The negotiations, which have been on-going for four years, are a means for the two economies to agree on a trade pact and forge a new commercial relationship. The EU, backed by multinational pharmaceutical companies, are trying to impose new intellectual property and investment (IP) rules in India, which would result in drastically higher medicine prices for the poorest people across the globe.

Oxfam policy advisor, Rohit Malpani, said. “The summit on Friday will be closely watched to see whether the EU and India will negotiate a trade agreement which puts people’s lives before the commercial interests of multinational drug companies.

“At a time of austerity and declining aid budgets, especially for health, efforts to increase medicine prices for the world’s poor would be a double blow and have a devastating impact on the achievement of health-related Millennium Development Goals.” 

India plays a critical role in the global medicines market, producing over two-thirds of all generic medicines; affordable versions of drugs licensed by multinational companies, which are largely sold to poor and middle income countries. Currently, over 80 per cent of all HIV and AIDS medicines are manufactured by generic companies in India, but if new trade rules are agreed the price of life-saving treatment would increase drastically*.

Oxfam India CEO, Nisha Agrawal, said. “The Indian Government - until now - has repeatedly rejected the EU demands to introduce any of the additional intellectual property rules under the free trade agreement.  We strongly support that stance. Given the background of ongoing policy level discussions on universal, affordable and free access to health care in India, to introduce additional intellectual property rules as a condition of the free trade agreement would be contradictory, since it would escalate the cost of medicines in India and also across the developing world.”

Malpani added. “If the EU succeeds in imposing strict IP rules upon the Indian Government, the massive hike in medicine prices could undermine European leadership to provide international aid for global health. Worryingly it could also debilitate donor programmes that provide access to treatment around the world.”

/Ends

For more information, or to arrange an interview with an Oxfam spokesperson, please contact: Sarah Dransfield on +44(0)1865 472269, +44 (0)7767 085636 or sdransfield@oxfam.org.uk

Notes to editors:
An Oxfam media briefing for the EU-India Summit, Affordable Medicines under Threat, is available.

*the cost of medicines drops 90-99 percent with generic competition. Delays in introducing generics will result in medicine prices remaining patented and too expensive - which will increase the cost of health care for governments and households.

Six months ago Oxfam launched its biggest ever Africa appeal in response to the drought in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. The crisis is one of the worst we have faced in many years – more than 13 million people have been affected, thousands have died, and many families have lost their livelihoods.

The situation remains extremely concerning, especially in Somalia. But your help has gone a very long way. In response to the appeal, the public all over the world donated around $32m to Oxfam.

This response has saved many lives and Oxfam continues to provide emergency and long-term support to nearly 3 million people affected across the region, helping them recover and cope with future droughts.

Support Oxfam’s east Africa response

In a nutshell, this Bill would change the funding arrangements for cases meaning that many communities in the developing world, and the lawyers who fight for them, just won’t be able to shoulder the financial risk of taking on big multinational companies when they are involved in human rights abuses. With evidence of an increasing number of land grabs, it is vital that companies know they risk being taken to court if they abuse the human rights of local people, and that communities have the practical ability to seek justice.

Last week some of us spent quite a few hours watching the slow progress of the House of Lords debating this bill line by line. But we were rewarded by a good number of Peers from all political parties standing up and rigorously defending the rights of poor people to access justice. Although at the moment the UK Government are still stating that they don’t see the need to change this Bill, we in fact achieved a great result as they have promised to look again at the issue – completely due to the strong show of support in the House of Lords and all the pressure they have been getting from the public. You can see from of a reply from the Ministry of Justice to Oxfam that, although the Government aren’t budging yet, they are responding to the concerns raised by thousands of Oxfam supporters.

There is now a real window to press for concessions.  Keep emailing the Government about this – they have noticed the large number of public concern.  If you have time, it is even more powerful if you write an urgent personal letter. If you’d like support, please get in touch with your regional Oxfam campaigns office for help with this.

Selina's contractions

Oxfam have  collected images and stories of Ghanaian women and their experiences of having a baby, and the healthcare they received. They highlight the urgent need for quality maternal healthcare and what still needs to change to ensure women receive it.

Challenging people’s perceptions is always healthy. Pregnant women have recently become entitled to free health care in countries like Sierra Leone and Ghana, largely thanks to the financial support which countries like the UK have made available to those Governments. This is a huge step forward, but still every week 75 women in Ghana die because of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, and the chances of a woman

Mother and baby resting in the hospital for 24 hours after birth

This is why we need to keep talking about maternal healthcare – and why you can make such a difference by borrowing the Birth Rights photos to organise your very own exhibition.

