The UN, which last year convened the first major conference on water in over 45 years, estimates that 2 billion people do not have safe drinking water, and up to 3 billion people experience water shortages for at least one month each year.

The 350 corporations analyzed, including Carrefour and Avril Group, together account for more than half of the world’s food and agriculture revenue. 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawals are used for agriculture, which is by far the largest water-using sector worldwide. Industrial farming plays a major role in water pollution.

Oxfam’s analysis also found that only 108 of these 350 corporations are disclosing the proportion of withdrawals from water-stressed areas.

“When big corporations pollute or consume huge amounts of water, communities pay the price in empty wells, more costly water bills, and contaminated and undrinkable water sources. Less water means more hunger, more disease and more people forced to leave their homes,” said Oxfam France Executive Director Cécile Duflot.

“We clearly can’t rely on corporations’ goodwill to change their practices —governments must force them to clean up their act, and protect shared public goods over thirst for profit,” said Duflot.

Water and wealth are inextricably linked. Rich people have better access to safe public drinking water —and money to buy expensive private water— while people living in poverty, who often don’t have access to a government-backed water source, spend significant portions of their income to purchase water.

The fast-growing bottled water industry is an example of how corporate giants commodify and exploit water, intensifying inequality, pollution and harm. According to the UN, the multi-billion-dollar bottled water industry is undermining progress toward the key Sustainable Development Goal (SDG6) of providing universal access to safe drinking water.

For two months starting in May 2023, French authorities imposed water use restrictions on thousands of people living in the drought-hit department of Puy-de-Dôme, including the commune of Volvic. The restrictions did not apply to Société des Eaux de Volvic, a subsidiary of French multinational Danone, who during this time continued to extract groundwater to supply its Volvic bottling plant. Danone raked in €881 million in profits in 2023 and paid out €1,238 million to its shareholders.

Rises in global temperatures will further reduce water availability in many water-scarce countries, including across East Africa and the Middle East, because of the increased frequency of droughts, and changes in rainfall patterns and run-off.

Oxfam has seen first-hand how people are facing the daily challenge of accessing safe water sources, spending countless hours queuing or trekking long distances, and suffering the health impacts of using contaminated water. For example in Renk, a transit camp in South Sudan, more than 300 people are now sharing a single water tap, increasing the risk of cholera and other diseases. Oxfam warned last year that up to 90 percent of water boreholes in parts of Somalia, Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia had entirely dried up.

Oxfam is calling on governments to:

• Recognize water as a human right and a public good. Profits should not be the priority when it comes to providing water services to people.
• Hold corporations accountable for abusing and violating human and environmental rights and laws, including water pollution.
• Invest in water security, subsidized public water provision, sustainable water management and climate-resilient water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. National planning and policy around WASH must commit to women’s leadership, participation, and decision-making at all stages.

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Notes to editors

• Data analyzed by Oxfam on 350 of the most influential food and agriculture corporations is from the World Benchmarking Alliance. The Nature Benchmark Methodology is available for download.
• The United Nations 2023 Water Conference was the first UN conference on water in 46 years.
• According to the UN, 2 billion people (26 percent of the population) do not have safe drinking water, and between two and three billion people worldwide experience water shortages fort at least one month per year.
• According to the World Bank, agriculture accounts, on average, for 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawals globally.
• Last month, Oxfam reported that more than 300 people were sharing a single water tap in Renk, South Sudan. Together with partners, Oxfam has provided clean water and sanitation to over 70,000 people in transit camps but urgently needs $7 million to ramp up its operations and provide 400,000 people with life-saving food, clean water, and sanitation.
• Last year, Oxfam warned that up to 90 percent of water boreholes in parts of Somalia, Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia had entirely dried up.
• Oxfam water engineers are having to drill deeper, more expensive and harder-to-maintain water boreholes used by some of the poorest communities around the world, more often now only to find dry, depleted or polluted reservoirs.
• For two months starting in May 2023, French authorities imposed water use restrictions on thousands of people living in the drought-hit department of Puy-de-Dôme, including the commune of Volvic. Société des Eaux de Volvic, owned by Danone, is authorized to pump up to 2.514 billion litres of water each year.
• In 2023, a United Nations University study of 109 countries concluded that growth of the bottled water industry is hindering efforts to provide reliable drinking water for all. SDG6 seeks to ensure access to safe water and sanitation for all.
• Download Oxfam’s “Water Dilemmas” report for more information about the impacts of climate change on water.

Media Contact

Vita Sgardello
Manager, Communications
vita.sgardello@oxfam.org
613-799-0234

Over 1500 people are arriving every day from Sudan to these transit centres- with now nearly 15,000 people staying in two centres designed to host only 4,750 people.  More people are living in the open, at times up to 5,000 people, with no access to any clean water or proper hygiene. 

Even prior to the recent conflict, there were 1,027 cases of cholera in South Sudan. The rains, together with a lack of proper water or sanitation, increase the risk of disease outbreaks. Currently, 100 people share just one latrine – more than double the minimum standard.  

Oxfam in South Sudan Country Director, Dr. Manenji Mangundu, said:    

“I just came back from Renk, where people are crammed in shelters in horrifying conditions. Many have to queue for hours just to use clean water or a toilet. Without an immediate injection of funds, the situation will explode into a full-blown catastrophe, leaving many more people at risk of diseases and going hungry. The upcoming rainy season in April will cut off major roads hampering vital aid and further limiting people’s transportation to shelters.” 

Over 80% of the population in South Sudan – four out of five people- are already in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Overlapping crises, including five years of floods and conflicts in some parts of the country, have already devastated the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.  

Bibiana Peter, a mother of five who was forced to flee her home in Sudan and now living in transit centre 2 in Renk, said: 

“The hunger is unbearable. My children eat only once a day if they are lucky. Their meal is a small bowl of lentils for the entire day as I watch them suffer from malnutrition. I need to walk deep into the forest for firewood, facing multiple hazards such as snakes and the risk of being attacked. If I’m lucky I sell firewood to buy little food and if not, we sleep hungry and in the open leading to diseases and insecurity.”  

The upcoming lean season (April to July 2024) will force food stocks to hit their lowest level, compounding the already dire situation for the host community. Over 7 million people in South Sudan face extreme hunger – including 79,000 facing catastrophic levels of hunger. This number has increased by 22% percent while people experiencing catastrophic hunger has more than doubled.  

Despite a surge in the number of people fleeing the conflict in Sudan, and the worsening humanitarian catastrophe, funding has dwindled to an unprecedented low. The UN appeal for South Sudan in 2023 has been slashed by half compared to previous years. Since the beginning of this year, less than 4% of $1.79 billion UN appeal has been raised. This low level of funding has severely curtailed humanitarian efforts. 

“With major global crises attracting attention, the crisis in South Sudan is forgotten. But the world must not turn a blind eye. We are racing against time but funding cuts at this time are stretching our capacity to the limit and are a recipe for disaster. Every day of delayed action means irreversible harm to a population that already suffered years of devastation and destitution,” added Manenji  

Oxfam, together with partners, has provided clean water and proper sanitation to over 70,000 people in the transit camps, but urgently needs $7 million to ramp up its operations and reach 400,000 people with lifesaving food, clean water and sanitation.  

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Note to editors:

• The current capacity of Renk Transit Centres (Both Old and Extension – commonly referred to as TC1 and TC2 respectively) is 4,750. TC Extension with a capacity of 2750 individuals currently hosts nearly 15,000 individuals (almost 4 times its design holding capacity)
• The 2024 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan for South Sudan indicates that 9 million people will need humanitarian aid in South Sudan including more than 1.6 million children who are at risk of acute malnutrition.
• The IPC South Sudan Acute Food Insecurity Malnutrition Sep2023 July2024 report confirms 5.83 million people (46% of the population) are currently facing crisis and worse levels of hunger (IPC 3+) which is set to go up to 7.1 million during the lean season starting in April 2024.
• South Sudan’s Humanitarian Response Plan was 51.4% funded in 2023 according to OCHA FTS. In 2024, to date, the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is only 3.6% funded (as at 27 February 2024).
• UNOCHA FTS funding levels for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 show that 2023 was comparatively the lowest funding provided in proportion to the needs and even in light of the amount raised.
• In 2023, the $1.05 billion raised is less funding than raised in any single year between 2014 and 2022.

Media contact

Vita Sgardello, manager, Communications, vita.sgardello@oxfam.org, 613-799-0234.

Notes to editors:

Nearly 90 per cent of Somalia is now in a severe drought, following three consecutive failed rain seasons. Some areas facing their driest season in 40 years. Nearly 3.5 million people are already acutely food insecure and millions more are now at risk of going hungry by the beginning of next year.

With no respite in sight, pastoralists’ chance for planting next season’s crops or finding grazing land for livestock is vanishing.

“People in Jubaland in the South, Gedo, Mudug, Nuugal, Bari, Toghdheer and Sool have been the hardest hit. Some have already experienced intense drought for more than a year and have had to watch their livestock, crops and savings perish in front of their eyes. They urgently need lifesaving water, food and cash,” said Amjad Ali, Oxfam Country Director in Somalia.

Most natural water sources have dried up, pushing up the price of potable water. The price of a 200-litre water drum jumped above the five-year average by 45 per cent in Gaalkacyo, Mudug Region, 70 per cent in Jilib, Middle at Juba Region, and 172 per cent in Garowe, Nugaal Region, last October.

Persistent climate-fuelled drought, compounded by ongoing conflict, locusts and COVID-19, has fueled hunger in Somalia and will leave 7.7 million people – nearly half the population – in urgent need of humanitarian assistance by 2022. This is a 30 per cent rise since 2021. Somalia already ranks highest in the world Global Hunger Index with over half its population suffering from extremely alarming levels of hunger and malnutrition.

Oxfam and partners have already reached nearly 185,000 of the most vulnerable people across the country, with clean water and sanitation, food and rehabilitation programs.

Aydrus Daar, Executive Director of WASDA, one of Oxfam’s local partner organizations, said: “I have been involved in droughts since 1991 and I have never seen a drought that has impacted people as badly as has this one. Many pastoralists have lost 100 per cent of their livestock. This has never occurred in living history. Our biggest concern is an imminent famine.”

To help prevent a worsening catastrophe, Oxfam and partners aim to double the number of people reached, providing the most vulnerable in South Central Somalia, Somaliland, and Puntland, with lifesaving water, food and cash in the next six months. Oxfam also aims to help communities rebuild their lives and adapt to the cyclical expected climate disasters.

