Press releases

Responding to the news that the number of global deaths from COVID-19 has now passed 4 million, Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s health Policy Manager and spokesperson for the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said: “This is a horrific milestone and each one of these lives lost is a tragedy. Many of these deaths could have been prevented had the successful vaccine science been shared and production of doses ramped up by more manufacturers across the world."

In advance of the UNSC Briefing on the crisis in Tigray, Oxfam in Ethiopia’s Country Director Gezahegn Kebede Gebrehana, said: “Days after the unilateral ceasefire was announced and as communities and global leaders grapple with the new context, millions of people across Tigray and surrounding areas remain in crisis. Even with the ceasefire, many vulnerable people are left without protection and resources, and need is only expected to grow."

Responding to the announcement today that the OECD Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting has agreed to push ahead with the two-pronged global tax reform deal and set a global minimum corporate tax of 15 percent, Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International, said:  “This is not an ‘historic’ deal ―it is history repeating itself. Those who shamelessly rigged the global tax system to their benefit over a century ago have again ring-fenced the game for themselves."

Oxfam today publishes its regular six-month update (to March 2021) of its Safeguarding and Culture Improvement Plan that it set up two years ago. The headlines include a new governance structure, that begins July 2021. It will help to separate management from governance and promote accountability, diversity and effectiveness. The new Board will have four independent members including as chair.

Responding to the announcement that COVAX has received more funding and is planning to accelerate its vaccine rollout, Oxfam International’s Head of Inequality Policy, Max Lawson, said: “More funding for COVAX and a quicker rollout of vaccines is a small piece of good news for developing countries struggling to get the doses they need, but at best fewer than a quarter of people in these countries will have been vaccinated by the end of the year."

Today, European heads of state and government met in Brussels to discuss migration policy and EU-Turkey relations. They called for the intensification of ‘mutually beneficial partnerships and cooperation with countries of origin and transit’ while also condemning and rejecting ‘any attempts by third countries to instrumentalise migrants for political purposes’. 

Major European supermarkets have upped their dividend payouts to shareholders by an average of 123 percent during the first eight months of the pandemic. Shockingly, hardly any of these supermarkets paid any substantial COVID-19-related support to the workers and farmers who throughout the crisis kept supply chains going.

Since 2017, there has been an increase in reported pushbacks ranging in the hundreds to the thousands. Despite increased international pressure and outrage, alleged pushbacks continue to persist. They are systematic, and those who speak out against them are criminalised. The latest issue of the Lesbos Bulletin by the Greek Council for Refugees and Oxfam looks at this practice and includes a pushback testimony.  

Oxfam has dismissed three members of staff as a result of an investigation into allegations of abuses of power in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Allegations were also upheld against a fourth individual who had been suspended during the investigation and whose contract with Oxfam expired before the conclusion of the disciplinary process. The outcome, which would have resulted in dismissal had the individual remained a staff member, has been noted on the former employee’s record. 

Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam, said: "This G7 summit will live on in infamy. Faced with the biggest health emergency in a century and a climate catastrophe that is destroying our planet, they have completely failed to meet the challenges of our times. Never in the history of the G7 has there been a bigger gap between their actions and the needs of the world."