We’d like as many people as possible to see these thought provoking images and   find out how women’s and babies’ lives have changed thanks to governments investing in healthcare in developing countries

Selina Fletcher, 30, recently gave birth to her third child

Oxfam has just launched a campaign called Birth Rights as part of its Health and Education For All campaign. It’s a response to the fact that every week, around 75 women in Ghana die because of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, and that worldwide, 1 woman dies every minute.

If you’re angry about women in Ghana dying in childbirth and want to show your friends and family why you are interested in maternal health care; or you want to get people in your community or university on board; or you want to make sure that the British Government helps save more women’s lives or you simply like organising events, then Birth Rights is the campaign for you. An opportunity to do something effective and really worthwhile. 

Birth Rights is a set of resources for you to use in your school, university or community. There are 20 A2 photo boards which tell the story of two women’s experiences of childbirth in Ghana.  There is also a film about a day in the life of a midwife working in the rural north of Ghana. These resources exist to raise awareness about the importance of maternal health care, as the more people know about what’s going on, the more chance there is to influence things for the better.

Wherever you are, just think of a good spot where you could host a Birth Rights event, be it a photo exhibition or a film screening. Just borrow the photo boards from our regional offices, and put them up in your local café, library or hospital waiting room.

To make the most impact with your event there are 3 things to remember:

-       Encourage people to write a message to their local MP in the cards provided, asking her/him to support the government’s commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on aid.

-       Let your MP know about the event, and invite them along, either to speak or just have a look

-       Tell your local media by sending in a press release with info about your event

To contact your regional office:

London and South East: scorbett@oxfam.org.uk, South West: sdaly@oxfam.org.uk

Midlands: ngora@oxfam.org.uk, North of England: nsansom@oxfam.org.uk

Oxfam in Wales: jrosser@oxfam.org.uk, Oxfam in Scotland: scowan@oxfam.org.uk

Any questions, or if you need any help, please contact us.

Happy campaigning!

In a new report, Crises in a New World Order, Oxfam said that while governments’ and agencies’ response to emergencies has greatly improved it still remains ‘too little, too late’ and is often determined by the vagaries of media and political interest rather than level of human need.

“Coping with the expected strains on the humanitarian system will mean a shift from global to local. We are already seeing the centre of humanitarian action moving away from the Western world to the local and the national but this move needs to accelerate. International aid agencies cannot just pitch up, patch up and push-off, they also have to ensure that people and countries are better prepared to withstand future shocks. Having local organisations already on the ground which are primed to go will increase both the speed and the efficiency of the aid effort and ultimately will save more lives,” said Jane Cocking Oxfam’s Humanitarian Director.

This shift is vital as significant demands will be placed on the humanitarian system through the expected rise in the number of people exposed to disasters, the rising number of weather-related disasters and the failure to resolve conflicts adequately and turn round failed states.

Humanitarian work is effective in an emergency but more emphasis should be placed on preventing crises escalating. Not only would it save lives, but it would also save money. The UN estimated that in Niger in 2005 it cost $1 to save a malnourished child’s life. Once Niger’s food crisis was in full swing it cost $80.

Too little has been done to prevent and reduce the risk of disaster. Aid to programmes that reduce the risk of disaster stood at only 0.5 per cent of total aid spending in 2009. National governments have committed themselves to this work by signing up to the international agreements on disaster risk reduction. While many have developed policies and legislation too little effective action has happened.

Bangladesh is an example of the importance of this work. In 1991 a cyclone struck Bangladesh killing an estimated 140,000 people. A similar sized cyclone hit the country in 2007 killing 3,406 people, still a high death toll but much reduced due in part to the government’s efforts at implementing early warnings and evacuating people to safety.

“Shifting more money to preventing and reducing the risk of disaster makes eminent sense but it does not mean taking it away from urgent humanitarian response. It is not the case of either or. We will still need the funds to respond immediately to dire human crises,” said Cocking.

This vision of a new humanitarian world is fraught with challenges. Ensuring the quality of aid and the principles that guide humanitarian action will not be easy.

Over the last two decades a great deal of effort has been done to lay down minimum standards and quality of humanitarian aid. National governments and local organisations will need a great deal of support, and in some cases encouragement, to adhere to these standards.

The more fundamental challenge will be upholding the principles of impartiality - aid based on need - and independence - aid free of political interest. Many Western donors tend to focus on their spheres of influence and interest which may not coincide always with meeting human need. Non-Western donors are now becoming more important funders of humanitarian operations. But they too have their own particular interests. For example the Arab and Muslim countries in 2011 gave generously to Somalia, Libya and Yemen. These decisions reflect political and cultural affinities but also raise questions of how aid is to be targeted to human need.