“In the 2011 drought crisis an estimated 50,000–100,000 people lost their lives. Despite the warnings, the international humanitarian system did too little too late. We must make sure that history does not repeat itself. We must act now. More than a third of the humanitarian appeal for Somalia this year is unfunded,” said Amjad Ali, Country Director of Oxfam in Somalia.

Oxfam urgently needs $15 million to help boost its humanitarian response in Somalia and save lives.

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Notes to the editor:

• More than 2.8 million people in 66 of the country’s 74 districts (which is 89 per cent of the country) have been affected by severe drought; nearly 133,000 displaced in search of food, water and pasture. Source: UNOCHA Somalia Drought Snapshot as of 2 December 2021
• According to CHIRPS remote-sensing data, rainfall totals rank among the driest on the 40-year record in Lower and Middle Juba, Gedo, Mudug, Nugaal, and southern Bari regions
• Four million people are estimated to be in IPC3 or above by December 2021. 3.7 million are in stressed livelihoods and face high risk of going hungry. Source: Somalia: Acute Food Insecurity Situation July – September 2021 and Projection for October – December 2021
• Somalia tops the Global Hunger Index in 2021 with 50.8 points, a 12.6 per cent drop since 2020.
• FEWSNET: Somalia Food Security Outlook September 2021
• Somalia Humanitarian Overview: https://gho.unocha.org/somalia
• Oxfam’s report (2012) A Dangerous Delay: The cost of late response to early warnings in the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa outlines the number of people who were facing catastrophic levels of food security – or famine like conditions. IPC5.

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For more information or to arrange an interview please contact:

Paula Baker
Media Relations
Oxfam Canada
(613) 240-3047
paula.baker@oxfam.org

A new Oxfam briefing, ‘After the Storm,’ highlights that over 100,000 people in Mozambique and Zimbabwe are still living in destroyed or damaged homes and makeshift shelters, while critical infrastructure including roads, water supplies, and schools have yet to be repaired – making it difficult for people to access vital services or get back to work. It also shows that 9.7 million people across the three countries remain in desperate need of food aid as a result of cyclones, floods, drought and localized conflict.

The briefing explains how a toxic combination of factors – including an intensifying cycle of floods, drought and storms, deep rooted poverty and inequality, a patchy humanitarian response, and a lack of support for poor communities to adapt to, and recover, from climate shocks – have increased people’s vulnerability and made it harder for them to recover.

“Cyclone Idai was anything but a natural disaster. This tragedy was fuelled by the climate crisis and super charged by poverty, inequality and the failures of national governments and the international community,” Nellie Nyang’wa, Oxfam’s Regional Director for Southern Africa said.

“The people of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi are trying to piece their lives back together in the face of huge challenges. Politicians in the region, and across the globe, need to match their commitment.”

Cyclone Idai is just one in of a number of extreme weather events to have hit Southern Africa in recent years. Idai landed five months into a drought that left millions in need of food aid – and the third severe drought to hit the region in the space of five years. Less than six weeks later, Cyclone Kenneth battered northern Mozambique. Torrential rain and flash floods then hit northern and central Mozambique, between December 2019 and February 2020.

Despite the escalating climate crisis, poor communities are not getting enough help to adapt, and there is no dedicated funds to help poor countries recover from the loss and damage caused by climate-fueled disasters. Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries, was forced to take on an additional debt of $118 million from the International Monetary Fund to begin rebuilding. The cyclone caused an estimated US$3.2 billion worth of damage – roughly half of Mozambique’s national budget and equivalent to the impact of 23 Hurricane Katrina’s hitting the United States.

Virginia Defunho, a farmer and a mother from Josina Machel village in Mozambique lost everything in the cyclone. The crops she planted in the aftermath of the cyclone were damaged by severe floods in January.

“Idai has destroyed my mind. It makes me feel angry sometimes,” she said. “My child is crying because he wants food and there is nothing to give. My child has succeeded to grade 10, but I don’t have the money to pay for him to enrol back at school. We are worried about the future because we don’t know if the weather is going to be like this or if it will change back to normal. If [the cyclone] comes a second time, what will our lives be?”

A slow and patchy international humanitarian response has also hampered recovery. Less than half of the US$450.2 million humanitarian funding requested by the UN in the wake of the cyclones has been committed to date. The flow of funds is also slowing with just $42,000 pledged since the beginning of the year.

Poverty and inequality also exacerbate the destructive power of the cyclone and act as major barrier to recovery. While the richest live on the highest ground in the strongest houses and can rely on savings and insurance to help them recover, the poorest communities struggle to rebuild their lives. Women in Malawi own just 17 per cent of the land in the country, even though they produce 80 per cent of household food. As a result, women who were displaced from their land are less able to protect their property for their return – and are left at the back of the queue when it comes to accessing alternative plots of land.

“Rich polluting governments must ensure the humanitarian appeal is fully funded and deliver the climate finance that communities need to adapt to and rebuild from climate shocks. National governments must help climate proof our communities – for example by helping small holder farmers to adapt their farming techniques – and tackle the poverty and inequality that make people more vulnerable to disaster,” added Nyang’wa.

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Notes to Editor:

• The briefing “After the Storm: barriers to recovery one year on from Cyclone Idai” is available here
• Cyclone Idai before and after b-roll available here.
• Stories and pictures from Mozambique – including Virginia Defunho are available here.
• Oxfam raised over US$16 million to help 788,168 people across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe in the aftermath of the cyclones – including communities in some of the most remote and difficult to reach areas.
• Oxfam and our partners provided emergency assistance such as food aid, blankets and hygiene kits; installed latrines and water pumps in temporary camps; and helped raise awareness of issues such as gender-based violence, which often spikes after a disaster.
• Oxfam is also working with communities over the long term to help them adapt to changing the climate – for example by helping smallholder farmers diversify their crops and adapt their farming techniques.

For more information or a media interview contact:

Paula Baker
Oxfam Canada
Media Relations
(613) 240-3047
paula.baker@oxfam.org

The north is at greatest risk because of the scarcity of water in the area. The five governorates of Sana’a, Hajjah, Hudaydah, Taiz and Dhamar have consistently reported high rates of cholera since 2017.

More than 56,000 suspected cases have already been recorded in the first seven weeks of 2020, roughly equal to the same period last year. The number of cases of cholera in 2019 was the second largest ever recorded in a country in a single year, surpassed only by the numbers in Yemen in 2017.

At over 860,000 suspected cases, the total in 2019 is more than two and a half times the size of the third largest number in a single country in one year. In 2017 in Yemen there were over a million cases.

Yemen’s cholera outbreak began in April 2017 and quickly spiralled out of control with more than 360,000 cases recorded in the first three months. Although the rate of new infections had slowed a year later, the number of suspected cases began to rise again in early 2019.

The prolonged, consistent nature of new cases over the last 14 months shows the disease is still rampant in Yemen.

Muhsin Siddiquey, Oxfam’s Yemen Country Director said: “’The outlook is bleak for people in Yemen with cholera continuing at similar levels to last year and the rainy season likely to see thousands more people infected.

“This is a health crisis hiding in plain sight. It’s shocking that this ongoing crisis is getting so little attention.

“A lack of clean water and food has left many people weak and vulnerable to disease, and yet aid agencies are struggling to reach those most in need because of access constraints imposed by all sides.

“We need urgent action from the international community to ensure safe, secure and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid and to bring the parties together to agree a nationwide ceasefire.”

The number of deaths from cholera in 2019 dropped to 1025 – less than half the number of fatalities in 2017. But efforts to definitively beat the disease have been massively undermined by the war, which has decimated health, water and sanitation systems.

Medical supplies are in chronically short supply and only around half the health facilities in Yemen are fully functioning. Fluctuating exchange rates have pushed up the price of diesel, in turn increasing the price of trucking clean water to parts of the country where groundwater is unavailable. More than 17 million people struggle to get clean water.

Siddiquey said: “The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is entirely man made and those who continue to arm all sides in this war bear responsibility for its devastating consequences.”

Since the escalation of the conflict in Yemen in 2015, Oxfam has provided clean water and sanitation to more than one million people, including in hard-to-reach areas of the country, through providing water by truck, repairing water systems, delivering filters and jerry cans, as well as building latrines and organizing cleaning campaigns.

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Notes to Editors:

• Statistics for suspected cholera cases and deaths from 2017 to 2020 are available from the World Health Organization here
• Figures on previous cholera outbreaks have been taken from the World Health Organisation’s Global Health Observatory data repository here
• The total number of cases in Yemen between January 2017 and December 2019 was 2,253,488.
• The third largest outbreak in a single year was in Haiti in 2011 when 340,311 cases were recorded.

For more information:

Paula Baker
Oxfam Canada
Media Relations
(613) 240-3047
paula.baker@oxfam.org

Oxfam Philippines Country Director Maria Rosario Felizco said that many of communities impacted were still recovering from the impacts of Typhoon Kammuri (local name: Tisoy) and are in dire need of support: “Oxfam is deeply concerned about the situation of communities hit by Typhoon Phanfone. Many of the communities are still struggling to get back on their feet in the wake of Typhoon Kammuri, which hit earlier this month.”

Oxfam staff member Leah Payud, based in Leyte, where the typhoon made one of its landfalls, described the devastation experienced by her community: “Ursula carved the same path as Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. Although weaker, its devastating impacts are widely felt, especially here in Leyte, where houses have been damaged and electric posts toppled. We spent Christmas Day in total darkness.”

Oxfam is working closely with humanitarian organization People’s Disaster Risk Reduction Network (PDRRN) to assess the damage from the storm. Teams immediately visited four towns in Leyte and Eastern Samar, where Oxfam has ongoing projects. According to Esteban Masagca, PDRRN Executive Director, early assessments by staff and volunteers indicate coastal villages urgently need emergency shelter materials, bedding, portable water, and food. Power outages, loss of access to infrastructure such as schools and markets, and severe damage to houses along the shore also loom as serious problems post-disaster.

Masagca said: “Families are urgently requesting emergency shelter-grade materials because the storm completely destroyed their homes along the coast. Families need bedding and mosquito nets, especially as dengue continues to be a major threat in the communities. Portable water is urgently needed since water refilling stations cannot operate because of the ongoing power blackout. Water kits and disinfectants are crucial to prevent water-borne diseases, as many sources of water have been contaminated. It truly saddens us that thousands of families will enter the New Year without food, or even homes.”

