Policy Papers

Today, more than 8.1 million Nepalis live in poverty. To build a more equal country that leaves nobody behind, Nepal must act now to put the right policies in place, and enable citizens and social movements to advocate for progressive change and hold decision makers to account.

Greece and its EU partners are failing pregnant women, unaccompanied children, victims of torture or sexual violence and other vulnerable people who seek protection in Europe. In EU 'hotspot' camps on the Greek islands, people are being put at risk by flawed processes, chronic understaffing and squalid, overcrowded conditions.

The report Captured Democracies: A Government for the Few presents 13 case studies documenting how political and economic elites manipulate the decision-making processes of governments to their own advantage and against the interests and rights of the majority in Latin America and the Caribbean, the world’s most unequal region.

This collated research report is based on formative research from 12 countries across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and the Pacific. The report identifies dominant and common patterns in the social norms that perpetuate violence against women and girls.

The ability of small-scale farmers to earn a living income is critical to ensure their viability and economic success. This paper argues that closing the living income gap for small-scale farmers requires tackling the underlying imbalance in risk and market power that many of them face when engaging in global food value chains.

The petroleum sector offers governments huge potential revenues that could be invested in poverty alleviation and inequality reduction, but those revenues must first be collected. Oxfam proposes recommendations to address these challenges and ensure that governments collect the taxes owed for the exploitation of their finite, nonrenewable petroleum resources.

Development finance institutions have not extended openness and transparency to high-risk projects financed through their financial intermediary clients. Oxfam has outlined a suggested framework, Open Books for High-Risk Financing, which proposes a set of principles to systematize and enhance disclosure in financial intermediary lending.

The situation facing working women, their changing patterns of work and the hardships and disadvantages they face have a profound potential to reshape the world we live in. This report seeks to explore the challenges and opportunities facing Europe’s working women, particularly those in precarious and low-paid work.

This research report explores the decision making processes of displaced people and returnees in Salah al-Din governorate, Iraq. It finds that against a backdrop of strong family and community support, displaced people and returnees – including women – have surprising levels of agency and self-direction.

This paper examines current and planned IFI energy sector support in Asian climate-vulnerable countries. It shows how this is not yet fit for purpose, and recommends how IFIs can intervene at this critical juncture to give governments the confidence to accelerate the transition to renewable energy for all.