New entrants into the operations of humanitarian aid will pose challenges to impartiality and independence. The increased involvement of the private sector in supporting the aid effort is welcome and has many benefits but running aid programmes themselves will challenge humanitarian principles given that commercial interest sits uncomfortably with putting human need first and foremost.

A friend of mine who has lived in poverty for some time – and is an angry, energetic activist – tells of an interview she did with a journalist about her experience of fuel poverty and the choices she has to make living on the breadline.

At the close of the interview, the journalist said to her “but you’re not really poor are you?”, with a knowing, conspiratorial nod.

My friend asked “what do you mean?”, to which he explained “well, you’ve got great hair, posh looking glasses and lipstick.”

So apparently people can’t be poor and have pride in their appearance at the same time.

But the reality is that my friend is one of the world’s best budgeters and is able to find the best bargains (take note Messrs Osbourne, Johnson and Cameron). She chose well when she received her glasses from the NHS. She has her hair done for free at a local training college and her good taste means she selects quality, stylish items from her local charity shop.

But is seems that’s not good enough – she needs to be conspicuously poor.

This story speaks to a much wider issue of hidden poverty, but also assumptions, misunderstandings and stereotypes.

For example, earlier this year I was part of a radio phone-in about people claiming disability related benefits. The allegation was being made – not for the first time – that most people do so fraudulently, when they are actually fit and well and just too lazy to work. The protagonist’s claim was that because he sees people walking around near his local cafe, dragging their walking sticks, rather than leaning on them, and clearly not at work, then they must be faking a disability and thus fraudulently claiming benefits.

But one only needs to remember that we live in a society in which over half of people receiving disability related benefits are doing so on the basis of poor mental health to recognise that people leaning on their walking sticks isn’t a good proxy for the number of people who don’t ‘really need’ benefits. And more than this, the assumptions contained in the journalist’s allegations and assertions are that style and taste is only the prerogative of those with money.

Writ-large this is a dangerous imposition of superiority and social hierarchy, in which people buy taste, and through this demonstrate some sort of higher value – apparently showing the world they have money, are more successful and somehow inherently better than others.

The latest figures from the FSNAU show that rains at the end of last year have led to a good harvest in the river areas. Information from Oxfam’s partners in Somalia indicates that humanitarian aid is reaching people in some of the regions worst-affected by the food crisis through provision of seeds, tools, tractors, training and infrastructure repair. According to the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU), 2.34 million people are still in crisis.

The latest figures from the FSNAU show that rains at the end of last year have led to a good harvest in the river areas. Information from Oxfam’s partners in Somalia indicates that humanitarian aid is reaching people in some of the regions worst-affected by the food crisis through provision of seeds, tools, tractors, training and infrastructure repair. According to the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU), 2.34 million people are still in crisis.

“The UK’s renewed diplomatic focus on Somalia is a welcome step, if it reinvigorates the search for solutions to this long-running crisis. As London prepares to host heads of state later this month, leaders must recognise that more than four million people are still at the epicentre of the world’s biggest humanitarian emergency. For too long, international and regional policies have inadvertently made things worse for ordinary Somalis.

“The British Government’s renewed diplomatic focus should be the start of a move towards a Somali-led resolution to the conflict and an approach that puts the interests of people first.”

Immediate impressions on leaving the ramshackle airport do little to confound expectations. The first thing to confront the new arrival is a camp for displaced people, huddled next to the perimeter wall – hovels of scruffy grey tarpaulins stretched over fragile frames. With half a million people still living under canvas two years after the shock, it’s a sight you quickly get used to.

Immediately, we plunge into Port-au-Prince’s labyrinth of alleyways. Few are paved, most are deeply rutted, all are indescribably dusty – a remnant of the rubble the earthquake left behind. Half of that has been cleared – 5m cubic metres, mostly by hand. Yet there are still signs of seismic destruction – buildings reduced to a pancake, a house front lying drunkenly on its side.

The built environment of Haiti’s capital is the worst I’ve seen. Almost every structure is haphazardly constructed from crumbling grey breeze blocks, unadorned with paint or plaster. It is difficult to tell which are partially built, which partially destroyed.

What is easier to discern is that the infrastructure of Port-au-Prince was deeply inadequate and degraded long before the earthquake – a point critics of the relief effort ignore. As Cecilia Millan, Oxfam Great Britain’s acting Country Director explains, this is a city designed for 300,000 trying to house many millions. Only a third of households had regular clean water and half adequate sanitation. Rubbish is everywhere, choking the gutters. It’s the pigs and goats who prosper.

Somehow, people go about the normal business of living in this dystopian cityscape. Children walk to school. Workers hurry past with their dry cleaning. The hand-painted “tap taps” are packed to the gunnels. On every kerbside small traders display their wares. But any suggestion of bustle and commerce is misleading. Around 70% of the population is without salaried employment.

