"How much money do you 'waste' on admin?" It's a question that repeatedly appears in Oxfam's Facebook and Twitter feeds, our inbox and our letterbox. And for good reason: it's a really important question! This year we've worked hard to increase the amount of your money that goes directly to emergency, development and campaigning work - just like we did last year, and the year before that. In fact,...

Times are tough. The economy's back in recession. It's an age of austerity. So far, so familiar. But Oxfam's new report on UK poverty tells us two important things that we hope will shift a few perceptions. First, people in poverty are being hit hardest. Indeed, the number of things hitting at the same time are why we're describing it as a 'perfect storm'. Second - and no less important - is that this is...

Sir Tom Hunter isn't the only person who passes judgement on people he doesn't know. We all do it occasionally.  But Sir Tom is rich and successful. So people listen when he says the welfare state has created 'pampered, dependent people who expect what others strive and graft hard for'.  But there is a risk here. If we base policies on assumptions, myths and stereotypes, we can end up harming...

If Gandhi's chronology of "first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" is anything to go by, the Robin Hood Tax campaign is getting close to its goal. When the campaign launched two years ago, the idea of taxing the banks was unimaginable; now it's taken giant leaps towards reality. It's been an amazing two years - and the rest of 2012 is full of opportunity. And why should...

Oxfam's Birth Rights campaign has been demonstrating the vital difference that aid spending can have on the lives of mothers and their children in Ghana. Motivated by this, thousands of you have been writing to your MPs to support the Government's promise to invest 0.7% of national income in lifesaving aid. The Government had also promised to introduce a law on development spending to safeguard this commitment in the future. Today...