Policy Papers

The escalation in response to the horrific 7 October 2023 attacks by Palestinian armed groups, is the latest and most brutal onslaught of violence carried out by Israel against Palestinians in the 57-year-long Israeli occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Oxfam along with 14 partner organisations have reached a total of 262,424 people with cash, food, and essential basic items as well as restoring water and sanitation services and providing protection to vulnerable groups.

Oxfam welcomes the work of the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable (GSDR) to build consensus on a set of rules to expedite debt restructuring exercises. This note lays out Oxfam’s views on the GSDR’s agenda, in response to the latest GSDR’s progress report of October 2023. 

Two years on from the escalation of the war in Ukraine, Oxfam spoke with a number of people leading the work of local and national women-led organizations (WLOs), women’s rights organizations (WROs), LGBTQIA+ led organizations, and other local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) addressing the needs of women, girls and gender minorities in Poland and Ukraine. 

When a massive earthquake hit southern Türkiye and northern Syria in early February 2023, it affected people in Syria already suffering through more than a decade of war. One of them was Khadjia , a married mother of five children whose home was partly destroyed. 

As the war in Ukraine continues on, communities affected by the crisis are having to constantly adapt to new realities. In response, humanitarian action needs to be flexible, agile and responsive to people’s needs.

Since 2020, the richest five men in the world have doubled their fortunes. During the same period, almost five billion people globally have become poorer. Hardship and hunger are a daily reality for many people worldwide.

On Thursday, 1 June, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will vote on the EU’s new rules to make companies accountable for the damage they cause to people and the planet: the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). If the European Parliament fails to vote in favour of ambitious amendments, the final text risks being a far cry from what is needed.

Read Oxfam EU's media briefing which breaks down the rules and what MEPs need to do to make them stronger. 

This regional assessment presents the key findings and recommendations from Ukraine, Poland and Romania on the situation and particular challenges facing Roma internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Even before the invasion, Roma communities in Ukraine lived in dire conditions marked by high levels of poverty, segregation, sub-standard and overcrowded housing, and lack of access to essential services such as health and education.

On July 26, 2023, the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Fatherland (CNSP) announced that it had overthrown the current President Mohamed Bazoum and his government. The reaction of part of the international community resulted in a number of individual and collective sanctions.

Oxfam reached 952,428 people across Syria and Türkiye with food, water and sanitation facilities, hygiene and health promotion, and protection interventions in the first six months of its emergency response phase. Oxfam thanks all our supporters and institutional donors who made this possible.

Latin American societies live on a permanent state of economic, social and political polarisation due to the impact of a major inequality crisis in which wealth is highly concentrated, and democracy and natural resources are captured for the benefit of the few. This July, the European Union (EU), under a Spanish presidency that has pushed for a high-level summit between the two regions, has the opportunity to renew the political dialogue, the economic relations and the cooperation agenda so that they can help building new social pacts focused on equality, environmental protection and human rights.

This report examines the support to private healthcare provision in India by the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Despite supporting private healthcare in the country since 1997, no healthcare results for lending and investments have been disclosed since the start of these operations over twenty-five years ago.

Development finance institutions owned by European governments and the World Bank Group are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on expensive for-profit hospitals in the Global South that block patients from getting care, or bankrupt them, with some even imprisoning patients who cannot afford their bills.

Sixteen months ago, war escalated in Ukraine, causing a mass displacement of civilians unprecedented in Europe since the Second World War. Because the scale of suffering was so large, Oxfam decided very quickly to mobilize in support and to build a humanitarian response that was led by local civil society organizations on the ground. From March 2022 to February 2023, with our partners we have supported more than 1.1 million people with vital humanitarian assistance across Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Moldova.

In 2009, high-income countries committed in the Copenhagen Accords to mobilize US$100 billion a year by 2020 in climate finance for low- and middle-income countries. Oxfam reported on the progress of this commitment in 2016, 2018 and 2020. This year’s report finds that high-income countries have not only failed to deliver on their commitment, but also – as in previous years – generous accounting practices have allowed them to overstate the level of support they have actually provided.