Oxfam Archives - Humanosphere

Oxfam

The promise and pitfalls in efforts to reform US foreign food aid |

: Haitians Receive Boxes of USAID Food Aid; USAID

Food aid reforms came under the spotlight last month when the Obama Administration announced its Fiscal Year 2014 budget.

The changes are important to humanitarian response. Oxfam America estimates that reforms to food aid procurement laws could speed up crisis response by 14 weeks and reach an additional 17.1 million people. For a crisis like the 2010 drought in the Horn of Africa, that improved response time could have saved thousands of lives.

“The current approach to food aid can become, at times, an impediment to its very own mission,” said USAID Administrator Raj Shah.

Humanitarian groups were mostly supportive in response and contractors were unhappy that changes would affect their business. What looked like positive momentum for reform is starting to slow down as both houses of Congress take a look at the Farm Bill and food aid reform both in and out of the United States.

“The agriculture industry in the Midwest sees this as a threat to exports, which is ridiculous,” said former USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios to Businessweek, a supporter of food aid reform during his tenure with the Bush Administration. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Africa, agriculture, drought, Feed the Future, food aid, food for peace, Horn of Africa, Oxfam, Raj Shah, reform

May 10, 2013 | 12:15 PM | By Tom Murphy |

Land rights an antidote against ‘land grabbing,’ but maybe not for poverty |

It is estimated that one billion people living in rural parts of the world do not have rights to their own land.

That means they have no way of either proving that they own the property on which their homes rest or purchasing a deed to the land. Without land rights, it becomes much easier for governments to forcibly evict residents or large companies to buy a family’s property from right under their feet.

There is a direct link between land rights and land grabs, says the IMF. Countries with better governance and land rights laws are less likely to agree to large-scale land purchases by foreign investors.

That makes sense, but the additional claim that smallholder land ownership directly increases family farm productivity and income is now coming under question. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, IMF, land rights, Landesa, Madagascar, Marc Bellemare, Oxfam, Rena Singer

January 7, 2013 | 10:21 AM | By Tom Murphy |

The latest trend in the fight against poverty and inequity: Good news! |

By Tom Murphy, Humanosphere correspondent east

Telling good news, success stories, is the latest trend for many in the aid and development community.

Good stories especially need to be told about Africa, says Oxfam Great Britain, to document the progress being made amid all the problems

“In order for people to understand what’s happening in Africa, we’ve also got to tell the good stories, and there has been good news in Africa,” said Oxfam GB head Dame Barbara Stocking in an interview about the campaign for SkyNews.

Stocking contends the media and many charities tend to mostly focus on negative stories of conflict and suffering, neglecting the good news stories and creating a distorted view. Oxfam GB is the latest to change its marketing angle towards telling good stories based on the belief that people need to see evidence of progress.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation operates along similar lines, funding media to do success stories and recently launching a grant program specifically supporting communications projects aimed at showing that humanitarian aid is working.

But is a focus on good news any less likely to distort the picture than a focus on bad news? Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Africa, media, Oxfam

December 10, 2012 | 2:59 PM | By Tom Paulson |

Seattle pushes women’s rights & private sector to fight poverty |

It’s International Human Rights Day and you may be surprised to learn that the modern notion of human rights is little more than half a century old. The universal declaration of human rights was made largely due to the Holocaust, the atrocities of WWII.

Locally, the focus of two leading humanitarian organizations is on advancing women’s rights and finding more effective ways to combine traditional aid and development strategies with a supposedly kinder, gentler and more socially responsive private sector.

It’s the Seattle approach – socially liberal and business friendly, if not economically conservative.

“We are compassionate, creative and outward looking,” Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn said at Global Washington’s annual meeting last week. McGinn noted how at the World’s Fair in Seattle some 50 years ago, many predicted we would have flying cars and jet packs when, in fact, today we continue to have poverty, inequity and injustice — here and abroad.

“We care about that and are doing something about it,” he said. “And that’s what it really means to be a city of the future.”

Two meetings last week back up the mayor’s claims. (Sorry I’m a bit late, but I had a family emergency and this is a one-man news operation)

Global Washington, an organization dedicated to building up the region’s burgeoning humanitarian and social enterprise community, held its annual meeting with an opening keynote talk by Dr. Sakena Yacoobi, an activist and educator who is promoting women’s rights and childhood education in Afghanistan despite threats against her life.

Sakena Yacoobi, speaking at Global Washington

“I believe education is a key issue to transform life,” said Yacoobi, who described the many obstacles she has faced and what motivates her despite the risks. Women’s and girls’ rights are critical, she said: “Afghanistan will have peace when the women of Afghanistan are leaders.” Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, aid, Amir Dossal, Bill Clapp, business, Claudia Paz y Paz, development, Global Washington, Joe Whinney, Oxfam, Raymon Offenheiser, sustainable

October 15, 2012 | 10:20 AM | By Tom Paulson |

Novartis vs. India: Patents vs. the poor? |

Flickr, Brooks Elliott

One of the biggest, thorniest dilemmas in global health is coming to a head in India.

(And the biggest player in this arena, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with a former top Novartis executive running the global health program, has no comment on it. More on that below).