Felizco continued: “Families will need support during this time of great need. Oxfam and our partners are working closely with local government and other humanitarian agencies to ensure the immediate needs of survivors are addressed effectively. We will prioritize the needs of women and girls throughout our emergency assessment and response.”

Oxfam has been working in the Philippines for 30 years to address the underlying causes of poverty through its various programs on economic justice, conflict transformation, gender justice, and rights in crisis.

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For media interviews, please contact:

Paula Baker
Oxfam Canada
Media Relations
(613) 240-3047
paula.baker@oxfam.org

Unusually heavy rainfall has hit 29 counties across the country, causing widespread displacement. Areas where Oxfam operates, including Akobo, Pibor and Lankien, have been severely hit. Houses have been destroyed and many areas are submerged and inaccessible. People have lost their crops and livestock and many schools and health clinics have been closed, as they are either flooded or have been converted into relief shelters.

With heavy rains forecast for at least another two weeks, the situation is likely to get much worse before it gets better and the risk of a major outbreak of waterborne diseases including cholera increases by the day.

Sajit Menon, Oxfam humanitarian manager in South Sudan, said: “The scale of these floods is unexpected; at this time of the year in South Sudan the dry season is usually about to start. The cruel fact is that thousands of people in the areas hardest hit by the floods were already going hungry. People who were struggling to survive have had what little they had washed away by this extreme weather.

“People managed to reach safety on high ground but are left with no food and no clean water or sanitation. Disease is as much of a threat as hunger. They also need basic shelter, as their homes have been damaged or completely destroyed. We have witnessed pregnant women carrying their belongings and their older children in their arms, while wading through knee deep mud, with nowhere to go.”

Oxfam is assessing the needs of those worst hit by the floods. In the coming days, together with other agencies, it will start distributing temporary sheeting, soap, buckets and other hygiene items, to over 45,000 people in Lankien, Akobo and Pibor. Oxfam needs $5 million to help the people worst affected.

Menon said: “The flooding is impeding the humanitarian effort. In a country with only 200 km of paved roads delivering aid is always a challenge – but the floods mean we need extra resources to reach those in need. And we must do it fast before it is too late – thousands of lives are at risk. ”

– 30 –

For more information contact:

Paula Baker
Oxfam Canada
Media Relations
(613) 240-3047
paula.baker@oxfam.org

11 million people relying on water supplied by piped networks and four million people, who depend on water trucked in by private companies, have had to drastically reduce their daily consumption since fuel prices soared in September. In three major cities, Ibb, Dhamar and Al Mahwit, home to around 400,000 people, central water systems have been forced to shut down completely.

Oxfam has had to cut trucked water to thousands of people because of the increase in fuel prices. Piped water systems installed by Oxfam, which supply a quarter of a million people, are running at around 50 per cent capacity.

Access to clean water is a matter of life and death in Yemen, particularly for the more than seven million people already weakened by malnourishment, as water borne diseases are rife. The country has experienced one of the worst cholera outbreaks in recent history. Since April 2017, there have been over two million suspected cases of cholera and over 3700 deaths.

The current fuel crisis is the latest example of the warring parties using the economy as a weapon of war. Fuel supplies have been an ongoing problem in Yemen but escalated dramatically last month following extra restrictions on imports announced by the internationally recognized government. The Houthi authorities are also placing restrictions on imports.

As a result, ships carrying fuel have stopped docking, and prices have shot up due to the lack of supply. In Sana’a a litre of petrol is now almost three times the price it was in August.

Muhsin Siddiquey, Oxfam’s Yemen Country Director said: “This fuel crisis is affecting every area of people’s lives but none more crucial than the lack of clean water. For millions of Yemenis already struggling to survive hunger and disease, clean water is a lifeline that is now being cut.

“This weaponization of the Yemeni economy is yet another cruelty inflicted on the people of Yemen who have been forced to endure four years of conflict.

“All sides need to end the restrictions being imposed on importers so that fuel can once again reach the country unimpeded.”

Fuel is crucial to the supply of clean water in Yemen. Many people depend on groundwater which is brought to the surface by pumps running on solar power and fuel. Others, particularly people who have had to flee their homes and are living in camps, rely on water brought in by trucks which run on diesel.

Yemen was already one of the most water-scarce countries in the world before conflict escalated in 2015. Since then, at least eight water systems installed by Oxfam have been damaged or destroyed in fighting, cutting off water supplies to more than a quarter of a million people.

– 30 –

For more information contact:

Paula Baker
Oxfam Canada
Media Relations
(613) 240-3047
paula.baker@oxfam.org

Oxfam says the situation is likely to get worse over the coming days.

The international humanitarian organization has moved in to support over 360,000 people in these countries with food, clean drinking water, emergency shelter, toilets and hygiene kits to people. Oxfam’s aid team have already conducted immediate needs assessments and are now providing emergency assistance in the worst-hit areas.

“We have already started supporting people in Assam and Bihar in India, Gaibandha and Kurigram in Bangladesh, and Rautahat and Sarlahi in Nepal. But more aid must reach faster to save lives,” said Zubin Zaman, Oxfam Regional Humanitarian Manager of Asia.

As the floods rise, more people will need food and water to survive. Clean drinking water, safe toilets, and hygiene are essential to prevent the outbreak of deadly disease. To reach them, Oxfam is closely working with our local partners who are based in and from the communities themselves to reach those who need assistance the most.

One of Oxfam’s partners in Assam, India is North East Research & Social Work Network (NERSWN); its project Coordinator, Dahal Narzary said, “The situation on the ground is grim as roads and highways are inundated, making it difficult for humanitarian teams to reach villages and areas which are cut off due to floods. We require more support and additional stocks for distribution to the worst affected communities.”

Even while the floods have started to recede in some areas, the villages and communities remain stranded and cut out from any aid as floods and earth slips washed away roads. In many areas, there’s no public transport, and power and telecommunications are down.

Early estimates put the cost of supporting people hit in the short and mid-term at $26.3 million, but the total damage is likely to be much more. A full assessment will not be possible until the floods recede fully and there is access.

“We are extremely concerned about the safety and survival of those people still most at risk, especially women, children, and those with limited ability to move. We need to do all we can – including raising more aid, as things are likely to get worse before they get better,” said Zaman.

Oxfam is working closely with the three governments and local authorities and will ramp up its response and as the situation changes.

– 30 –

Notes to editors:

• Oxfam spokespeople in India, Nepal or Bangladesh are available for interviews.
• Bangladesh is near the beginning of monsoon season, which will last until September. Weather monitoring stations in Cox’s Bazar registered 700 mm of rain in the week to July 8.
• Average rainfall for July in Chittagong, the province in which Cox’s Bazar is located, is 733 mm.

For more information or to arrange an interview please contact:

Paula Baker
Oxfam Canada
Media Relations
(613) 240-3047
paula.baker@oxfam.org

Dorothy Sang, Oxfam’s Humanitarian Advocacy Manager in Beira, said: “Cholera is easy to treat and simple to prevent. The latest reported figures seem to be indicating a sharp rise, but numbers are thankfully still relatively low for now. So far there have not been any confirmed deaths from cholera but nevertheless we need a massive well-coordinated effort to overcome the huge challenges that are preventing relief from getting to people in need. We must get clean water and decent sanitation to people and simple things like soap to keep them safe from disease.

“For the thousands of people who have lost their homes and all their possessions, any break-out of cholera could be devastating. The floods destroyed infrastructure, including water supplies and sewage systems, which means that potentially much of the water supply could have been contaminated.

“Today I saw real life-saving work in action. In the past 24 hours, Oxfam has mobilized trucks, built tap stands and got clean drinking water to over 2,200 people. I spoke to women who had just arrived at the new camps with absolutely nothing – not even a bottle with which to fetch water. They have been forced to bathe themselves and their children in whatever water they could find, often dirty and stagnant, left over from the cyclone. Now they have buckets, soap, and most importantly clean water, to help themselves and their family avoid risks of deadly diseases like cholera.”

In a consortium called COSACA – along with CARE and Save the Children – Oxfam is responding to prevent and contain cholera and other waterborne diseases including by trucking clean water into camps, promoting good hygiene to communities and distributing Certeza, a water-purification liquid. Oxfam is part of the cholera task force and will shortly begin hygiene promotion activities in the Munhava area where the cholera cases have been confirmed. In the next few days, we fly 38 tons of water and sanitation equipment from our Bicester warehouse in the UK on a chartered flight directly to Beira. This will include over a thousand of latrine slabs to build emergency toilets, over 20 water bladder tanks to collect and store fresh water, 10,000 Oxfam jerry buckets to transport and keep water clean and safe, 3 desludging pumps with generators and over a hundred tap stands.

Notes to editors:

Photos and VNR footage of aid shipment being loaded at Oxfam Supply Centre, Bicester (24km from Oxford), on Friday 29th March. The aid will be arriving Tuesday 3am into Beira airport.

Video of Wendy Mangwende (Oxfam Mozambique) standing alongside hygiene kits and family kits as part of emergency response to Cyclone Idai in Dondo, near Beira in Mozambique. The kits will help 300 people in Dondo affected by the cyclone.

For more information or to arrange an interview contact:

Paula Baker
Media Relations
Oxfam Canada
(613) 240-3047
paula.baker@oxfam.org

In Mozambique, 470 family kits were distributed through Oxfam’s partner organization, AJOAGO, in displacement camps in Estaquinha and Guara Guara in the district of Buzi – an area currently accessible only by boats or helicopter, and still without functional communication systems. Each family kit includes 2 blankets, a 10 litre bucket, 2 mosquito nets, 1 jerry can, 8 spoons and 2 cloth wrappers and water purification tablets.

In Malawi, 1,000 families in Bangula camp in Nsanje District received hygiene kits containing essential items such as buckets, soap, laundry soap and sanitary pads. Many of the people living in the camp travelled in canoes across the flood waters to reach safety.

Bangula camp is currently home to 5,000 displaced children, women and men from both Malawi and Mozambique, but they have been paying to use a nearby borehole for drinking water. With only a few toilets and limited access to clean water, people in the camp are particularly vulnerable to diseases such as acute diarrhea and cholera. 

Zainabu Elasoni, a resident of Bangula camp, said: “Hygiene conditions here in the camp are not very good and I do fear for my baby – but I have no choice. I lost all my household items when my house collapsed in the floods. Oxfam’s help comes just at the right time, I’ll be using one bucket for bathing my baby and another for storing drinking water.”

Malita Mishoni is another resident in the camp: “We really needed soap here. We lost everything in the flood, but today marks a new beginning for us, thanks to Oxfam’s support. I have a baby and two other daughters and these buckets and soap will make it a bit easier to take care of my children.”

