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Multilateral efforts are failing to adequately respond to critical global challenges, including the climate crisis and persistent poverty and inequality. While some have blamed the deadlock solely on rising geopolitical tensions between powerful countries, such a focus is incomplete. Rather, a key reason for failures of international cooperation is extreme economic inequality. Today, the world’s richest 1% own more wealth than 95% of humanity.

Anna Marriott, Oxfam Health Policy Manager and Policy co-lead for the People’s Vaccine Alliance said: "The 2021 Global Health Summit ended today in danger of being judged an historical failure of global solidarity to tackle a Covid-19 pandemic that is still, around the world, in its first expanding phase and yet to peak."

In response to Merck’s announcement that it has granted a license for its promising COVID-19 pill to the Medicines Patent Pool, Robbie Silverman, Oxfam America’s Senior Manager for Private Sector Engagement, made the following statement: “Merck’s move to license molnupiravir is welcome as it could indeed mean increased access to its promising COVID-19 drug in the poorest countries in the world.

On the eve of the Earth Day Summit, Oxfam is calling for President Biden and world leaders attending the virtual summit to urgently ramp up ambition to tackle the climate crisis.

Commenting on the publication of a new UN Report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, which highlights that 60 million more people are hungry today than they were five years ago, and three billion men, women and children – over a third of humanity – cannot afford enough healthy food to eat, Rashmi Mistry, head of Oxfam's Grow Campaign, said: "The UN report is highly alarming. It shows our global food system is unravelling at the seams."

The recovery fund and long-term EU budget agreed today do not match the urgency of our current situation and the challenges ahead, said Oxfam.

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."

As 2020 draws to a close, the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic shows no sign of abating. Our analysis shows that none of the social protection support to those who are unemployed, elderly people, children and families provided in low- and middle-income countries has been adequate to meet basic needs.

Responding to the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting today, Nadia Daar, Head of Oxfam’s Washington DC Office, said: "The G20 is not delivering on its promise to rebalance the global economy and provide major relief. It has simply extended a freeze on bilateral debt-service payments through year-end, pushing the can down the road once again. If debt cancellation is not part of the solution, the world’s poorest countries will continue to struggle to cope with the pandemic and its devastating effects.   

The COVID-19 crisis cost women around the world at least $800 billion in lost income in 2020, equivalent to more than the combined GDP of 98 countries, said Oxfam today.