This is the backdrop to Oxfam’s work in Haiti. We established a development programme in 1978, which after the earthquake was scaled up to meet the immediate humanitarian needs of those affected, including 300,000 injured and more than 1 million left homeless. Oxfam raised $106m for its emergency response and has spent all but $10m, directly and through partners, on providing water and sanitation in the camps, food and cash handouts, rubble and waste clearance and shelter. We also responded to a serious cholera outbreak, which has claimed nearly 7,000 lives.

Inevitably, two years on, Oxfam GB’s humanitarian programme is being scaled back – although in monetary terms we still aim to spend twice as much in the next financial year as we did in the last year before the earthquake. The team has shrunk from a peak of 900 to 150. Our visit coincides with a potentially awkward moment of transition for Oxfam in Haiti.

Barbara and I visit the Golf Camp – made famous by the patronage of the US movie actor, Sean Penn. It’s one of only two camps in which Oxfam remains active. We’ve handed over our water tanks, pipes and kiosks and latrine blocks in a state of good repair to the camp’s water committee, which is responsible for operation and for managing relationships with the authorities and suppliers. There is a lot of good will towards us, but the residents are clearly finding it a struggle to pay for water once more and to manage their own supply after two years of reliance on others.

I’m more encouraged by a visit to Corail camp two days later, with Amelie Gauthier and Charles Peleg from the Haiti media team. Here the water committee seems more in control. The facilities are in good order. We have examples of Oxfam’s enterprise work to show journalists, with a variety of small businesses, including a barber and a baker, having benefited from our cash grants. It’s also an excellent opportunity to see Oxfam’s programme staff, all native Haitians, at work in the field.

The dedication of Oxfam employees is much in evidence in Haiti. It is moving to see them link arms in the office car park to sing a psalm during a commemoration for two colleagues who lost their lives during the earthquake. Yet, despite this show of solidarity, they aren’t immune to the pall of insecurity that hangs over the country. That much is evident in the staff surgeries that Barbara holds.

This feeling of uncertainty is my dominant impression of Haiti. It is there in the UN compound, when we visit the Special Representative. It is there in the questions asked by local journalists in interviews with Barbara. It is even there at the Minister for the Interior, where we meet the government’s representative under the wary eye of numerous armed minders. No one seems to have a clear idea of what the future holds for Haiti.

Oxfam is an organisation with a greater sense of certainty than most. It has been hugely encouraging for me, on my first overseas programme visit, to see how efficiently the organisation functions, even in the most challenging of circumstances. But even we face big questions about our future role. With 40,000 people leaving the camps each month, the emphasis is finally shifting to the infrastructure of Port-au-Prince. What role should Oxfam play in improving access to permanent WASH facilities for residents, while continuing our work in areas like agricultural enterprise and gender protection?

What Haiti is most in need of is leadership. Many individuals are striving to improve their lot and their environment. But these efforts seem fragmentary. There are no major infrastructure projects, no real sign of collective endeavour. Without that leadership, no amount of support from donors and humanitarian agencies like Oxfam, will permanently improve the lives of Haiti’s people.

Haiti: Two years on

Photo: Adam Tucker

First port of call was the swishing area, where myself and a fellow Oxfam volunteer Eilisha managed to find some amazing items. A great vintage brown bag, floral dress, and a beautiful mustard velveteen top, left me feeling very pleased with my swish!

Photo: Adam Tucker

Photo: Adam Tucker

ReFashion was a great example of the innovative ways that textiles can be saved from the landfill, and it was great to see so many people being involved and enthused by sustainable fashion.

Photo: Adam Tucker

The article notes that:

• Oxfam is particularly concerned about the legal changes at a time when western companies are increasingly buying up land in the developing world.
• Oxfam said: “This modern day land rush follows a drive to produce enough food for people overseas, meet damaging biofuels targets or speculate on land to make an easy profit.
• “However, many of the deals are in fact land grabs where the rights and needs of the people living on the land are ignored, leaving them homeless and without land to grow enough food to eat and make a living.”
• Kathleen Spencer Chapman of Oxfam said: “It will become impossible for claimants to find anyone to represent them because the cases will be economically unviable.
• “The insurance premiums can be huge but will no longer be recoverable. Clinical negligence cases will, the bill says, be exempt from this. We think human rights cases should be exempted as well.”

Gates says:

The very fact that $2.1 billion has been donated to help the victims of the famine is a testament to human beings’ generosity. But that fact of our generosity also explains why I am so frustrated by the increasing opposition in many rich countries to foreign aid.