Cyclone Idai has devastated the lives of more than 2.6 million people across southern Africa including about 700,000 people in Malawi where heavy rains, which began on 6th March, have caused massive flooding across the southern part of the country destroying people’s houses and washing away their livestock and crops. 

“We are seeing huge sanitation needs at the camp and the few toilets that have been dug at the camp are very shallow and some are already full because the area is still waterlogged,” says Joseph Moyo, Oxfam Humanitarian worker. “With cholera cases already being reported in Mozambique, we are prioritizing the distribution of hygiene kits to the survivors at the camp as an important intervention to prevent such an outbreak here.”

“The conditions and safety of women here at the camp are our paramount concern. Women and girls are more vulnerable here because of the distress this crisis has caused, and more needs to be done to heighten personal security and the protection of women and other vulnerable groups. In the coming days, we will be holding sensitization meetings with the women and girls, men and community members and their leaders on safeguarding issues. We also need more tents to ensure women and girls can have their living areas separated from the men,” says Tariro Mavingo, Oxfam humanitarian worker.

Oxfam will distribute additional aid to Bangula camp in the coming days including food such as maize flour, beans and cooking oil, as well as providing information and advice on how to prevent the spread of disease.

The overall humanitarian response is being severely hampered by continuing heavy rain, floodwaters, and because roads, bridges, and communications have been damaged or entirely destroyed – meaning many areas are only accessible by boat or helicopter.  

Oxfam has initial plans to reach up to half a million people in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe including via its partnerships with local and other international organizations. Over the next three months Oxfam and partners will truck in clean water and distribute water treatment and hygiene kits that contain items such as buckets, soaps, jerry cans and menstrual hygiene kits.

John Makina, Oxfam in Malawi Country Director, said: “People have been left with nothing. They need help now and in the months and years ahead to rebuild their communities in a way, which equips them for a world where climate change means extreme weather events such as Idai happen more often. Idai is yet another deadly warning of the impact of unchecked climate change unless governments, particularly major emitters, cut emissions fast.”

For more information or to arrange an interview contact:

Paula Baker
Media Relations
Oxfam Canada
(613) 240-3047
paula.baker@oxfam.org

Hundreds of thousands of survivors in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe are in danger from waterborne diseases such as cholera and diarrhea.

Cyclone Idai had caused extensive damage to water supply and sanitation infrastructure. Many people are having to drink contaminated water. Urgent action is needed to prevent the outbreak of diseases such as cholera and acute diarrhea.

Speaking from Mozambique, Oxfam aid worker Takaindisa Sanangurai said “we have seen an increase of people with diarrhea already, especially in Beira, because raw sewage is flowing into water sources. Ninety percent of Beira is still under water and it is difficult to contain the problem.”

Oxfam plans to distribute water purification tablets, hygiene kits and blankets to communities in Beira, and also to those in the Chipinge and Chimanimai districts of Zimbabwe. In Malawi, Oxfam is working in Nsanje Bangula camp where displaced people have been gathering.

The overall humanitarian response is being severely hampered by continuing heavy rain, floodwaters, and because roads, bridges, and communications have been damaged or destroyed entirely.

Tariro Mavi, Oxfam’s Regional Water, Sanitation and Health Expert said: “I have met people whose lives have been turned upside down. They are now struggling to meet their most basic needs. As well as our aid distributions, we will also run hygiene promotion sessions to advise people how to store and treat water. We’ll help to ensure that people who have had to take refuge in transit camps can access adequate toilet and washing facilities.”

Elizabeth Banda (38) from Chikwawa – one of the worst affected areas in Malawi told Oxfam: “If things do not change we shall all perish. No one will be left behind.”

Oxfam has initial plans to reach up to half a million people in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe including via its partnerships with local and other international organisations. Over the next three months Oxfam and partners will truck in clean water and distribute water treatment and hygiene kits that contain items such as buckets, soaps, jerry cans and menstrual hygiene kits.

To support Oxfam’s lifesaving work in response to Cyclone Idai go to Oxfam Canada.

— 30 —

For more information or to arrange an interview please contact:

Paula Baker
Media Relations
Oxfam Canada
(613) 240-3047
paula.baker@oxfam.org

These floods are a sign of things to come. Climate change is a reality that we must all rise to confront and we must focus on building the capacity of the most vulnerable people so they can withstand its effects. That is why we work with others across the world to ensure that the most vulnerable communities – who have contributed least to the climate crisis – are not forced to bear the heaviest burden.

Oxfam teams are currently on the ground in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, working with other agencies to assess the extent of the damage and deliver life-saving support. The road to recovery for these communities will be a long  one. Oxfam will walk alongside them in their journey. We commend the agencies and governments who assisted with rescue efforts. We must all redouble our efforts now to save and support people.

While the scale of this disaster is extreme, flooding and disasters in these parts of Southern Africa is the norm, not the exception. Yet the state of disaster preparedness has not improved over the years, and people’s lives continue to be lost and imperiled needlessly. We all need to do better, particularly governments.

This tragedy calls us to take bold action on climate change and disaster preparedness. The priorities of our governments must change to focus more on the resilience of their nations, and especially of poor women and children who are the most vulnerable. The lives and suffering of people affected by cyclone Idai must not be in vain.

Oxfam Executive Board, 2019

The number of casualties and affected people are set to rise from the two million currently estimated. Rains are still falling and waters rising in some areas. The destruction of roads, bridges and communications means that some areas are still completely cut off. Search-and-rescue – and eventually aid and recovery – are being terribly hampered.

Oxfam Country Directors in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe all speak of a sense of people’s desperation in the hardest-hit areas, and of widespread destruction of crops and livelihoods.

Rotafina Donco from Mozambique said there are people flooded from their homes and now in transit camps who haven’t eaten for days. She said some people were still waiting to be rescued, clinging to treetops or on mountainsides. “Food prices are rocketing,” she said.

Machinda Marongwe from Zimbabwe spoke of “seeing the pain in people’s faces. Their hope is gone. Disaster following disaster.” Some people were without any clean water. “Aid could give them some hope … hope that others are listening and wanting to help them.”

John Makina of Malawi said that in the camps, where displaced people have congregated from the floods and their destroyed homes, “there you can see how awfully they have been affected”. He said the camps are full of women during the day awaiting their husbands and sons to return of an evening with whatever food they had been able to find. He said that some communities could only be able to be reached by helicopter or boat. “Sanitation in some places is just absent, with latrines and sewage systems washed away or destroyed. People are having to defecate in the bush – this will lead to bad water-borne disease.”

The cyclone with winds of 170km/hr and heavy rains hit the port city of Beira in Mozambique where 90% of the land is under water and communications are cut off. Sergio Zimba, Oxfam in Mozambique’s Communications Officer, has just arrived there: “We have been confined to the airport, where most of the development agencies are gathered. We are getting daily briefings but it has been impossible to reach the field.”

“We are trying to get around this problem, but there are huge logistical challenges. There are no cars here. We are determined to save lives and working around the clock to ensure effective logistics can be put in place.”

In Zimbabwe, where over 80 deaths have been officially recorded so far and hundreds more still missing, roads are impassable and rescue helicopters grounded because of bad weather. Fredrick Kupfambamhandu, Oxfam’s Water and Sanitation Team Leader in Zimbabwe, said: “Ascertaining the extent of damage has been difficult as the area is only accessible by air at the moment. The road network was greatly damaged. Zimbabwe army troops only managed to reach the affected areas on foot today.”

Netsai Shambira, Oxfam’s Regional Women’s Rights and Gender Justice Coordinator, said: “We are conducting a rapid gender analysis to inform our responses because women and children are the most affected when disasters like this strike. Ensuring that they are safe and protected is important considering the long distances they are travelling.”

Oxfam’s initial response is being planned around sanitation, health and hygiene, trying to ensure people have access to clean water, and also food aid.

For more information or to arrange an interview please contact:

Paula Baker
Media Relations
Oxfam Canada
(613) 240-3047
paula.baker@oxfam.org

It was actually while bending down to untangle my dress that caused my headscarf to snag – but let’s backtrack for a moment.

That day, I was on a field visit to Somaliland, the self-declared autonomous, yet widely unrecognized region in the western part of Somalia. Somaliland, like a large part of the Horn of Africa, suffered from a severe drought in 2017, which left millions hungry and without access to clean and safe water.

I was deployed to Somaliland to monitor Oxfam’s life-saving drought response in the region. The majority of the response was focused on the provision of “WASH” (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene assistance). Of particular interest to me on this trip was observing how the response had improved access to safe and clean water and sanitation facilities for women and girls.

That day, it was actually a “sanitation” related tangle that I had found myself in.

“When I visited project sites last month I heard over and over that Oxfam was the only NGO that had come. Life is difficult in Somalia and reoccurring drought makes surviving harder than ever, especially for women and girls.”

Long, dusty car rides across the desert offer little in the way of privacy to relieve oneself. A thorny desert bush was the only place available on the long drive through the expansive desert. Unfortunately for me, I had managed to thoroughly tangle myself in it. Yet, even so, this need for privacy was nothing compared to what the tens of thousands of women we were assisting in displaced persons camps were facing on a day-to-day basis.

The Oxfam team hosting my visit, as in many humanitarian responses, was heavily male. To stop for this break, I had to halt a three-car convoy. Despite feeling supported and safe throughout my visit – thanks to a fantastic host team- it was still an awkward moment that caused me to pause and reflect.

Thankfully, part of the minimum “Gender in Emergency” standards that Oxfam adheres to focuses on promoting women’s dignity and empowerment in humanitarian response. Mostly, this focuses on the women and girls we serve in our response, ensuring they can access services and feel empowered to demand space for themselves and their needs.  But it almost means making space for women to work in our responses.

With your help, Oxfam has reached more than 36,000 people in Somalia with water and sanitation so far.

Oxfam recognizes that good programming for women goes beyond simply building a toilet and assigning it a “Ladies” sign. It includes supporting team members to feel comfortable pulling over for “sanitation stops”. A gender-inclusive humanitarian response is a better response, and I am thankful we are getting there one pit stop at a time.

Heather Patterson is a Humanitarian Program Officer at Oxfam Canada. Her work at Oxfam has taken her throughout the Middle East and Africa

Lucinda, Jine, Chipililo, Hendrina, Alice, and Sekechina pass the mechanical parts of the borehole back, hand to hand.  They are showing me how to dismantle and repair the newly restored water pump that serves their village outside of the Malawian capital of Lilongwe.

