic groups has positioned us to work on these issues in a broader context, and to apply the lessons we have learned in other parts of the Horn. For example, innovative peace councils used indigenous conflict resolution methods to halt the war between the Boren and Somali pastoral communities in southern Ethiopia.

Beyond its support for an expanded civil society and peace building, Oxfam also plays a unique role in promoting the Make Trade Fair campaign in Ethiopia. Working with five other Oxfam affiliates, Oxfam America helped organize a national coalition of allies, including coffee farmer cooperatives, government ministries, students, and well-known athletes and musicians in a campaign to amass signatures on Oxfam's Big Noise global petition.

In a matter of months, this effort produced over one million signatures from several hundred thousand coffee farmers and key government leaders such as the prime minister, deputy prime minister, and justice minister. At a trade conference in June, Oxfam even convinced Pascal Lamy, the trade commissioner of the European Union, to sign the Big Noise.

The concept of a mass campaign calling for substantive policy changes is unheard of in Ethiopia, but in a short period of time the Big Noise campaign had petitions in virtually all the coffee houses, coffee cooperatives, and schools in the country.