Press releases

Today, the European Parliament voted on its position on a carbon border tariff for companies exporting to the EU (the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism). In response, Chiara Putaturo, Oxfam EU Tax expert, said: “Forcing the poorest countries to pay this tariff is unfair. Europeans are responsible for double the carbon emissions as those in the poorest half of the world since 1990. This decision allows rich countries to pass the buck to those least responsible for the climate crisis.

Monsoon rains - the worst in 122 years- have inundated major rivers in northeastern Bangladesh and submerged thousands of houses, impacting 4.3 million people. The worst is yet to come as flooding worsens and access to impacted areas is hampered, warns Oxfam today.e

Responding to news that governments at the World Trade Organization (WTO) have agreed a deal on patents for COVID-19 vaccines in developing countries, Max Lawson, Co-Chair of the People’s Vaccine Alliance and Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam, said: “This is absolutely not the broad intellectual property waiver the world desperately needs to ensure access to vaccines and treatments for everyone, everywhere.

Across Ethiopia’s Tigray, Amhara, and Afar regions, communities already reeling from 18 months of conflict, will be welcoming, but also bracing for the rains that often bring heightened risk of water-borne diseases and hamper humanitarian aid, warns Oxfam today.
 

The United Nations and all other humanitarian actors have spent 15 years delivering humanitarian support to 2.1m Palestinians blockaded inside Gaza, and yet, there is still no sustained collective political action or will to resolve it. 

Oxfam, together with civil society organizations, welcomes the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) announcement that it will not resume its investments in K-12 private schools, following the release of an independent evaluation by the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) on the IFC’s investments in this area.

Ahead of European interior ministers meeting in Brussels today to discuss progress on EU migration and asylum policy, Oxfam denounces plans to make EU countries commit to a “voluntary, simple and predictable solidarity mechanism”.

Failure of the UK and EU countries to agree to TRIPS waiver costs lives and undermines the credibility and future of WTO. 17.5 million people have died from COVID-19 in the 20 months since WTO talks about relaxing COVID-19 intellectual property (IP) rules began - the equivalent of nearly 30,000 people a day, said campaigners from Oxfam and the People’s Vaccine Alliance today ahead of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial.

The amount of money needed for UN humanitarian appeals involving extreme weather events like floods or drought is now eight times higher than 20 years ago — and donors are failing to keep up, reveals a new Oxfam brief today. For every $2 needed for UN weather-related appeals, donor countries are only providing $1.

In response to the news that the humanitarian truce in Yemen has been extended for another two months, Oxfam’s Country Director in Yemen Ferran Puig said: “We welcome the news that all parties have reached an agreement to extend the humanitarian truce in Yemen. It’s a hopeful sign that we can move towards a sustainable peace resolution to a conflict that has brought so much death and suffering to the Yemeni people."