The women are knowledgeable, competent, and expertly in sync. The borehole (a well with a water pump) in front of me has gone through a rigorous process to get it up and running after not being in use for too long. Women describe the various states of disrepair, describing it as “dirty, mal-functioning, problem-ridden”. But those days are behind them. As a newly formed Water Point Committee, they have the knowledge to assess the problem and the resources to fix it. Quickly.

Being without clean, accessible water is a recent memory for the women of Lilongwe.

“Previously it was an hour to collect water, now it is 10-15 minutes.”
-Lucinda

Last year, Malawi suffered extreme drought conditions as a result of climate change and El Nino. In April 2016, the Malawi Government declared a state of emergency, calling on the international community for help. Oxfam responded with a borehole rehabilitation project to increase access to water and help farmers increase food production.

Over 11 months and with support from Global Affairs Canada, Oxfam has rehabilitated 39 boreholes, providing clean water for over 53,000 people across two districts in Malawi.  

Having better access to clean water has been critical to helping protect and advance women’s rights in the community. Prior to rehabilitating this water-source, women and girls would walk long distances to collect water.

“Previously it was an hour to collect water, now it is 10-15 minutes. You can put a pot of simma on and do cooking, and come back and forth. We use the extra time to go to the field, to take care of the children,” Lucinda tells us.

The time and distance it took to collect water significantly compromised women’s safety and prosperity. Girls could not go to school because they spent most of their time collecting water. Their inability to access an education meant they were less likely to lift themselves (and their families) out of poverty. Women often collected water after dark, which increased their risk of experiencing rape and violence.

Better access to clean water means a safer, more prosperous community. 

The Malawi drought response project has helped raise women’s social status within the community.  Across Malawi, women are put in charge of the community water supplies. Groups of women will form a community water committee and work together to ensure the boreholes get fixed quickly and effectively. Women perform these tasks because community members reported that men did not favorably respond to or prioritize their requests to repair the water supply.

As one committee member put it, “men were not able to repair the borehole as fast as required, so we decided that only women will repair the borehole.”

Being trained to repair the boreholes is an empowering experience.

Women take part in a 3-day technical workshop at a nearby school, where they receive hands-on training on how to repair a borehole. Following the immersive training, they have the skills and knowledge for routine care, maintenance and every-day problem-solving. Repairs are also self-funded, ensuring that the community has a sustainable source of safe water now and into the future.

The committee collects user’s fees for the pump and chooses a treasurer to manage the money – another woman in the trusted group. One group had MWK 10,500 saved so far, about $18 CAD! The women are resourceful visionaries, with plans to expand the benefits from the repaired water pump by investing loans from the village savings and loans associations. Their future plans include buying and planting a banana tree in the water runoff area, selling the bananas, and putting the money back into the water committee’s collective account.

The Women’s Water Point Committee is an inspiring group of change-makers!

By expertly managing and repairing the community’s water supply, these women have helped protect their community’s health, safety, and long-term prosperity. They have also helped change the attitudes and social norms around women’s status and work – inspiring change for generations to come.

Written by Heather Patterson, Humanitarian Program Officer at Oxfam Canada.

Oxfam works with communities to provide safe water in emergency situations. We also work on water, sanitation and irrigation in our long-term program work.

Reacting to the news, Oxfam International’s executive director Winnie Byanyima said:
“This is a disgraceful failure of our international leaders and institutions. The ground we’ve painstakingly gained throughout the years can easily be lost; today is proof of that. This is the ugly truth of inequality: hundreds of millions going hungry, while a handful of multi-billionaires gorge more wealth than all combined.”

The UN report largely attributes the increase on “the proliferation of violent conflicts and climate-related shocks,” and points to the role they played in the famine in South Sudan, as well as the high risk of famine in Nigeria, Somalia, and Yemen.

“Hunger is not about a lack of food; we grow more than enough to feed the world. We must find real, lasting solutions to the root problems. This means pushing for peaceful resolutions to violent conflicts; it means curbing carbon emissions and helping communities adapt to the changing climate now; it means investing in women, who are at higher risk of falling into hunger than men.”

The hunger crisis continues to claim lives, with millions of people in South Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger and Uganda facing ongoing displacement and droughts.

Oxfam is hard at work helping those in need in the countries affected by famine. 

In Ethiopia we are supporting more than 600,000 people with clean water, cash transfers, protection, livestock treatment and hygiene promotion. In South Sudan, we are providing regular emergency food to 415,000 people and racing to get emergency food, water and hygiene items to another 150,000 forced to flee their homes, in the hopes of keeping diseases like cholera at bay.

Our programs also work to provide greater normalcy in times of crisis, recognizing the need to empower and protect women in particular. We provide them with access to the resources they need to survive and support themselves, their families and their communities.

Read more about our response to the hunger and famine crisis here.

Her excitement was contagious.

Renata Dia stood at the base of the brand new water tap. The solar-powered water system was only a few meters away and she was gazing at it with delight and gratitude. She was surrounded by her four children and over 20 L of water collection containers, varying in size.

Renata lives in a host community outside Nduta Refugee Camp. Refugees in Nduta Camp share water supplies with the host communities in the region. This has created a shortage of access to safe water systems.

Renata is a powerhouse. She farms cassava, beans and maize, which she feeds to her family and sells to generate income. Renata, like most women in Nduta, uses up to 100 L of water per day to sustain her family and farming activities. To put that in perspective, each Canadian use an average of 329 L of water per day.

Renata described the 6 km walk she, like many others, would take each day to get water. Each day, she would walk from her village to the nearest river – alone or with her children. She described how frightened and tired she used to be. Her voice is sombre as she describes the duress she and her family used to face. The road to the river is used by thousands of village residents. This meant that it was high traffic, yet isolated. Close to 4 hours a day would be spent collecting water to run their household.

Today, Renata walks 5 minutes to a water tap near her home, where she collects water to drink, clean and farm on her land. As I spoke with her, her children agreed that their quality of life has vastly improved. The children are happier, Renata points out, and much safer. They are safer, and they feel safer, I think to myself. But how many women and girls are not? For the hundredth time this week, I am struck by how much impact our work has had — yet I can’t shake thinking about how much more work there is to do.

For me, meeting with the people we serve and understanding the community is the most important part of my job as a humanitarian worker. -Simmi Dixit

For me, meeting with the people we serve and understanding the community is the most important part of my job as a humanitarian worker.  Renata is one of tens of millions of people that are affected by the refugee crisis and are facing a range of risks in her daily life. Over the last year, we worked together with community leaders to establish how we could best serve them. The community told us what they needed and together we established the most effective ways to work together over time.

In turn, Oxfam built 2 solar powered water supply systems, dug 10 boreholes and built 24 water taps to increase access to clean water. We also built hand-washing stations, toilets, water tanks and pipelines. Running taps, clean, safe drinking water— in Canada, things people can take for granted.

I reflect on how safe and privileged I am. We are so removed from the realities faced by people who, by fate, were born into lives so different from our own. Despite this, it is important to always remember our common humanity.

In Canada, it’s difficult to understand how aid dollars reach those most in need. It is important for Canadians to realize that our awareness and support has a profound impact on people’s lives. Days like World Humanitarian Day remind Canadians about the work that we do on the ground — and that despite the distance, we can work together to make lasting changes in the day-to-day lives of those most in need. And on days like today, I can tell others about how incredibly meaningful these changes are to people like Renata and her family.

I learn so much from the communities we serve. I am truly inspired by their resilience, gratitude and ability to find creative solutions when their basic needs aren’t met. Water, education, safety and healthcare are luxuries that are not afforded to everyone on this planet. On World Humanitarian Day, I honour our humanitarian partners, communities, and the individuals we serve — they define the work that we do.

This World Humanitarian Day, I want us to do 3 things together:

(1)  Honour humanitarian workers. The majority of humanitarian workers are local workers who face tremendous risks when providing assistance. We must pay tribute to those who have lost their lives.

(2) Reflect on our common humanity. Think about how different your life could have been, had you been born elsewhere. We must remember that we are more alike, than different.

(3) Take action. Lend your voice to a World Humanitarian Day campaign, donate to Oxfam’s humanitarian work, hug your favourite humanitarian worker…. you decide.

Simmi Dixit is the Humanitarian Program Officer at Oxfam Canada. Simmi recently visited the Nduta Refugee Camp in western Tanzania to support the teams in Tanzania who are implementing Oxfam Canada’s water, sanitation and livelihood support projects. 

The lives of women and children in refugee camps around the world are fraught with dangers. Most have fled violence in their own countries or villages – be it Syria, Yemen, Somalia or the Democratic Republic of Congo – like Sylvie.

In refugee camps, they face the additional threat of disease. Starvation. Sexual violence.

As an Oxfam supporter and champion against poverty, you know that there are more displaced people on our planet today than at any other time in history. The reasons are complex – generally rooted in greed, power struggles and fear.

You and I can feel like there is little we can do in the face of such overwhelming need. Such huge numbers. But there absolutely is.

We can help individual refugees like Sylvie and her children.

And it all begins with water.

In refugee camps around the world, Oxfam is building water stations and latrines. Getting clean drinking water to families like Sylvie’s. Keeping people alive.

Your support is powerful, and we need your help to continue our lifesaving work. After all they have been through, you can ensure refugee families are treated with dignity and care. We need your help to continue this life-giving work.

As you know, Oxfam are water experts. In humanitarian crises, people turn to us – including other international development agencies working to protect refugees and children. They know that we have the skills and the knowledge to get clean water in, fast.

“My husband’s stomach was hurting. He was sick for one week, and went to hospital when the problem got worse. But when he got there, he died.” – Sylvie

In fact, for children and families in crisis settings, the single most important thing we can provide is water, sanitation and hygiene. We call this program WASH.

Everybody has a need and a right to safe water and hygiene. And when they don’t have these basic facilities, disease spreads. People get sick. Some die.

Around the world, we are bringing WASH programs to refugee camps. And you can help. Here are examples of what your donation can fund:

• In Buporo camp, there was only one water tank. “But now there are many water points and there is enough for everyone,” says Sylvie. “It has solved the problem of fighting over water and people can shower and wash their clothes. It has reduced the incidents of diarrhea in the camp.” You helped Oxfam install two tanks on the hill above the camp that capture and pipe spring water down to tap stands in the camp. You have helped us train people to filter, clean and test the water to make sure it is safe to drink.

