Press releases

Less than half (49 per cent) of the 2.1 billion COVID vaccine donations promised to poorer countries by G7 countries have been delivered, according to new figures published today by Oxfam and the People’s Vaccine Alliance.  

As the G7 leaders meet in Germany, crises of extreme inequality, unprecedented food and energy price inflation, accelerated by the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, are converging to create a catastrophe for the world’s poorest people.

The G7 must pursue windfall taxes on excess corporate profits including from those making huge returns from surging food and energy prices. The revenues can be used to fund an end to global hunger and to tackle climate change, says Oxfam.

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”.