And he cites some powerful statistics to argue the importance of aid:

In the past 50 years, the number of children who die every year has gone down from 20 million to fewer than 8 million. Meanwhile, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has declined by more than half. These massive improvements are due in large part to aid-funded programs to buy vaccines and boost farmers’ productivity.

What do you think about aid? As Bill puts it, “we know people care about the suffering of others … So what keeps them from supporting government investments to alleviate extreme suffering?”

Children in India are showing the rest of us a thing or two about campaigning with their huge ‘Nine is Mine’ campaign. They’re holding the Indian government to account over their promise to allocate 9% of government spending to education and health.

Nine is Mine kicked off in 2006 when twenty inspirational children met with the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and asked him to keep to his promise to give all children in India access to health and education. The children presented the PM with a giant ‘9-is-mine’ postcard containing a colossal 200,001 signatures, and told him stories of their difficulties accessing their basic rights to education and health.

One 11 year old girl told him how she had been forced to drop out of school because of her parent’s struggles to pay school fees. Others highlighted problems with a lack of schools, describing how many of their peers had to walk miles to their nearest one. Children explained how they cannot access adequate health facilities and this is a big factor affecting their ability to go to school.

‘Nine is Mine’ is led by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (Keep your promise campaign), a national coalition of civil society organisations who are working to remind the government of promises it has made to the Indian people. It is a fantastic platform for some of India’s most disadvantaged children to demand that the government keeps to its word to raise levels of investment in their basic rights. Last year marginalised children from Chandigarh cycled 300km over 8 days to New Delhi, raising awareness of the campaign and holding rallies in towns that they passed through.

‘Nine is Mine’ in 2012
This year ‘Nine is Mine’ has come up with an exciting programme to coincide with the Republic Day holiday in India this Thursday 26th January. They are inviting groups of 9 children from various states, representing different facets of vulnerability (including street children and victims of natural disasters) to New Delhi where they will be hosted by schools in the capital for a week. They will take part in workshops with their hosts and meet ministers and MPs to share their experiences and participate in the Republic Day parade.

On 30th January the children will contribute to ‘Public day’ celebrations at the National Stadium in New Delhi, where an inclusive, equal world will be evoked through cultural dances, a candle light vigil and a parade on the theme of a poverty free India. All these events are planned a month prior to the announcement of India’s annual budget. This is a critical time to put pressure on the government to act for a more inclusive India.

Watch and share video highlights of the ‘Nine is Mine’ campaign

This blog initially appeared in our Oxfam Youth Action hub

But there’s a problem. As a large converted house in a nice part of town, and like most such houses in Nairobi, it has a swimming pool. But the swimming DSC00645pool is covered over and closed, even though it would be cheap to keep it open. Why? Reputational risk – back in the UK, where swimming pools are luxury items, Oxfam’s big cheeses saw a tabloid scandal in the making and closed it (see right, the blue of the pool is a protective tarpaulin, not water). It didn’t help when some bright spark decided to advertise for a swimming pool attendant on the Oxfam website…

On my recent stay at the guesthouse, I asked everyone I met there and whether African or mzungu, they all said it makes sense to open the pool. Exhausted aid workers arrive hot and dusty from remote areas of East Africa for some R&R, but there’s no chance of a refreshing swim. I need my exercise so had to go running instead – the combination of altitude, hills and choking traffic fumes nearly killed me.

On the other hand there’s no denying that most of our supporters back in the UK, let alone the people we are working to help, are not likely to have access to a pool in their back yard, so why should aid workers get special treatment? (And I have to confess, when I interviewed the members of a sex workers’ collective in Rio de Janeiro a few years ago as they relaxed by their aid-funded organization’s pool, I was rather shocked myself.)

So what do you think? Should Oxfam open the pool and take any bad publicity on the chin, or should we stop whining? It would probably cost about $200-300 a month to keep the pool open – if we could find a way to do it without creating an accounting nightmare, we could probably raise that from contributions from guests, and even have money to spare to plough back into Oxfam programmes. Vote now on my blog.

Vote choices: Open the pool; Open the pool but only on if it at least covers its own costs; Keep the pool closed; Don’t waste my time – use the blog for something more high-minded please (and you can choose more than one option).

Just a coincidence that it’s Oscars time in Hollywood, but we’ve had our own moment in the spotlight with The Global Journal ranking Oxfam number three on the world’s Top 100 Best NGOs list. Given the number one pick is the Wikimedia Foundation and number two is Partners for Health, a small but highly respected NGO that works only in Haiti, being chosen number three is an important recognition of Oxfam’s global leadership.

“Recognizing the significant role of NGOs as influential agents of change on a global scale, The Global Journal has sought to move beyond outdated clichés and narrow conceptions about what an NGO is and does,” the Journal article said. “From humanitarian relief to the environment, public health to education, microfinance to intellectual property, NGOs are increasingly at the forefront of developments shaping the lives of millions of people around the world.”

