Oxfam International

“Fix the broken food system!”

Happy July! Four years ago this month, Oxfam’s GROW campaign launched with a rallying cry to “fix the broken food system”.  In more than 50 countries, people like you have stood up to governments, banks and the world’s biggest brands – and won. None of this would have been possible without your support!

Join our call to African leaders to support women food producers coping with climate change.

But the fight isn’t over. GROW will continue to challenge the injustice of a system that means nearly 800,000,000 people still go hungry.  All over the world, in countries South and North, we’ll be working with others fighting hunger and climate change. This means facing head-on the powerful, filthy fossil fuel industry. Across Africa, and the developing world, we will stand alongside women, who produce our food to call for more support for them to fight climate change. Everywhere, we are holding the world's biggest food companies to account for their part in the climate story.

Here are just some of the highlights of the last 4 years!

What's your highlight of GROW?

Permanent Yemen ceasefire needed now to safeguard millions

Urgent call from international humanitarian agencies

With 80% of the population – 20 million people - affected by the ongoing violence and requiring assistance, people in Yemen have some of the greatest humanitarian needs in the world today. The international community needs to step up and take immediate action to end the violence and respond to the growing crisis.

Since the last failed peace talks on 26 May, an additional 400 Yemenis have been killed. May 27th was the bloodiest day of the conflict so far, with over 100 lives lost. In total 2,200 people have died and almost 10,000 have been injured. Another temporary humanitarian pause – that is currently being discussed – is not enough. Only when a permanent ceasefire is in place can meaningful peace talks succeed.

Failure to end the fighting and address root causes of the conflict will have a catastrophic impact on the humanitarian situation and will further polarize the country and entrench the position of the warring parties, resulting in a prolonged conflict.

Yemenis are struggling to survive as fuel, food and medical supplies are critically low due to the closure of land, sea and air routes. Just 14% of national fuel requirements have arrived in country since the end of March. Over 12 million people are going hungry as wheat and other staples are in increasingly short supply. More than 15 million are without access to health care as hospitals shut down due to lack of medical supplies and power cuts.

“Regardless of the outcome of the peace talks, the blockade needs to be immediately lifted and all obstacles hindering the provision of humanitarian aid and other essential commodities should be removed, otherwise more children will die from preventable diseases,” said Priya Jacob, acting country director for Save the Children Yemen. “We are already seeing rates of infection soaring, particularly amongst infants.”

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Oxfam is calling for G7 leaders to kick their dirty coal habit.

Climate change is already the biggest threat to winning the fight against hunger. Coal is the biggest single cause of climate change, yet the G7 countries are still burning huge amounts, despite efficient, affordable, renewable alternatives being available. G7 coal power stations emit twice as much fossil fuel CO2 as the whole of Africa, and their contribution to global warming will cost Africa alone more than $43 billion per year by the 2080s and $84 billion by 2100, and lead to several million tons of staple crops lost worldwide.

G7 leaders will discuss their long term (2050) de-carbonization plans at a working session on climate and energy on Monday morning (8 June 2015). These discussions will be meaningless if leaders do not kick their dirty coal habit.

Burundi refugees exceed 105,000 -  over 70,000 in Tanzania alone

The number of refugees arriving in Tanzania has risen exponentially over the past week as people pour over Burundi’s borders, with new arrivals citing fear of violence and intimidation as primary reasons for leaving. Tens of thousands are in urgent need of clean water, health care, food and shelter. Without these basic needs being met, the risk of disease spreading among new arrivals is dangerously high.

Over 70,000 refugees, mostly women and children, are estimated to have arrived at Kagunga beach, a rugged beach shore on the border between Burundi and Tanzania on Lake Tanganyika. They are being moved by boat to Kigoma, where they are registered before being bussed to Nyarugusu camp. Risk of disease outbreak is dangerously high due to lack of clean water and adequate sanitation.

Oxfam teams are arriving to provide material and technical support to deliver life-saving clean water, construct latrines, as well as to educate the refugee population about the crucial importance of good hygiene in preventing disease. We are in the process of scaling up our response.

In the photo: Burundian children at a refugee transit point in Lake Tanganyika Stadium, Kigoma, Tanzania. Current statistics show that about 60 percent of registered Burundian refugees are women and children; about 10 percent of children are unaccompanied or separated from their parents. More: http://oxf.am/ZQDU

Escalating conflict in Yemen is making a dire humanitarian situation worse.

We must do all we can to push for a permanent and immediate ceasefire.

Before the current conflict, Yemen was already the poorest country in the Middle East. Over 10 million people were going hungry, including 1 million acutely malnourished children. This number has increased by nearly 2 million since the conflict began.

There was a moment of hope when an announcement came that airstrikes would stop but they have since resumed.

