Press releases

In reaction to the United Nations Food Systems Summit, which was held over the past two days, Thierry Kesteloot, Oxfam’s food policy advisor said:“The Food Systems Summit has failed hundreds of millions who are going hungry every day, by offering elitist and mere band-aid solutions rather than tackling the root causes of our broken global food system.

In reaction to today’s global COVID summit hosted by President Biden, campaigners from the People’s Vaccine Alliance caution that ambitious goals to vaccinate the world will only be met with bold action to increase manufacturing, technology transfer, and access to COVID-19 vaccines around the world, not empty promises.

In response to today’s Virtual High-Level Side Event on Yemen, Muhsin Siddiquey, Oxfam’s Country Director in Yemen said: “After years of conflict, two-thirds of the population are in need of humanitarian assistance, one in eight people are displaced, and levels of hunger and utmost poverty continue to increase. In this context, the country cannot cope with the further crisis of COVID-19."

Yemenis are battling a third wave of COVID, which threatens 99 per cent of the population who are unvaccinated, Oxfam said today.

On the eve of President Biden’s global COVID-19 summit on the side-lines of the UN General Assembly, campaigners from the People’s Vaccine Alliance are calling for world leaders to go beyond empty promises of charity and deliver bold action to increase manufacturing and access to COVID-19 vaccines around the world.

Wealthy nations are expected to fall up to $75 billion short of fulfilling their long-standing pledge to mobilize $100 billion each year from 2020 to 2025 to help the most vulnerable countries adapt to the dangerous effects of climate change and reduce their emissions, according to estimates by Oxfam today.

In response to the World Bank Group today issuing a statement announcing the discontinuation of its Doing Business report, Nadia Daar, Head of Oxfam International’s Washington DC Office, said: “It's a welcome move and about time the World Bank scrapped its Doing Business report, a global competitiveness index that encouraged governments to adopt destructive policies that worsen inequality, like slashing labor regulations and corporate taxes."

As the UN General Assembly kicks off again this year, Oxfam’s experts and partners are available to speak to their work focused on the People’s Vaccine for COVID-19, the climate crisis - including climate finance, and a number of pressing humanitarian crises. 

More than 140 former heads of state and government and Nobel laureates today called on the candidates to be the next German chancellor Annalena Baerbock, Olaf Scholz, and Armin Laschet to declare themselves in favour of waiving intellectual property rules for COVID-19 vaccines and transferring vaccine technologies, and “to make these the policies of any future coalition government”. 

While European leaders express their concern for the safety of people in Afghanistan, little concern is given to those Afghans seeking safety in Europe. A new Greek ministerial decision to stop Afghans, amongst other nationalities, from entering Europe, and dire living conditions in “Moria 2” highlights this lack of concern, as criticised in the latest edition of the Lesbos bulletin by the Greek Council for Refugees and Oxfam.