basic social services

Dominant narratives promoting economic growth at the expense of state institutions and basic social services have long underpinned a neoliberal model of spiralling debt and austerity in the MENA region. This exacerbates political capture and inequality and takes shape in an environment of media concentration and shrinking civic space.

Today, inequality has reached extreme levels in the West Africa region. While a small but growing group of people becomes fantastically rich, a majority of citizens are denied the most essential elements of a dignified life like access to quality education, healthcare and decent jobs.Yet, West Africa’s governments are the least committed to reducing inequality than all other regions in Africa.

New report reveals inequality in education persists. Oxfam calls for firm political and financial commitments for free, public education systems to end inequality. 

The support required to get 57 million children into primary school fell more than a billion dollars short of its target – that’s the disappointing outcome of the Global Partnershi

Development gains made in Afghanistan over the last decade are in danger of being thrown away if levels of aid fall away in conjunction with the withdrawal of international troops in 2014.

Ahead of the 65th World Health Assembly (WHA), taking place in Geneva next week, International agency Oxfam has warned that the fundamental role of the World Health Organization (WHO) as the leading agency for global health is at risk because it has suffered from a severe financial crisis and related heavy staff losses.

Oxfam reaction to the “1000 Days to Improve Child Nutrition” MDG Summit side event, co-hosted by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Micheal Martin, Irish Foreign Affairs Minister: <

2010 saw Europe missing their poverty targets and today Heads of State compounded this by failing to put new commitments on the table to achieve their 2015 aid targets and keep their promises to the world’s poorest people.

The new Afghan government must urgently devote greater resources to building up to 6,000 new schools, training upwards of 5,000 new midwives and professionalizing the police force, according to aid agencies working throughout Afghanistan.