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This week marks one year in office for Jim Yong Kim as president of the World Bank. Raymond Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America said:

The mid-term review of the EU's 7-year budget, the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF), comes at a critical moment. In an era dubbed "perma-crisis," where humanitarian aid and development cooperation struggle against a cascading stream of constant crises, it's time for the European Commission to face reality. This review is an opportunity for the European Commission to give EU countries a frank appraisal of the financial resources needed to live up to the EU’s ambitions of being a global champion of human rights, poverty eradication, tackling inequality and climate action and a leader in crisis response. The EU countries must respond by allocating more funding so that the EU’s aspirational rhetoric doesn’t turn into empty promises.

The conflict in Syria has created a humanitarian crisis, with more than two million people having fled to neighboring countries in the hope of escaping the violence.

Reacting to the announcement that World Bank President Robert Zoellick will step down at the end of his term on June 30th, a global coalition of campaigners has called for an open and merit-based process to elect the next World Bank leader, and for developing countries to determine the selection.

Across the globe, armed conflicts are triggering crisis after crisis, and climate-related emergencies are on the rise. Oxfam is helping build a movement to shift power and resources into the hands of local humanitarian leaders.

This month, development and humanitarian NGOs faced a significant challenge when the Dutch government announced substantial funding cuts of 70%. These cuts are not an isolated incident: earlier this year, Germany announced further cuts in official development aid (ODA), with Belgium and France seeming to follow suit with announced cuts ranging from 15 to 40%. 

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is currently discussing changes to the definition of Official Development Assistance (ODA). This highly technical issue can have a huge impact of what aid will be able to deliver in the future for people who live in poverty. Oxfam calls on governments to recommit to targeting aid to those most in need in view of leaving no one behind. They have to ensure that the credibility and integrity of the DAC’s statistical system and measurement of development finance, particularly of the ODA metric, are further consolidated.

Since the onset of the pandemic, large corporations have put profits before workers’ safety, pushed costs down the supply chain and used their political influence to shape policy responses. COVID-19 should be the catalyst for radically reining in corporate power, restructuring business models and creating an economy for all.

In response to Russia pulling out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Hanna Saarinen, Oxfam food expert, said: “While this grain deal has played a part in calming skyrocketing food prices, it is not the cure-all for world hunger.

For more than a year, violence by armed groups in northern Burkina Faso has forced more than 1.1 million people to flee to safer areas in the south, risking losing everything. This is the case of Kadigueta Barry, 34, who fled the town of Barsalogho with her husband and four children, leaving everything behind.