Here’s some of what the Journal says about Oxfam:

“In many ways, Oxfam encapsulates in one organization the various functions of a modern NGO. It engages in humanitarian work, assisting those immediately affected by conflict and natural disasters. It implements development programs, seeking to lift communities out of poverty with long-term, sustainable solutions. It lobbies and advocates, in a bid to affect policy decisions on the causes of conflict at local, national, and international levels. It undertakes in-depth and rigorous research into best practices and structural challenges. And it does all of these things effectively and to the highest standards.”

Ladies from Northern brass bands get together for Oxfam in Huddersfield

Women brass musicians causing a media storm in Huddersfield

It was as fantastic opportunity to talk to people in the area, and raise awareness in the press, about the Get Together campaign - encouraging women (and men!) up and down the country to get together on International Women’s Day (March 8th) and raise money to support Oxfam’s work with women around the world.

Tabby Clegg, musical director for the Slaithwaite Band in Huddersfield

Your get together can take any form, from a relaxing afternoon tea or pamper evening, to a lively ceilidh, music gig or zumbathon. Get creative and get involved! Let us know what exciting ideas you’ve had for your event, and register online to receive your free fundraising hosts pack here.

A big thank you to Tabby Clegg of Mode For Publishing who brought all the brass band ladies together for us, all of the players for giving up their Wednesday morning for us, and all of the press and spectators for coming down – we couldn’t have asked for a better way to launch Get Together in the North!

Yet another aspect of re-greening the world involves planting mangroves, or coastal mini-forests. Mangroves cushion the blows of storm surges and even tsunamis. It’s also a great place for women to glean shells to feed their families or to sell at markets. For many poor seaside communities a mangrove protects them from inclement weather and offers them a steady source of food and income. Sadly, mangroves are becoming less and less ubiquitous. Here’s a video from WWF on why that’s happening:

Which is why we’re glad to know that the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) will plant 50,000 mangroves propagules (seeds or saplings) in Apua Island, Mercedes, in Camarines Norte. At the helm of this mangrove plantation project are poor women. Working at mangroves does not take women away far from their homes, allowing them to attend to their children and to carry out their household responsibilities. Men traditionally go out to sea to fish.

Read BFAR’s good news

Oxfam’s work in the Philippines

Read the January 2012 Campaign News

Share your comments below about the issues in this month’s newsletter including:

Email William Hague

Ugandan land grab latest

International Womens Day

And any other issues from this month’s newsletter

The Office of the Compliance Adviser/Ombudsman (CAO) handles complaints from communities affected by investments made by the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC). It has confirmed that it will launch an independent process to find a resolution to the dispute involving the UK’s New Forests Company (NFC). The IFC has invested in an agribusiness fund, Agri-Vie, which has an equity stake in and seat on the board of NFC.

Oxfam has been calling for an independent investigation since September when it published its research into the evictions in Mubende and Kiboga districts, based on extensive consultations with hundreds of individuals from the affected communities. The CAO has accepted the eligibility of the complaints that were filed by Ugandan communities and co-signed by Oxfam and the Uganda Land Alliance. This is the first step in a process which Oxfam believes could secure redress for the communities, who have lost their homes and the land they relied on for their livelihoods.

The CAO process aims to find a negotiated resolution between the complainants, the company and any others relevant to the process. NFC has already confirmed that it will participate in this process.

Oxfam Chief Executive Barbara Stocking said: “This is an important step towards giving a voice to the thousands of people left destitute. We hope it will lead to securing the redress they deserve.

“We welcome New Forests Company’s commitment to participate in this process and look forward to finding a resolution as soon as possible.”

Oxfam’s focus on this case is part of the international agency’s GROW campaign, which aims to secure a future for everyone to have enough to eat. Oxfam is concerned about the accelerated rush for land, especially in Africa, and the lack of effective international rules to protect the poorest people who depend on the land for food.

In the next stage of the CAO process, up to six months will be spent on clarifying the issues and concerns raised by the complainants and gathering information on how others involved see the situation. This will help the CAO and all relevant parties to determine whether and how they might be able to resolve the issues. The CAO will then publish a report containing its assessment of the situation, which will describe the proposed course of action that has been agreed by all.   

// Ends

Notes to editors:

Complaint letters were sent to the CAO from the affected communities in Kiboga and Mubende on December 20, outlining the adverse social impacts related to the NFC operations. Both Oxfam and the Uganda Land Alliance were co-signatories. To view the letters, visit: http://www.cao-ombudsman.org

Foreign and Commonwealth Office/Flickr

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill is still progressing through Parliament. This Bill threatens to make it harder for communities affected by corporate land grabs to seek justice in UK courts. It’s now time to contact Foreign Secretary William Hague to call for this Bill to be amended.