• In Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp, you have helped Oxfam get the community involved in designing and installing the camp’s toilets and shower stalls, as well as water taps. Each block is now adorned with tiles painted by the camp’s children. It’s a small thing. But it’s also a big thing – because it means that these people in crisis have dignity, and have ownership over a part of their lives.

Ensuring women have safe access to the toilets and showers by including locks on the inside of doors and lighting for access in the dark. Providing safe, local water sources and facilitating access to services for vulnerable people such as pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, or survivors of violence.

Tap stands. Hand-washing stations. Toilets. Water tanks and pipelines. This is all simple technology, really. Whether it’s conflict, flooding or drought, women like Sylvie are going to extreme lengths just to survive. From the gift of clean water, to food, to support rebuilding their livelihoods – together we can give them the hope they need to help their families come back stronger.

When you give to Oxfam, your gift provides safety and security to women like Sylvie.

To help our response to the wide spread extreme hunger and famine, please donate here.

So what makes the “Oxfam bucket” so innovative?

1. A handy tap so that people can get water without having to dip dirty hands or bowls into it.

Oxfam is providing clean water, toilets and hygiene classes to children in Port Loko’s Educaid primary school. The facilities include a solar powered water pump, tap stands and toilet blocks for both male and female students. Photo: Tommy Trenchard/Oxfam

2. A tight-fitting lid that keeps water in and keep insects, germs, and dirt out. Clean water can be crucial to preventing the spread of disease.

Here, the Oxfam bucket is being used for handwashing to prevent the spread of cholera in Sierra Leone. Jane Beesley/Oxfam.

3. At 3.7 gallons, it’s the perfect size.  It holds a lot of water, but it’s not too heavy when full.

Brother and sister Kapr and Isatu Kargbo are both Ebola survivors who received buckets, soap, and water purification tablets from Oxfam. Photo: Michelle Curran/Oxfam.

4. It’s smooth and spike free on the bottom so that people can comfortably carry it on their heads. This is especially important for families who have to walk long distances every day to fetch clean water.

Oxfam buckets ready for distribution after the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines. Jire Carreon/Oxfam

5. It’s made of durable UV-resistant plastic that won’t deteriorate in harsh sunlight.

A boy in Sierra Leone washes his hands. Will Wintercross / Oxfam.

6. Stackable for easy distribution in large numbers.

Refugees in South Sudan line up to receive buckets and soap as part of Oxfam’s public health campaign in the camp. Alun McDonald

7.It’s easy to clean thanks to curved edges at the base that prevent bacteria from accumulating.

Oxfam is providing water and sanitation facilities to refugees living in informal tent settlements in Lebanon and Jordan. Photo: Karl Schembri/Oxfam

8. A built-in cap allows people to pour in water without removing the lid, preventing contamination. 

And the best part is—just $20 for A bucket. Donate now and help save lives by providing essential clean water for those who lost their home due to conflict.

]]> https://www.oxfam.ca/story/without-water-we-wont-survive/ Wed, 08 Jun 2016 18:16:37 +0000 https://oxfamcanprod.wpengine.com/blog/without-water-we-wont-survive/ Ethiopia is experiencing its worst drought in 50 years. The El Niño weather system, exacerbated by climate change, comes off the back of 12-18 months of erratic or failed rains. It has dried up many water sources, and left families that were already poor and vulnerable with nothing. Hundreds of thousands of livestock have died. Malnutrition is at alarming levels.

Habodo, an Ethiopian farmer, used to have 200 goats and 10 camels – they were her means of income. Now most of Habodo’s animals have died due to a lack of water and pasture.

“The water is retreating deeper and deeper [when wells are dug]. We live by water, our cattle live by water. Without water we are no more. If we can sustain our lives, it is because Oxfam gave us water. My greatest fear is if the trucks stop bringing water. What will happen to us?”

The people’s greatest need is for water. They are sharing the small amounts they have with others in desperate need, and with their animals too.

Your gift to Oxfam could ensure people have clean, safe water to drink, help build toilets and handwashing facilities to help prevent the spread of deadly disease, and help provide food for families like Habodo’s.

No one should have to go through the suffering that Habodo has had to endure. Please make the most generous gift you can today. You’ll help Oxfam continue our work with the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, in Ethiopia and other areas with the greatest need.

Written by Ann Witteveen, Humanitarian Manager, Oxfam Canada

The main issues people face now in Pedernales and other places hit hardest by the earthquake are accessing clean water in large enough quantities, and also sanitation measures to prevent water-borne diseases, especially among children and the elderly.  Oxfam plans to maintain its humanitarian assistance in Ecuador for at least the next three months. “In addition to the loss of life, injuries suffered and homes destroyed – which are all terrible in themselves – people’s livelihoods have also been severely affected. Many don’t have jobs or have been left without tools to work with. They need help to recover from this shock,” said Garcia.

Aftershocks continue to hit Ecuador’s northern coast. On Friday morning another tremor registering 6 on the Richter scale was felt, prolonging people’s fears and anxiety. Aftershocks are likely for at least another week.  Up until now, the Ecuadorian government has reported 587 people dead and more than 6,000 injured. They estimate damages in the region of $3 billion.

Notes to editors:
Oxfam has spokespeople in Ecuador and Mexico City.

In Siti zone in the east of the country, many people have told Oxfam that they are dependent on food aid to survive but some are sharing this with their sheep and goats in a desperate attempt to keep their animals alive as well. 

The Ethiopian government estimates that 10.2 million people will need humanitarian assistance this year, at a cost of $1.4 billion. The El Niño weather system, on the back of 12 to 18 months of erratic or failed rains, has caused the worst drought in Ethiopia since the mid1980s. 

Ann Witteveen, Oxfam Canada’s Humanitarian Manager said: "Ethiopians are watching their crops wither and animals starve to death, all the while knowing they don’t have enough food and water for their families. Women and girls are particularly affected, often having to walk for days to find water.  

"The Government of Ethiopia is doing what it can, but the enormous scale of this crisis requires urgent and significant funding from donors to complement their efforts. It’s been clear for months that this drought would have a devastating effect on Ethiopia. The Canadian Government has provided some support but more funding is needed to help the country and its people cope."

Oxfam is helping over 160,000 people in three areas of the country by trucking in water, repairing boreholes and wells, and giving out animal feed. The aid agency is planning to reach 777,000 people but needs $25 million (£14 million) to do so. 

Ethiopia’s ‘belg’ rains are due to begin in a couple of months but even if normal rainfall occurs, it will take time for people to replenish their herds and cultivate crops. 

Fatuma Hersi had a herd of 300 sheep and goats of which just seven remain. The mother of eight who is now seeking help at a site for internally displaced people in Siti, said: "There have been other droughts. But this one is the worst I have seen. We are here waiting for support."

Ethiopia is one of a number of countries struggling to cope with the effects of one of the strongest El Niños on record. Along with food shortages in southern Africa, Papua New Guinea and Central America, it has also caused floods in Paraguay and Bolivia. 

El Niño is a natural phenomenon that occurs periodically. Although it is not directly caused by climate change, global warming makes it more likely that strong El Niños will develop. And in turn, El Niños involve the release of a large amount of heat from the Pacific Ocean, exacerbating climate change. 

Any short term response to feed those left hungry by this year’s El Niño needs to be matched with medium and long term plans to tackle climate change which makes super El Niños more likely. 

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For more information:

Melanie Gallant
Media Relations
(613) 240-3047

In South Sudan, only 55 percent of people have access to safe drinking water. And due to increased costs of production, water providers in the capital, Juba, are producing less and charging more, squeezing people’s access to safe water even further.

People living in urban areas, particularly in poorer neighborhoods, have been hardest hit. They can no longer afford to buy enough safe water. With the cost of living climbing almost 30 percent in the first half of this year, for many families putting food on the table becomes the first priority. Buying clean water often takes second place. But those who still can afford it now spend twice as much as they did just a few months ago.

In their own voices, here are the stories of three people in Juba and their struggles with clean water.

Moses Chazi: bicycle vendor

Moses Chazi came to South Sudan from Uganda more than a year ago. He is a mason by profession but construction work has been hard to come by since the economy took a downturn. He chose to sell water because demand for it is always high, guaranteeing a steady income.

“I have been selling water for five months now.

Water from the river is free. People who cannot afford to buy treated water from me have no choice but to use what they collect from the Nile.

When I’m delivering water, I try and speak to my customers, find out how they are. Since cholera broke out, I’ve been talking to them about the importance of using clean water, and making sure jerry cans are washed with soap. Some customers also check if my jerry cans are clean and ask me questions about the source of my water.

I’ve also talked to others who I know want to use treated water, but can’t because they don’t have the money to spend on it.  Some refuse to use treated water because to them it’s too salty and does not taste like water. A few months ago, before the value of the South Sudanese pound went down, I used to give out free water sometimes. I wish I could still do that, but it’s impossible now because every pound counts.

This business has really been affected by the economy. We were making the same amount of money but it does not have the same value as it did before. The cost of food, water and rent has increased. We were forced to increase the price of the water we sell because it cost more to collect it at the treatment site. I lost some customers, but some stayed.  

The price of food, water and transport has been increasing. I had to change some things in my day-to-day life to reflect the loss in my income.  I could not change the food I eat because I need strength for the work that I do. I had to take away from the water and the savings. I used to drink four liters of water a day, but now I only drink two. I can’t save as much as I used to.”

Sura Aggrey

Sura Aggrey is a single mother of five children. Since separating from her husband, she has been living with her mother, who is helping her to raise the children.

“I get water from the blue water trucks. They used to drive through this neighborhood everyday, but now they hardly come. It’s on and off. I’m not sure what is going on. When the water in my house gets finished, I ask for some from my neighbors. When it rains, I collect that water in my buckets and drums.

The closest water point is too far for me to collect water.  When I have no other options, I get water from a nearby river, it’s not clean, but it’s something. The money I make as a policewoman is not enough anymore. It is not worth what it used to be. It’s challenging to buy food and charcoal when the prices keep going up. I am trying to do my best to survive with what I have.”

Emmanuel

Emmanuel, who asked that his last name not be used, moved two years ago with his wife and their 5-year-old daughter to Gudele, on the outskirts of Juba. The economy has affected their family, like many in South Sudan.

“We buy water from the blue water trucks every three days if the trucks come to Gudele. They used to come regularly, but not so much anymore. When we ask them what’s wrong, they say that we live too far and fuel is expensive or not even available sometimes.

