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722 of the world’s biggest corporations together raked in over $1 trillion in windfall profits each year for the past two years amid soaring prices and interest rates, while billions of people are having to cut back or go hungry. 

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: "This text is a recognition that WTO rules on intellectual property are a clear barrier to ensuring people get the vaccines, tests, and treatments they need. It is a tragedy that it has taken almost two years and millions of deaths to reach this point and a travesty that the action proposed today falls well short of what is needed."

“The growing global trend of aid cuts is alarming. Donors must ensure there is enough aid so Syrians can rebuild their lives - both now and in the long-term. Syrians themselves must be at the forefront of all discussions on their country’s future. The peace process must be led by Syrians and inclusive of all groups.” 

The gap between where companies pay tax and where they really do their business is huge, as shown by new research described in this briefing.

Reducing the impacts of disasters on poor people is absolutely vital. Climate/disaster risk financing could play a useful role if it is part of an approach that includes risk reduction, if it strengthens social protection, and if it has real participation from civil society.

Tax havens deprive governments around the world of billions of dollars each year, fuelling inequality and poverty. The EU blacklisting process was announced as an attempt to put an end to the era of tax havens. Unfortunately – according to Oxfam research – the EU is set to whitewash some of the world’s worst tax havens.

The World Bank’s 'Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal' report delivers a troubling new assessment of the impact climate change is having on food security, water resources and ecosystems. It warns that without action heat waves and other weather extremes that occur once every hundred years, if ever, would become the new climate normal putting millions of people at risk.

On the newly published UN Synthesis Report on the post-2015 framework, which sets the global development agenda for the next 15 years: Oxfam is disappointed that the UN has not made far stronger proposals to address extreme economic inequality and climate change in its new report.

G20 Finance Ministers must support more fundamental reforms to the global tax system as part of their plans to deliver sustainable economic growth said Oxfam today.

Political leaders must put the interests of the people they represent over corporates and the super-rich if they are going to put a stop to tax scandals, like #ParadisePapers, said Oxfam today.Susana Ruiz, tax policy advisor for Oxfam, said:“Paradise Papers exposes our leaders’ feeble attempts to stop tax cheats. Politicians' tough talk has translated into weak reforms under pressure from big business and the super-rich.“Tax dodging fuels poverty and inequality. When the super-rich and…