A couple of months ago, we asked you to contact your MP about the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. Thank you to all of you who took this action. It was a great first step - but the Bill has already passed through the House of Commons and is currently being discussed in the Lords so we need to keep up the pressure.

It’s now time to contact Foreign Secretary William Hague, in charge of the department responsible for addressing human rights, to call for this Bill to be amended.

Land grabs are devastating communities around the world. As it stands, this Bill will make it harder for people to seek justice in UK courts when their rights have been violated by British companies involved in land grabs. 

We need to remind the Foreign Secretary that the UK has signed up to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and that this Bill undermines Britain’s commitments on business and human rights.  The UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights has also expressed concerns that these measures in the Bill would result in practical and procedural barriers for those seeking justice.

Please ask the Foreign Secretary to make sure this Bill is urgently amended so that it does not reduce the practical ability of those suffering human rights abuses by British companies to seek redress through our courts.

It’s time to take action.

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill is still progressing through Parliament. This Bill threatens to make it harder for communities affected by corporate land grabs to seek justice in UK courts. So it’s time to contact Foreign Secretary William Hague to amend it.

A couple of months ago, we asked you to contact your MP about the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. Thank you to all of you who took this action. It was a great first step - but the Bill has already passed through the House of Commons and is currently being discussed in the Lords so we need to keep up the pressure.

It’s now time to contact Foreign Secretary William Hague, in charge of the department responsible for addressing human rights, to call for this Bill to be amended.

Land grabs are devastating communities around the world. As it stands, this Bill will make it harder for people to seek justice in UK courts when their rights have been violated by British companies involved in land grabs. For information on how this Bill will have an effect on vulnerable people, check out this briefing note.

We need to remind the Foreign Secretary that the UK has signed up to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and that this Bill undermines Britain’s commitments on business and human rights. Professor John Ruggie, the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights has also expressed concerns that these measures in the Bill would result in practical and procedural barriers for those seeking justice.

Please ask the Foreign Secretary to make sure this Bill is urgently amended so that it does not reduce the practical ability of those suffering human rights abuses by British companies to seek redress through our courts.

It’s time to take action for Justice

A couple of months ago, we asked you to contact your MP about the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. Thank you to all of you who took this action. It was a great first step - but the Bill has already passed through the House of Commons and is currently being discussed in the Lords so we need to keep up the pressure.

It’s now time to contact Foreign Secretary William Hague, in charge of the department responsible for addressing human rights, to call for this Bill to be amended.

Land grabs are devastating communities around the world. As it stands, this Bill will make it harder for people to seek justice in UK courts when their rights have been violated by British companies involved in land grabs. For information on how this Bill will have an effect on vulnerable people, check out this briefing note.

We need to remind the Foreign Secretary that the UK has signed up to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and that this Bill undermines Britain’s commitments on business and human rights. The UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights has also expressed concerns that these measures in the Bill would result in practical and procedural barriers for those seeking justice.

Please ask the Foreign Secretary to make sure this Bill is urgently amended so that it does not reduce the practical ability of those suffering human rights abuses by British companies to seek redress through our courts.

It’s time to take action.

Foreign Secretary, William Hague. Credit: Foreign and Commonwealth Office/Flickr

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill is still progressing through Parliament. This Bill threatens to make it harder for communities affected by corporate land grabs to seek justice in UK courts. So it’s time to contact Foreign Secretary William Hague to amend it.

A couple of months ago, we asked you to contact your MP about the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. Thank you to all of you who took this action. It was a great first step - but the Bill has already passed through the House of Commons and is currently being discussed in the Lords so we need to keep up the pressure.

It’s now time to contact Foreign Secretary William Hague, in charge of the department responsible for addressing human rights, to call for this Bill to be amended.

Land grabs are devastating communities around the world. As it stands, this Bill will make it harder for people to seek justice in UK courts when their rights have been violated by British companies involved in land grabs. For information on how this Bill will have an effect on vulnerable people, check out this briefing note.

We need to remind the Foreign Secretary that the UK has signed up to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and that this Bill undermines Britain’s commitments on business and human rights. The UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights has also expressed concerns that these measures in the Bill would result in practical and procedural barriers for those seeking justice.

Please ask the Foreign Secretary to make sure this Bill is urgently amended so that it does not reduce the practical ability of those suffering human rights abuses by British companies to seek redress through our courts.

It’s time to take action.