Recently it’s been a challenge to get clean water for our day-to-day activities. If the trucks don’t come, our next option is to fetch untreated water at a water point about 700 meters away from our house. Many people fetch water from there and the lines are always very long. Sometimes you can wait in line for hours and in the end walk away without water because it’s finished. If we get water, we treat it and use it for cooking and drinking.

If we can’t afford the water treatment, we just use it as it is. The South Sudanese pound is not what it used to be. We’re already really struggling to make ends meet.

If we don’t get clean water from the water point, our only other option is to get it at the stream some meters from our house. This water is not clean and we cannot use it for cooking or drinking. If we have no choice, we use it to shower and wash our clothes.

We know about the cholera outbreak, and get worried that it will come to our home. We’re already making sure that our compound is clean; we clean our latrines and bathing areas regularly, and make sure we all use soap after using them. I’m doing everything to make sure that my family is protected. If anyone gets sick, it will be because people outside are not protecting themselves.”

Lasting peace needed

For the people of South Sudan, the only way they can begin to solve their water and economic problems is for the war to end. Oxfam is urging South Sudanese leaders to work towards a lasting peace and a recommitment to providing essential services for their people.

Throughout Juba, Oxfam is fixing wells, supporting effective chlorination of water delivered by water trucks, and increasing water treatment infrastructure so bicycle vendors have a bigger supply to draw from.

At one site within a UN base in Juba where more than 28,000 people live in crowded conditions, Oxfam is promoting good hygiene practices, such as hand washing and the cleaning of water storage facilities.

Oxfam is also installing hand washing facilities at strategic locations within the site and working with restaurant owners to raise awareness about the importance of using clean treated water for cooking and selling food.

However, concerted action from the government of South Sudan as well as increased funding from international donors is needed to ensure people get enough clean water.

Help Oxfam rush food and clean water to families in South Sudan.

Zlatko Gegic, Country Director for Oxfam in South Sudan, said: “Families are struggling as food prices and living expenses increase, with many taking desperate measures such as drinking dirty water to survive. The high cost and scarcity of clean water puts people at much greater risk of deadly yet preventable diseases like cholera.”

The country’s deteriorating economic situation has hiked the cost of fuel and driven up production and distribution expenses, making clean water more expensive and inaccessible for many.

Most of Juba’s residents rely on private sector suppliers such as water trucks and bicycle vendors, or town boreholes, while some collect water directly from the Nile. Although the government rightly caps the price of water, it remains out of reach for many.

“Families are telling us they now spend twice as much on water as they did just a few months ago. Those who can’t afford it have reduced their daily consumption to dangerous levels. Some have little choice but to rely on dirty water from the Nile for their survival, exposing them to serious risk of disease,” Mr Gegic said.

Water companies in Juba are producing and distributing less due to high fuel costs. Bottled water vendors are also selling less, meaning water supply is severely affected. The government’s official declaration of the outbreak coupled with its cooperation with NGOs to deliver humanitarian assistance has helped contain the spread of the disease. But more needs to be done to save lives.

“We need to act now. We appeal to South Sudan’s leaders to prioritize investment in water and health infrastructure to prevent future outbreaks. The provision of public services should top the budgetary agenda. Donors should urgently fund life-saving activities such as chlorination for water trucks and rehabilitation of water systems,” Mr Gegic said.

South Sudan’s economic crisis is a direct result of the war. Increased military spending by government has meant little is left for essential services, including life-saving measures such as the provision water-treating chlorine.

“Oxfam strongly appeals to South Sudanese leaders to end the war and focus on delivery of essential services. Without peace, the economy will continue to deteriorate and clean water will remain out of reach for many,” Mr Gegic said.

Notes to Editors:

Throughout Juba, Oxfam is rehabilitating boreholes, supporting chlorination of water delivered by water trucks and increasing water treatment infrastructure for bicycle vendors. Oxfam is also promoting good hygiene practises such as hand washing and cleaning of water storage facilities, particularly in Protection of Civilian sites within a UN base.

In addition to cholera cases reported in Juba county, there have been 59 cases including 1 death in Bor and its vicinity, Jonglei State. Numbers correct as of 8 July 2015.

Media contact:

Faith Kasina +211 (0) 955 477 540 or fkasina@oxfam.org.uk
Media contact in Canada, Melanie Gallant, (613) 240 3047 or Melanie.gallant@oxfam.ca

Given the current state of play Addis risks delivering little more than warm words and funding for a few pet development projects.  Yet this meeting is supposed to be about much more. It is supposed to establish a financing framework that will bolster genuinely inclusive growth and tackle poverty across the developing world. It should set out how the global community will fund a fairer, more prosperous and stable world – whether from the public purse, private finance, tax revenues or other innovative sources. To do that requires high level engagement from across the globe which, at the time of writing, doesn’t seem likely.

One billion people live in poverty.  That’s one billion people who struggle to get enough to eat, or get an education. A billion people whose dreams of a better life are unlikely to be fulfilled no matter how hard they work, as the wealth of a few continues to increase rapidly.   Extreme economic inequality is also spiralling out of control both within countries and between developed and developing countries; on current trends the richest 1 per cent will own more than half the world’s wealth by 2016. Too many people are being left behind and the consequences of that are unsustainable. For evidence, just read the daily news.
 
It’s imperative we get a financing for development framework in place if we are to rid the world of destabilising and dehumanising poverty and inequality. Addis can start this process and set the bar high for the UN Summit for Sustainable Development Goals – a set of targets aimed at eliminating poverty and protecting our planet, that are due to be agreed in New York in September – and the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris at the end of the year.

The potential for Addis is huge but the prospects are gloomy. Governments’ determination to put short term political and commercial interests ahead of their citizens’ wellbeing means Addis risks doing more for global business than for those unjustly at the bottom: our world’s poor.  

We can see these skewed priorities in the headlong rush to embrace private finance as a panacea for development. Rich countries see this as a convenient way to plug the huge funding gaps within the Sustainable Development Goals, and to rid themselves of decades’ old promises to increase public funding for overseas development aid. Billions of dollars of tax payers’ money have already been poured into public-private partnerships which have dubious outcomes for the poorest and most vulnerable people – projects such as a hospital in Lesotho that sucked up 51 per cent of that country’s total health budget, leaving rural areas dangerously under resourced.

While it’s clear that private finance needs to be part of the finance mix – and can play a critical role in some areas such as large scale communications, energy or transport projects – its record in helping the very poorest communities is weak at best and abusive at worst. It can never be a substitute for tried and tested public funding. Yet now Addis seems set to give the green light for an even bigger role for private finance in development without the strong environmental and social checks and balances required to ensure it delivers for the poor.

On tax, too, the needs of the world’s poorest people are being shunted aside in favour of big business. Governments both north and south are losing billions of dollars because of tax dodging by multinational companies. This money could be invested in vital public services such as health and education instead. A radical overhaul of the international system is long overdue. Yet when developing countries try to clamp down on tax cheats by calling for the establishment of an inter-governmental tax body in Addis, they are thwarted by a group of rich country governments who refuse to even entertain the notion of developing countries' call for strengthened intergovernmental efforts to develop global norms in taxation facilitated by a UN body.  

The opportunities open for Addis could, like so many summits before it, be squandered. At this time more than any, bold and courageous international leadership is needed. The EU appears reluctant to play the unifying leadership role we have come to expect of it. Is it time for governments from some of the world’s emerging economies such as South Africa, Brazil and India to step forward to broker new rules and standards on development finance to which all can subscribe? The leadership needs to come from somewhere.

When an outbreak of the highly contagious waterborne disease hit the capital a year ago, Oxfam raced to stem its spread by building latrines, treating water, mobilizing communities to collect garbage, and sharing information on good hygiene practices. Now, urgent action is needed more than ever.

“The deteriorating economic situation has led to a hike in fuel prices and significantly reduced people’s access to safe water,” said Gegic. “This has the potential to exacerbate and increase the spread of cholera in overcrowded camps and in poor urban areas in Juba. People depend on water trucks for their clean water and many can no longer afford to buy water.”

Many people who are too poor to buy water from the trucks fetch their drinking supply directly from a nearby river. But drinking it untreated puts people at risk of contracting cholera.

The outbreak comes just weeks after aid agencies warned of alarming food scarcity among the South Sudanese:  An estimated 40 percent of the fledgling nation’s population is expected to be severely hungry by the end of July. Malnutrition rates are skyrocketing among children under the age of 5.

At the UN camp in Juba, known as the Protection of Civilians site, Oxfam is now spreading the word on good hygiene and how hand-washing and careful cleaning of water storage containers can help keep cholera at bay. We are also installing hand-washing facilities at strategic points within the site, including at local restaurants and water points.

In other parts of the city, we are repairing drilled wells and chlorinating water trucks to ensure people have access to the safe drinking water they need.  In addition, we’re working with a variety of water, sanitation, and health agencies along with the UN and the government of South Sudan to develop and revise state and national cholera response plans.

But as important as all these steps are, ending the conflict is the only way to ensure the future well-being of families.

“The conflict remains the key driver of the humanitarian crisis in South Sudan,” said Gegic. “There needs to be an immediate end to the fighting and a commitment by all parties to the conflict to negotiate a peaceful, long-term political solution.”

Oxfam is currently helping to provide water for more than a million people across conflict lines by drilling new wells and repairing old and damaged water networks. Last week a state-of-the-art treatment plant in Salamyah, Hama, was completed to remove naturally present hydrogen sulphide and saline salts in the town’s groundwater supply. By using reverse osmosis the plant can now provide enough drinking water for 35,000 people from the previously redundant Sinaa well.

Speaking from Damascus, chief executive of Oxfam GB, Mark Goldring, said: “Meetings with government ministers were constructive and highlighted the need to scale up the response. However, I also made clear Oxfam continues to have grave concerns about the impact of the conduct of the conflict on ordinary Syrians, and the need for greater humanitarian access to the people affected.”

Oxfam is aiming to expand its programme from supplying water to providing toilet and washing facilities, as well as hygiene promotion, to some of the millions of displaced people across the country, many living in unfinished and disused buildings.”

Ann Witteveen, Oxfam Canada’s Humanitarian Manager, said: “Improved access to water will make a big difference to families in Syria and in particular to women who do the majority of household work and care for family members when they fall ill from water-borne diseases. Women are disproportionately affected by the violence in Syria and when they flee to neighboring countries. Forced and child marriage, rape, and sexual harassment are, tragically, common occurrences. Women and girls rarely report such incidents and so they occur with impunity”.

Oxfam is facing a number of challenges with its work in 10 of the 14 governorates of Syria. The ability to assess needs and monitor programme work is hampered by safety issues and bureaucratic hurdles.

