africa

Today, just four of Africa’s richest billionaires hold $57.4 billion in wealth — more than the combined wealth of 750 million people.

Oxfam is deeply alarmed by the ICIJ's findings, which once again show how the World Bank Group and other publicly funded development banks are bankrolling a brutal model of private healthcare that excludes and exploits patients and prioritizes profits over human lives.

94 percent of countries (94 out of 100 countries) with current World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans have cut vital investments in public education, health and social protection over the past two years, according to a new report published today by Oxfam and Development Finance International (DFI).

Despite promises, nearly three-quarters of African governments reduced their agricultural budgets while paying almost double that on arms.

Less than half (49 per cent) of the 2.1 billion COVID vaccine donations promised to poorer countries by G7 countries have been delivered, according to new figures published today by Oxfam and the People’s Vaccine Alliance.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the extreme inequality in Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries and pushed millions into poverty, reveals a new analysis from Oxfam, Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) and Development Finance International (DFI).

Africa is facing a crisis of extreme inequality which is undermining growth, preventing poverty eradication and contributing to insecurity. This briefing paper shows that COVID-19 has deepened this crisis, and that the responses of African governments and international financial institutions are making little difference as debt burdens grow and austerity kicks in.

In response to the publication of Pfizer’s financial results on COVID-19 vaccine sales for last year and projections for its COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral pill this year, Oxfam’s Robbie Silverman said: “Pfizer’s results today are clear evidence of how the company has used its monopoly to enrich its shareholders at the expense of almost half the world’s population who still have no access to lifesaving vaccines."
 

One in five people (282m) is now under-nourished and 93 million in 36 African countries are suffering extreme levels of hunger. Women and children are hit hardest. In Sub-Saharan Africa, one in three children under five is stunted by chronic undernutrition while two out of five women of childbearing age is anemic because of poor diets.

More doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been delivered to the EU, the UK and the United States in the six-week run up to Christmas than African countries have received all year, new analysis from the People’s Vaccine Alliance reveals today.