Tag: poverty

What will the world’s response to the COVID-19 crisis mean for the two defining and interconnected challenges of our age: climate change and global inequality?  

Like all loving mothers, Epaphrodite wants the best for her children. But she and her family live in Rwanda, one of the world’s poorest countries — a place where poverty is widespread and many struggle to make ends meet. Together, we can provide families like Epaphrodite’s a pathway out of poverty.

Poverty is a complex problem with many causes and symptoms. We’ve found a simple and effective remedy for poverty in Rwanda: pig waste. Biogas – produced from pig waste – is an innovative energy source that is cheap, renewable and efficient. It eases the burden of time-consuming, unpaid domestic work for women and girls, so they can focus on more productive activities.

For many, the word “Rwanda” triggers memories of harrowing tales of civil war that dominated headlines in the 1990s. This chaotic time in Rwandan history left many thousands of women widowed, traumatised and living in poverty. That’s why we are implementing a life-changing project that brings together vulnerable women, offers them support, and trains them to breed and rear pigs to supplement their income.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya families are living in makeshift camps, without shelter and clean water. If they’re lucky, they may have plastic sheeting to sleep under, but mostly they are huddled under sarongs.

Hunger affects one in nine people around the world. And thankfully, there are things each of us can do, even at school. Things that tie-in with who we are, our interests, and the people we meet. We just need to think laterally.

In just the past 15 years we’ve helped halve extreme poverty; and now we need to finish the job. The Sustainable Development Goals can get us there and are about to be approved at the United Nations over the next few days.

Helping to end poverty and inequality, and supporting communities to tackle climate change – they’re the biggest challenges facing the world today. But at the moment, Australia is failing do its fair share on both counts. In July our leaders have an opportunity to change this. At the Finance for Development Conference in Addis Ababa, Australia […]

By Claire Spoors, Publish What You Pay Australia Coordinator  I recently travelled to Parliament House in Canberra with Burmese activists who were speaking at a seminar organised by the Burma Campaign Australia. The question addressed during the seminar was, ‘Will foreign investment alleviate poverty in Burma?’ This question is particularly timely as in the last […]

  HELP SAVE LIVES Right now Oxfam is responding to emergencies around the world, including the recent earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia. Donate now How the “less prosperous” farmers live By Juan Martorana – blogging from Indonesia In a country of 240 million people, in which 110 million are of working age, and 40 million […]

Experiencing a bit of culture shock between Australia and Cambodia got me thinking about the concept of an equitable world; what is it and how can we make it happen?

A thousand economists from 53 countries have written to G20 Finance Ministers, who met in Washington in mid-April, to urge the adoption of a financial transaction tax.

On Tuesday night, the Oxfam Summer Team attended the One Just World forum in Federation Square, Melbourne as part of the Sustainable Living Festival

With an increasing disparity between the wealthy and the poor of the world and a growing vulnerability to natural disasters, how do we achieve an economically just future? Oxfam is partnering with One Just World to present a forum on these issues – Tuesday 22 February.

Did you know it would take the average Sri Lankan sportswear worker 14,000 years to earn the Nike CEO’s annual pay?

Supporting labour rights is— fundamentally—about supporting an end to global poverty. The Global Rights at Work project shows how education and skills building can help women and men in developing countries to secure better working conditions…and better lives.

Who needs to take responsibility to ensure that garment workers are not assigned to a life of poverty? According to former child factory worker, Nazma Akhter, not only local manufacturers, but also Western buyers must step up to the challenge.

Human rights advocates have criticised the Uzbek cotton industry for its reliance on forced-labour including the mandatory employment of school children, college and university students, and civil servants. Workers face terrible conditions and are barely paid enough to survive.

This is the sort of pump which is generally used in rental house areas, including my family’s home. This single pump is used by about 10 different rental houses (20-30 people). Because of the large amount of people using it sometimes the water comes up murky.

As the UN met to decide if the world could halve extreme poverty in five years, 1000 students came together to hear from a variety of speakers working around the world to end poverty. Carrie O’Connor was there.

Jakarta was so quiet— almost everyone had gone back to their villages to spend time with their families. In the evening I could hear the echoes of prayers across the city. I felt very touched- but also mixed with a deep sense of sadness because I was unable to be with my family. Without work it is just too expensive to travel back home to South Sumatra.

As a worker on a low wage, sometimes I get scared when I imagine my future. I worry that when I am elderly my own situation won’t be that different from my neighbours. Even in their old age they have to work very hard just to scrape by.

One of our great Make Poverty History volunteers, Ally Kvisle, has put together a video showing the events of Stand Up 2010 in Sydney.

Oxfam Australia’s Executive Director Andrew Hewett outlines our key asks of the new government on climate change, indigenous equality, aid spending and asylum seekers.