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 […]