Press releases

Oxfam is deeply disappointed by today’s donors’ dismally inadequate pledges to East Africa’s crisis; a protracted crisis which continues to be woefully underfunded.

The world spent yearly an estimated $112 billion on arms imports between 2018-2022, even as 9,000 people die each day from hunger driven primarily by conflict. The top five-arms exporters – the USA, Russia, France, China and Germany - which account for over three-quarters of the global arms trade, together sold an estimated $85 billion worth of arms yearly.  

As the international community gathers in New York this week for the Horn of Africa High Level Pledging Conference, we urge global donors to address the impact of the climate injustice taking place in the region by making the financial pledges required to fully fund the humanitarian response and help address immediate and long-term needs across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, where millions of people are trapped in a devastating cycle of hunger and displacement.

Max Lawson, Oxfam International's Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam, said: "The G7 had failed the Global South here in Hiroshima.  They failed to cancel debts, and they failed to find what is really required to end the huge increase in hunger worldwide. They can find untold billions to fight the war but can’t even provide half of what is needed by the UN for the most critical humanitarian crises."

Thousands of South Sudanese communities are opening their own doors and offering their meagre resources to refugees fleeing the conflict in neighbouring Sudan. Oxfam is calling for donor countries to step up to avoid a disaster.

Wealthy Group of Seven (G7) countries owe low- and middle-income countries $13.3 trillion in unpaid aid and funding for climate action, reveals new analysis from Oxfam ahead of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan.

Oxfam and partners are currently assessing the scale of Cyclone Mocha’s devastation to mount a humanitarian response to provide clean water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, as well as emergency cash and food. 

In response to the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip with Israeli airstrikes killing 21 Palestinians, closing key crossings and barring critical supplies from entering Shane Stevenson, Oxfam OPTI Country Director said: “Civilians in Gaza are once again paying the price for the failures of political leaders to negotiate a just solution and lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis."

‘Big Chocolate’ is booking huge profits while failing to pay prices that support a living income for cocoa farmers in Ghana, reveals new analysis by Oxfam today ahead of World Fair Trade Day (13 May). 

The European Parliament voted on the report "Own resources: a fresh start for the EU Finances, a new start for Europe". The ONE Campaign, Oxfam, ActionAid and Global Citizen are campaigning for any new own resources to be used to increase the EU’s external action budget to deliver on the EU’s promises on global development and climate action.

Oxfam is supporting a humanitarian response for refugees arriving from Sudan into South Sudan’s Renk and Raban counties in Upper Nile State, and in Chad’s Sila province. 

In response to the selection today of Ajay Banga as President of the World Bank for a five-year term beginning 2 June, Katie Malouf-Bous, interim Head of Oxfam International’s Washington DC Office, said: "The true test of Ajay Banga starts now: to reorient the World Bank to tackle the extreme inequality that robs billions of people of economic security and dignity. We need huge new investments in development but we need them to be publicly-led and purposed to lift people out of poverty —and we need guardrails around private finance that has run riot for too long."

In reaction to the GRFC 2023, Oxfam Global Food and Economic Security Lead, Emily Farr, said:  “For global hunger to rise for a fourth consecutive year in a world of plenty is a stain on our collective humanity. Decades of progress made to end poverty and hunger are being fast-reversed by conflict, economic shocks, and climate change.  

The top-paid CEOs across four countries enjoyed a 9 percent pay hike in 2022, while workers’ wages fell 3.19 percent during the same period, reveals new analysis from Oxfam ahead of International Workers’ Day (1 May). 

Responding to the EU’s proposed reform of pharmaceutical regulations, Piotr Kolczyński, EU Health Policy Advisor at Oxfam and the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said: "Reducing the exclusivity of data is a step towards improving access to medicines within Europe, but it is total hypocrisy for the EU to protect the right to health in their own borders while undermining it elsewhere. 

Today the European Parliament  Committee on Budgets voted on the Committee's own initiative report on new own resources to finance the EU budget and EU political priorities.

An important International Monetary Fund (IMF) initiative to shore up poor people in the Global South from the worst effects of its own austerity measures and the global economic crisis is in tatters.

Today, the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD DAC) published its preliminary figures on the amount of development aid for 2022. 

In response to the publication today of the World Economic Outlook by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Nabil Abdo, Oxfam International’s senior policy advisor on international financial institutions, said: “The IMF is now saying that fiscal consolidation during economic crisis —like today’s economic maelstrom— hasn't served its primary purpose of reducing debt. It’s positive that the IMF is finally admitting this painfully evident fact, but it’s hugely frustrating that it continues to push austerity measures on poor borrowing countries facing huge economic challenges." 

New Oxfam analysis describes a $27 trillion black hole – accumulating at around $3.9 trillion a year to 2030 – that low-and-middle income countries face to meet climate-related loss and damages, adaptation, and mitigation measures, along with their health, education and social protection needs.