Aid & development

Oxfam Australia’s vision is a just and sustainable world without poverty. This requires transforming the systems and power structures that create inequality and injustice.

In fragile states, war zones and in poor countries, the human and economic costs of COVID-19 threaten to kill millions and push billions more into poverty.

The bushfires have shown us what climate change looks like. A reality millions are facing today all over the world. We reflect on the crisis and what we can do today.

New Blockchain technology has the potential to deliver emergency cash transfers in a faster, cheaper and more transparent fashion than ever before.

Thanks to you, we’re empowering families in PNG to earn an income through onion farming – which means that their kids can go to school, eat nutritious food, and build proper housing!

When earthquakes devastated Nepal in 2015, thousands of lives were lost. Without the generosity of Oxfam supporters, families like Til’s might still be homeless and drinking contaminated ground water.

Australia needs a generous and stable aid program that leaves no one behind, bolsters the capacity and responsibility of countries to provide for all their people, and helps to build resilience in an increasingly risky world.

Systems and safeguards are critical measures to prevent abuse and protect the rights of women and girls. But sexual misconduct, from Hollywood to Haiti, has revealed a much deeper issue: unfair distributions of power.

Seven years after the Syria crisis began, women, children and men continue to bear the brunt of a conflict marked by enormous human suffering, relentless destruction and a blatant disregard for human rights.

South Sudan’s brutal four-year civil war has left four million people displaced and killed thousands. It has also forced millions into poverty and is pushing people to their absolute limits. Oxfam aid worker Tim Bierley shares some of the horrific stories that have become almost commonplace in the country.

In this edited extract from the book Practical Visionaries, Susan Blackburn explains how Oxfam’s predecessor, Community Aid Abroad (CAA), began working with Aboriginal communities in Australia more than 40 years ago.

It’s been five years since civil war broke out in South Sudan. Earlier this year, Oxfam International’s Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima, visited the country and met some of the strong, hard-working, self-sacrificing women who have been turned into widows and beggars by the conflict.

Last week, thanks to your support, Oxfam Australia was presented with ‘Best Social Innovation’ at the 2017 Australian Financial Review’s Most Innovative Companies awards for our Weather Index Insurance scheme in Sri Lanka.

In rural Ghana, the odds are stacked against women like Beatrice. Unable to take part in the agriculture that sustains the region Beatrice breaks rocks to sell as gravel to get by — and still, her grandchildren go hungry.

Augustina, a mother of three, is defying tradition and gender inequality in rural Ghana, with her own thriving honey business.

In rural Ghana, the pangs of the Hungry Season are felt in all corners of the community. But the greatest burden is felt by women.

Oxfam’s Kate Bensen travelled to Zimbabwe to see first-hand how you’re helping us respond to the hunger crisis. She couldn’t believe how different it is to what she’d imagined.

At the height of the drought in Zimbabwe, our mobile cash transfers gave Florence and her family a rare glimpse of hope. We gave Florence a mobile phone so she could receive cash transfers via text to pay for basic food items.

This month Oxfam Chief Executive Helen Szoke visited Oxfam programs in South Sudan delivering clean water, sanitation and vital humanitarian assistance to families facing hunger and famine.

Last night’s Federal Budget was chance to act on rising inequality. It was a chance to champion fairness and to recommit to Australia being a good global citizen. Oxfam’s verdict: the Budget was a massive fail.

In Zimbabwe, mothers like Ida literally walk a marathon every day, to provide water for their children. The countless hours spent traipsing to collect water takes time that should be spent working or learning — this entrenches the cycle of poverty.

How you are joining forces with people who share the belief that no-one should live in poverty, to empower communities to build better lives for themselves.

A unique Oxfam run canoeing program in South Sudan is assisting communities to seek refuge rapidly in an emergency, and helps the canoe operators to earn the money they need to support their families.

Oxafm is supporting a unique project in Tanzania, so that refugees can learn new skills to work their own way out of poverty… and it’s got people buzzing with excitement.