Violence has damaged homes, schools and even hospitals. So far, over 400 civilians have lost their lives and over 150,000 people have been displaced.

The conflict must stop. We must act now.

Access to clean water and quality food is a basic human right.

And people across El Salvador are fighting to get recognition of this right added to the country's Constitution.

El Salvador's Legislative Assembly has the power to make it happen.

We’re pushing to get 10,000 signatures by the April 30 deadline, to push El Salvador’s government to act.

Oxfam's warehouse in Yemen destroyed after coalition airstrike

The warehouse contained humanitarian supplies used in Oxfam's water and sanitation projects in the governorate where we brought clean water to thousands of households before the current conflict started.

Read more: Oxfam vehemently condemns coalition bombing of a warehouse containing vital humanitarian aid.

Before the current crisis, more than 60% of Yemen was already in need of aid (16m people).

Searching for survivors after airstrikes in Yemen. Photo: Abo Haitham/Oxfam.

World not delivering on Gaza reconstruction promises, new report warns

Six months since donors pledged $3.5 billion towards Gaza's recovery, many people are worse off and not a single one of the 19,000 destroyed homes has been rebuilt. 100,000 people are still homeless and many are living in makeshift camps or schools.

The report, "Charting a New Course: Overcoming the stalemate in Gaza," warns that further conflict is inevitable - and with it the cycle of destruction and donor-funded reconstruction - unless world leaders implement a new approach that addresses the underlying causes of the conflict. Donors must insist on a permanent ceasefire, accountability of all parties for ongoing violations of international law, and an end to the Israeli blockade that seals in 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza and keeps them separated from the West Bank. Rather than challenging the blockade, the report found that most donors are accepting ways to work around it.

India's historic Right to Education act: Why everyone should support Haq Banta Hai

Nearly 200,000 people have joined the'Haq Banta Hai' campaign to make education a reality of every child in India. Will you?

India enacted the historic Right to Education (RTE) legislation in 2009, nearly 7 years after making elementary education a fundamental right through a constitutional amendment in 2002. Thanks to RTE Act, today 199 million children are in school and studying. However, still 6 million children between 6 and 13 years are out of school.

Education plays an important role in reducing inequality.

Yemen: Living in fear is ‘normal'

Oxfam has been working in Yemen for 30 years. Over 60 percent of the population - 16 million people - were already in need of some form of aid before the recent airstrikes started. An Oxfam staff worker based in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, shares what life has been like for the past week.

Yemen is a country of unpredictables. You never know what is going on. Sometimes - like now - that makes it both emotionally and psychologically exhausting.

Change started in Yemen in 2011, with the Arab Spring reaching the country. We all hoped that was the first step  towards a better future. People were very enthusiastic back then – people were excited.

But in September 2014 the security situation deteriorated. The government changed without warning, the transition period seemed to stop. All of us – including the 16 million or so of my countrymen and women who are desperate need of aid - were once again living every day without knowing what would happen next. The 600,000 people that Oxfam were helping were going to need aid even more.

Then on March 25, the airstrikes began. At first, the streets were empty – it was like they had been abandoned. It was scary. But today, despite reports of the death toll rising, there are people in the streets because they have started to cope with life now. For me and my fellow Yemenis living in fear and never knowing what’s round the corner, this is ‘normal.’

But it should not be like this. For a long time there has been severe humanitarian crisis in the country, now there could be a humanitarian catastrophe unless a permanent ceasefire is agreed and humanitarian access is granted.

Billions in “out of control” IFC investments into third-parties causing human rights abuses around the world

The International Finance Corporation has little accountability for billions of dollars’ worth of investments into banks, hedge funds and other financial intermediaries, resulting in projects that are causing human rights abuses around the world.

The claim is part of a new report by Oxfam International and other NGOs, released a week before the World Bank Spring meetings. “The Suffering of Others” says that the IFC (the World Bank’s private sector lending arm) is failing to perform due diligence and to identify or effectively manage risk in many of its investments in third-party lenders.

“The painful truth is that the IFC does not know where much of its money under this new model is ending up or even whether it’s helping or harming,” said Nicolas Mombrial, head of Oxfam International’s Washington DC office.

“We describe some shocking abuses in projects originally born of IFC investments to third parties across Asia, Africa and Latin America, including deaths, repression, land-grabs and violence. Because public information from the IFC is so meagre – whether by design or ignorance – we fear such projects are just the tip of the iceberg,” Mombrial said.

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That’s right, it’s that time of year again —the Battle of the Brands.

Twice a year, Oxfam takes a look at publically available information on the agricultural sourcing policies of the top ten food and beverage companies. These are the same companies that make a large portion of what you buy everyday. We assess how well the top 10 Food & Beverage companies are performing on our 7 themes: Transparency, Women, Workers, Farmers, Land, Water, and Climate.