Press releases

For every new billionaire created during the pandemic — one every 30 hours — nearly a million people could be pushed into extreme poverty in 2022 at nearly the same rate, reveals a new Oxfam brief today. “Profiting from Pain” is published as the World Economic Forum — the exclusive get-together of the global elite in Davos — takes place for the first time face-to-face since COVID-19, a period during which billionaires have enjoyed a huge boost to their fortunes. 

Tomorrow, European development ministers are meeting to discuss how the Ukraine war impacts food security in the world. Ahead of this, Oxfam is calling on the EU to step up and address global hunger crises mushrooming across the world.  

Today, the European Parliament voted through a non-binding report on the European Commission’s proposal to implement the deal on a global minimum tax at the EU level. EU Finance Ministers are expected to vote on a final agreement next Tuesday, 24 May. 

One person is likely dying of hunger every 48 seconds in drought-ravaged Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, according to estimates by Oxfam and Save the Children in a report published today highlighting the world’s repeated failure to stave off preventable disasters. 

Up to a quarter of a billion people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis and the crisis in Ukraine. Global inequality threatens to rise massively unless more is done to effectively address this situation.
 

In response to the first flight from Sana'a airport in Yemen this week, the Oxfam in Yemen country director, Ferran Puig, said: “The re-opening of Sana’a airport is a positive step that restores hope for an end to the suffering of millions of Yemenis after seven harrowing years of conflict."

In response to the commitments made at President Biden’s Second COVID-19 Summit today, especially the licensing of publicly owned medical technologies, such as the stabilized spike protein for use by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) through the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), Robbie Silverman, Oxfam America’s Senior Manager of Private Sector Advocacy, made the following statement:

World leaders have not done enough to achieve their goal of vaccinating 70% of people in each country by September, campaigners with the People’s Vaccine Alliance warned ahead of the second virtual summit on COVID-19 hosted by US President Biden along with Belize, Germany, Indonesia, and Senegal. The World Health Organization’s target of reaching 70% by mid-year is even further out of reach.

In reaction to the pledges made today at the Brussels conference on Syria, Oxfam in Syria Country Director, Moutaz Adham, said:

The Greek government is operating “a two-tier refugee response” - one for Ukrainians and one for all other refugees according to a new briefing by the Greek Council for Refugees, Oxfam and Save the Children. 

In reaction to today’s "Global Report on Food Crises” which says that more than 193 million people across 53 countries are experiencing acute hunger and require urgent food, nutrition and livelihoods assistance, Oxfam Global Food Security and Livelihoods expert, Emily Farr, said: “It is deeply concerning to find extreme hunger increasing to a magnitude never seen before. 40 million more people have been pushed to extreme hunger, nearly a 25% surge since last year, and 80% since 2016."

Responding to the WTO’s published ‘outcome’ of negotiations over a waiver of Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy for Oxfam and co-chair of the People's Vaccine Alliance, said:
 

In response to this week’s UN General Assembly Resolution that automatically mandates the UN General Assembly to meet within 10 days in the wake of any UN Security Council veto, Oxfam’s Head of the UN New York Office, Brenda Mofya said,

An Oxfam resolution before Moderna shareholders received 24 percent of the nominal vote or 29 percent of the independent vote factoring in the 17 percent of the vote share owned by the company's directors and senior executives. A similar resolution before Pfizer shareholders garnered 27 percent of the vote.
 

In separate virtual addresses to the shareholders of Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Oxfam called on the pharmaceutical corporations to improve COVID-19 vaccine equity and access so that everyone, everywhere has access to these life-saving shots. 

As donors convene in Geneva, Oxfam and over 50 NGOs call for an urgent and substantial step-up in funding and leadership to respond to the humanitarian catastrophe facing millions in the Horn of Africa due to the severe drought, warning that further delays will cost lives.  

87 percent of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) COVID-19 loans are requiring developing countries that have been denied equal access to vaccines and are facing some of the world’s worst humanitarian crises to adopt tough, new austerity measures that will further exacerbate poverty and inequality.

Responding to the IPC report published over the weekend with alarming figures of around 7.74 million people in South Sudan likely to experience high levels of acute food insecurity between April and July 2022, Oxfam Lead in South Sudan, Juliet Moriku Balikowa said: “These latest figures just reiterate the desperate situation many people in South Sudan are facing. The number of people classified in areas of catastrophic hunger is alarming."

Over a quarter of a billion more people could crash into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 because of COVID-19, rising global inequality and the shock of food price rises supercharged by the war in Ukraine, reveals a new Oxfam brief today.