At one level, it’s a narrow legal battle between the drug company Novartis and the government of India over an expensive cancer drug known in the U.S. as Gleevec, and everywhere else as Glivec.

Novartis has challenged India’s denial of patent protection for the drug and the case is now under consideration by the Indian Supreme Court. Those on either side of the argument say the case has major implications for all of global health.

Why? Because this legal battle pits one set of laudable goals, finding new and better drugs, against another equally critical aim, making sure all the people who need these drugs can afford them.

Novartis

Paul Herrling

“If a breakthrough compound like this cannot be patented in India, that has major consequences for innovation in India and elsewhere,” said Paul Herrling, head of corporate research at Novartis.

“This isn’t really about Gleevec,” added Herrling. “This is just one part of a much larger issue.”

On that last point, many global health advocacy organizations and activists would agree.

Organizations like MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières, aka Doctors without Borders) Oxfam and others focused on ensuring poor people have access to life-saving drugs see Novartis vs. India as central to a much bigger industry-wide push now taking place on a number of fronts.

Judit Rius, MSF

“This is part of a global strategy aimed at lowering the bar, of making it easier for these companies to extend their drug patent monopolies,” said Judit Rius, U.S. manager of MSF’s Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines.

A Novartis win in Indian court would seriously undermine the generic drug industry, Rius said, reducing the supply of cheap drugs that make a life-and-death difference in poor countries.

MSF, Oxfam and other health advocacy organizations have been fighting Novartis on this case for years. It has dragged on within the India court system since 2006, getting filed, denied and then re-filed, with advocates for the drug company arguing that India is improperly protecting its burgeoning generic drug industry while many public health advocates argue Novartis is profit-seeking at the expense of the poor.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, Justice, drugs, intellectual property, James Love, Judit Ruis, Medicins Sans Frontieres, Novartis, Oxfam, patent, Paul Herrling, pharmaceutical industry

May 8, 2012 | 11:31 AM | By Tom Paulson |

The fight over America giving itself foreign aid |

Flickr, Meredith_Farmer

One of the most inefficient and frequently counterproductive aspects of American foreign aid is our tendency to give aid to ourselves — experts call it “tied aid” — rather than directly giving it to those poor folks and communities overseas we are trying to assist.

Obviously, we don’t say that’s what we’re doing.

We don’t say we are dumping extra (taxpayer-subsidized) or substandard food on poor countries; We say our farmers are generously donating food to the poor overseas.
We don’t say grants to American health organizations working overseas are often just siphoning off funds and contributing to the health worker shortage in poor countries; We say our doctors and nurses are caring for the sick of the developing world.
And we don’t say U.S. businesses are exploiting weak nations for cheap labor, to remove resources and capture market turf; We say our entrepreneurs are there giving guidance and building new infrastructure to help emerging economies.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, has long been criticized in development circles for this tendency we have to give foreign aid to ourselves. Lately, under Rajiv Shah, the agency appears to have been making a serious effort to reduce this bad habit — untying aid — by allowing USAID to directly fund local organizations in the countries we are trying to help.

As The Guardian reported in February USAID Now Free to Buy Goods in Developing Countries

The US agency for international development, USAid, will no longer have to “buy American”, thanks to a policy change that will open up the agency’s contracts to firms in developing countries and could herald a significant shift in how the world’s largest aid donor does business.

Well, as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Politics, Bill Easterly, Congress, foreign aid, Oxfam

April 12, 2012 | 10:59 AM | By Tom Paulson |

Oxfam and ONE Campaign call on Congress to stop playing games over hunger |

United Nations photo

Malnourished child in Somalia

Congress is looking at reforming its agricultural subsidies programs known generally as the Farm Bill — a massive, kitchen-sink piece of legislation that covers all sorts of things like food stamps, soil conservation and about $5 billion in direct payments to American farmers.

Given our nation’s cost crunch, many are predicting some big cuts. Humanitarian groups like Oxfam and the ONE Campaign are trying to raise public awareness to save the US government’s life-saving, overseas food aid program from the budget ax.

ONE’s food aid advocacy initiative is called Thrive. They also have this page explaining their position on these issues. Oxfam calls its food aid initiative Grow and here’s their argument for sustaining overseas food aid. Both organizations are largely advocating for the same thing — continuing to provide the world’s hungry with immediate food aid and also working toward lasting solutions to end these chronic cycles of hunger and starvation.

Oxfam, always creative and often edgy in their approach, today released this weird, creepy but somehow compelling video calling on Congress to stop playing with food aid (… the soundtrack reminds me of The Shining):

FILED UNDER: Basics, Politics, Congress, food aid, ONE Campaign, Oxfam

March 9, 2012 | 1:36 PM | By Tom Paulson |

Will the next Africa hunger crisis be prevented? |

There is a looming food crisis in the Sahel, a geographic ‘belt’ that stretches across central Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

After the hand-wringing and finger-pointing following the famine in East Africa last year, you would think the international community would already be mobilizing to prevent a similar tragedy from unfolding again right before our eyes.

The Guardian

As The Guardian reports:

More than 13 million people are at risk of hunger in the Sahel, with more than 10 million now considered food-insecure. More than 1 million children are at risk of severe malnutrition.

BBC Oxfam warns of catastrophe