Since 2008, Oxfam and its partners in the Russian branch of the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) have been operating Information and Consulting Centres to inform poor men and women of their medical rights, and to provide legal support when their rights are violated. The centres help more than 160 people per month through direct consultations, and thousands more through lectures and meetings, information pamphlets, and a website.

However, Oxfam’s work with GCAP recently uncovered an even more disturbing discovery: healthcare workers are also unaware of patients’ rights. Oksana Aleksandrova is professor of health law at the Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy, and scientific consultant to the branch of the project in Tyumen, a Siberian city on the Tura River. As she describes it, “the horror lay in the fact that medical professionals know very little about the rights of citizen. A large proportion of violations related to the fact that healthcare providers really think they are doing everything right.”

Aleksandrova has championed a joint working approach with regional insurance funds, rather than taking every violation case to court. “In conflict situations, [health professionals] are vulnerable because of their ignorance”, she says. The work has already brought significant progress. Moreover, it has been complemented by the next stage of Oxfam’s healthcare project: the establishment of public councils at health facilities to advise patients and professionals on their rights and duties. In these councils, doctors, local government officials and charities come together to provide advice and information, and to communicate the proposals of patients to the management of clinics.

Alexandrova is positive about the continuation of the project. Moreover, she sees potential for expansion: “The area for further work concerns scrutiny of health organisations. In Europe, routine quality control of medical care given by doctors is always performed by professional experts. The problem is that our health care system is completely controlled by the medical community. And herein lies the future of the project. ”

Oxfam’s work in Russia

During this period, sales of second-hand goods in particular were up by 23% year-on-year. Books, music and homewares provided some stand-out highlights.  For the five weeks ending 31 December 2011:

• Books: +19% year-on-year. Plus week ending 24 December 2011 was the best of the last five years.

• Homewares: +25% year-on-year.  Plus week ending 24 December 2011 was also the best of the last five years.

• Music: +24% year-on-year. Plus the two weeks up to 24 December were the best of the last five years.

There were similarly strong like-for-like figures for Oxfam clothing during December 2011, up 25% on the previous year.

In the longer 14 week period to the 31 December 2011, the charity’s network of 700 shops across the UK saw a like-for-like increase of 5%.

Oxfam’s trading director, Andrew Horton, said: “We are delighted with our Christmas trading; December 2011 proved to be a bumper month compared with like-for-likes.  In what has been a challenging year for retailers, for the NGO sector and for consumers – all feeling the effects of the continuing global economic crisis – we are pleased to report that Oxfam’s trading income and donated sales continue to increase.

“Oxfam shops play a vital role - not only in the life of communities and high streets across the UK, but also in funding our development work, emergency humanitarian response and campaigning on issues which affect the poorest people in the world – and we’re urgently calling on the public for stock donations to help us continue this work.”

Although donations to Oxfam’s shops rose by 1% in December, the charity has seen a serious decline in donations over the last year.

More than 80% of Oxfam’s total income from its shops comes from donations from the public of clothes, books, music, homewares and other goods.

Ends/..

For further information and interviews, please contact Amy MacLaren or Nazneen Nawaz at Colman Getty on: T: 020 7631 2666 | E: amy@colmangetty.co.uk / nazneen@colmangetty.co.uk
Notes to Editors:

Oxfam is a global humanitarian, development and campaigning organisation working with others to overcome poverty and suffering.  Since its Oxford-based beginnings in 1942, it has grown into a worldwide force.  Oxfam is now working in nearly 60 countries on a diverse range of projects, from providing emergency water sources to supporting community health projects.

Oxfam has one million supporters in the UK.  For every £1 donated to its general funds, 83p is spent on emergency, development and campaigning work, 10p is spent on support and governance and 7p is invested to generate future income.  Oxfam has more than 700 high street shops across the UK selling donated fashion, books, music, homewares and new ethical products.  It is supported by a workforce of 22,000 volunteers.  Oxfam also launched the UK’s first online charity shop in 2007. 

Oxfam GB is affiliated to Oxfam International, a global confederation of 15 independent Oxfams which share the same purpose.

Visit www.oxfam.org.uk
  i British Retail Consortium Average, for five weeks leading up to 31 December 2011, is 2.2% increase in like-for-like sales

Everything Must Go is a fascinating exhibition in London, following the journeys of worn clothing as it is sold for reuse and recylcling across the world. Oxfam has been lucky enough to have been given a sneak preview after we were contacted for more information on our textile-sorting social enterprise in Senegal. At Oxfam’s “Frip Ethique”, clothes are sorted for resale, providing employment for disadvantaged men and women and raising vital funds for Oxfam’s programmes in West Africa.

So head down and have a look. And then let us know what you think of the exhibition on the blog!

Doors open Friday 20 January at 11am and close Sunday 22 January at 6pm. Open Daily 11-6pm at Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf