Press releases

The G20 missed a golden opportunity to tackle global poverty when it could only agree to disagree over how to make banks repay the cost of the economic crisis, said international agency Oxfam.

As the G8 Summit comes to a close, international agency Oxfam criticized the leaders for their failure to deliver on their promises and for trying to divert attention by cobbling together a small initiative for maternal and child health.

Oxfam cautioned that the maternal and child health effort announced on Friday seems yet another empty G8 promise, given that the overall aid pie is shrinking.

On the eve of the G8 Summit in Canada, international agency Oxfam warned that G8 aid promises due in 2010 have been missed by as much as $20 billion dollars – twice the gap admitted by world leaders. The G8 must deliver on their promises to poor people and invest in their future.

"Despite their best efforts to put a positive gloss on their progress, the G8 report shows clearly that the promise made in Gleneagles in 2005 to increase aid will be broken," said Oxfam spokesperson

2010 saw Europe missing their poverty targets and today Heads of State compounded this by failing to put new commitments on the table to achieve their 2015 aid targets and keep their promises to the world’s poorest people.

Following the announcement by the Israeli security cabinet that it will liberalize the system by which civilian goods enter Gaza and expand the inflow of materials for civilian projects under inter

Joint agency release: It is a global scandal that millions of women and newborn babies die or suffer severe injury during childbirth every year – despite the fact that the vast majority of these injuries and deaths are preventable.

Oxfam GB is delighted to confirm the release of their staff member, a Swiss national, Hubert Ballaman, who was abducted in Abéché on 6 June.

In observance of the Day of the African Child, Oxfam urges the international community to act now to save the lives of almost a quarter of a million children in Somalia threatened by conflict, malnutrition and disease.

EU Foreign Affairs Ministers meeting today in Luxembourg discussed how the EU could best support the lifting of the blockade on Gaza. Oxfam welcomes the discussion, but is disappointed that it failed to result in a concrete plan to end the blockade.

EU Development Ministers have just recommited to an old promise made by donors back in 1970s, failing to provide any guarantees to poor countries that Europe is serious about getting back on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals, warns Oxfam.

Oxfam today warned that the Gazan economy, which has been almost completely destroyed by three years of isolation, will continue to unravel unless the blockade is completely and immediately lifted.

Progress achieved during the past two weeks at Bonn will come to nothing if developed countries don’t scale up their ambition. The mood has been more constructive but the disagreements that derailed the Copenhagen talks are still to be resolved.

The European Union has failed to provide clarity about where the €7.2 billion [1] pledged at Copenhagen for immediate climate finance needs in developing countries will come from.

A global bank tax to help poor countries survive the economic crisis must be urgently agreed, Oxfam said today ahead of the G20 meeting of finance ministers in Busan, South Korea.

International aid agency Oxfam welcomes the European Commission’s new aid package of 24 million euros for Niger and other countries in the Sahel region of West Africa, which was announced today in Brussels.

Oxfam condemns Monday’s attack on the aid flotilla that resulted in the killing of a number of passengers and it links the tragedy to the failure of Israel and the international community to lift the three year blockade on the Gaza Strip.

Port-au-Prince: Thousands of earthquake survivors living in camps are vulnerable to landslides and flooding due to hurricanes, according to an evaluation of camp sites carried out by international agency Oxfam.

While Oxfam has no connection to the Gaza flotilla, we condemn any use of violence and loss of life which occured when the Israeli navy intercepted it at sea.