 “Nearly 4 million refugees are trapped in Syria and neighboring countries struggle to cope,” said Witteveen. “Canada has been generous so far, but more funding is desperately needed to ensure that people’s most pressing needs are met and that women and girls are safe from violence.

Witteveen added however, that: “All the humanitarian aid in the world won’t end the crisis in Syria. The international community, including Canada, must do all in its power to press for a political solution to this crisis. Only then can families go home and start rebuilding their lives.”

Oxfam is currently providing assistance to people both in Syria and in the neighbouring countries of Lebanon and Jordan.  Oxfam’s $16m operation in Syria began in November 2013.

End/

For interview requests:

People are being forced to drink unsafe water as a result of the disintegration of local water systems, bringing the real risk of life-threatening illnesses, such as malaria, cholera, and diarrhoea. Millions are digging unprotected wells or relying on water being trucked in – although the latter option is no longer available to most Yemenis. Oxfam data from four governorates shows that the price of trucked water has now almost tripled.

Grace Ommer, Country Director for Yemen Oxfam, said: “If the fighting, the fuel shortages, the lack of medical supplies, lack of sleep due to bombing, and the spiralling prices were not enough, now nearly two thirds of Yemenis are at risk of being without clean water or sanitation services, all rotting under heaps of garbage in the streets, broken sewage pipes and without clean water for the seventh consecutive week.”

Seven weeks of airstrikes and fighting have damaged and disrupted large parts of the network. In the rural areas of Hajjah and Al Hodeidah governorates in western Yemen, 40% of the local clean water supply systems which Oxfam were supporting have now shut down. Newly displaced people from Saada have also confirmed that another 150,000 people in that area are now without water. Based on these figures, Oxfam estimates that as many as 3 million more people across the country are now without access to clean water due to the conflict.

In addition to this, local authorities in 11 cities (including Aden, Al Hodeidah and Sanaa) have appealed to humanitarian organisations to provide them with more than 2 million litres of fuel needed to continue pumping water to the millions that rely on their water supply systems.

Local authorities have also warned that they do not have enough fuel to maintain the pumping and treatment of raw sewage, posing yet another serious threat to public health. Piles of rotting garbage are now filling the streets in Yemen’s major cities due to the lack of local collection services.

Residents in Taiz have told Oxfam that they are suffering a severe water shortage and are relying on trucks. But a lack of fuel and fighting in the streets means that it takes 4-5 days to get water delivered and the prices have increased exponentially.

Ommer added: “A serious outbreak of disease is looming if water and sanitation issues are not addressed. Hospitals are struggling to cope without access to fuel, clean water and medical supplies. They surely can’t handle a surge in disease.

“Yemen needs an urgent ceasefire, and the opening of trade routes so vital supplies can enter the country to allow for the rebuilding and revamping of the water infrastructure. Anything short of this will usher a health disaster to add to the pile of miseries that Yemenis are facing.”

Before the recent escalation, 13 million people – half the population – were without access to clean drinking water.¹ Basic delivery systems provided clean water directly to the homes of just one in three of the population² and another 20 per cent had access to clean water through communal boreholes or other means outside their homes.

Oxfam is continuing its operations in Al Hodeidah and Hajjah, where we have provided clean water to 80,000 beneficiaries since the escalation of the crisis. Oxfam is also working with local authorities to ensure provision of clean water to one million people in and around Aden.

Notes to Editors:

• More than 40% of the water supply system that Oxfam supports in Al Hodeidah and Hajjah are no longer operating due to fuel shortages. In Hajjah, Oxfam staff reported partial damage to five water systems, with the remaining four water supply systems damaged beyond repair in the current circumstances. Newly displaced people fleeing Oxfam’s area of operation in Saada have informed Oxfam field staff that 19 of the 27 water supply systems built by Oxfam in that area have been either damaged by the fighting or have stopped because of lack of fuel, cutting off another 150,000 people.
• 2.5 million people in 11 cities (including Aden, Al Hodeidah and Sana’a) currently benefit from fuel provided by humanitarian organisations to keep their local water supply systems in operation.
• Oxfam has been monitoring the price of a 500 litre water truck in four governorates in Yemen and has found that increasing demand and fuel scarcity have together pushed the prices out of reach for many. Where the price of a water truck delivery was YR2,000 in parts of Al Hodeidah before the conflict, it is now YR8,000. In Sana’a where a delivery cost YR4,500 before, it costs YR10,000 now.
• The latest escalation in conflict in Yemen has left the country in ruins. Coalition airstrikes that began on 26 March 2015, now in their second month, have taken nearly 2,000 lives and injured more than 7,000 others. More than 500,000 people have been displaced while thousands more remain trapped as fighting continues throughout the country, and are therefore unable to flee.

Sources:

1. UN OCHA (2014), ‘2015 Yemen Humanitarian Needs Overview’ December 2014 https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/system/files/documents/files/2015_HNO_Yemen_Final_0.pdf

2. UNICEF (2014) ‘Yemen National Social Protection Monitoring Survey’ https://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/eng/Yemen_National_Social_Protection_Monitoring_Survey_2012_2013.pdf

Media Contact:
Melanie Gallant
(613) 240-3047
melanie.gallant@oxfam.ca
 

Note to Editors:

Video footage available here:  
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-shKz94195lZjBJU0JHLXgzU3c/view

Media Contact:
Melanie Gallant
Media Relations
(613) 240-3047
melanie.gallant@oxfam.ca

The earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25 may be over, but survivors still face serious hardships. The quake affected an estimated 8 million people, and as of today’s estimate, at least 5,000 lost their lives. More than 10,000 are injured, with many others thought to remain trapped inside buildings.

Meanwhile, about 34,000 people are living in makeshift camps without water or toilets. Thousands more are sleeping outside because they’re too scared to return home in case of more aftershocks. Hundreds of thousands have been suddenly left without adequate food and medical care

2. Oxfam is rushing in aid, including clean water.

After a disaster like this, people have many urgent needs—emergency food, shelter, clean water, and sanitation facilities. Oxfam helps in a number of ways, depending on what families need most. We work with local partner organizations and local people to try and be sure the aid we deliver fits the context.

Clean water and sanitation are especially important for preventing the spread of disease in crowded camps. Oxfam is coordinating with other groups in Nepal to provide these essentials quickly and efficiently. For example, Oxfam just installed an 11,000-liter water tank (pictured above) in Kathmandu’s Tundikhel camp, which shelters about 15,000 people. We are also looking into repairing and fixing existing water sources and installing new pumps and wells.

3.  We’re trying to reach people wherever they are.

"Oxfam is already reaching tens of thousands of earthquake survivors in camps across Kathmandu but it's vital that we can also get shelter, water and food to the huge numbers of people in hard-to-reach rural areas,” said Oxfam humanitarian manager Orla Murphy.

There are huge logistical challenges getting help to vulnerable people in these remote villages. Congestion at Nepal’s only international airport, roads blocked by landslides, and fuel shortages are making it difficult to transport aid to scattered communities across difficult mountainous terrain.

Despite these challenges, Oxfam is doing everything we can to reach people in need as quickly as possible. With your support, we aim to reach at least 350,000 people affected by the earthquake.

Help rush life-saving aid to earthquake survivors.

Rosario’s story

The Santa Rosa Community is made up of around 30 families, including Rosario’s. They live about 50 km from Guayaramerín in the extreme North-east of Bolivia. Although the Amazon is their home, years ago they did not have legal documentation to show they owned land, and they had to cut down the forest in order to extract precious wood or open up cropping land for growing food to survive.

This has changed as the community now own their land and they are managing the forest under the agro forestry system – reforesting native species and sustainably exploiting wood and fruits. However, climate has changed too. Extreme and uncontrolled floods have hit the area with devastating results.

Rosario and her community frequently talk about climate change, how it is affecting them and what can be done. They are fully aware that the main issue in the forest is deforestation so they act reforesting and protecting the Amazon.

Rosario says: “Everybody should be getting involved in this issue – especially Governments. They have a lot to do and say, and we expect everybody, especially Governments, to discuss it a lot at summits and events, but at the moment we don’t see enough results. This is what is worrying.”

“Now more and more there is the extreme heat”

“We do talk a lot about the climate and how it is affecting us, and we have discussed in the community about what we could be doing. We, as people who live in the forest, see the main issue is deforestation –  this is affecting us all and is impacting on the climate. Because we are all so concerned, we have implemented agro forestry systems, which is our way of trying to preserve the forest, and ensure we are not contributing to climate change.

To try and do something concrete we are implementing these agro forestry systems – so we are reforesting the land that was destroyed in the past, and we are trying to plant different species and create a balance – in my area there is a lot of fruit and extra wood that we are reforesting.

In the past it was cooler during the day – as a community can remember there was variations of weather – but now more and more there is the extreme heat and the sun is burning more and more strongly. For us as members of the community and for me in my personal experience, it is really hard – for everyone it is a challenge to find the right way of cropping because the weather has changed so much.”

 

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• Ipaishe’s story
• Langgin’s story

Ipaishe travelled from Zimbabwe to Paris with one purpose. As soon as she landed at Charles De Gaulle airport, she headed straight for the Elysee to deliver a 1 million signature petition to French president, Francois Hollande, urging world leaders to put the most vulnerable people first at the UN climate talks.

There to speak out for the poorest families who are worst affected by climate change, her story demonstrates the potential women have to end poverty.

But Ipaishe has had to work hard throughout her life for her right to do so.

Ipaishe married her husband in 1984, and her life was full of hope. Together, they taught children in a local school and Ipaishe was highly respected in her community. But as they looked towards starting a family, she came under pressure to end her teaching career.

“Our culture and tradition in Zimbabwe expects women to focus more on household chores and duties. I had to leave teaching and focus more on providing food for my family – which meant farming, cattle herding, and looking after both my own son and also my husband’s family, his three younger brothers and three younger sisters.

“My husband and I were only given a small piece of land as a young couple, which was not enough to feed the whole family – and on top of that we didn’t have enough money to buy the things we needed to increase our crop yield.

“I spent my days and nights knitting jumpers, brewing beer to sell and crushing peanuts by hand to make peanut butter to sell. I worked for better-off families on their farms – and I earned just about enough to send my son to primary school. But there wasn’t much for anything else.”

Then Ipaishe lost her husband, when her son was just 10 years old. With her grief came further hardship – and as a woman, Ipaishe faced new pressures to conform to traditional values.

Loss, hardship and starting again 

“I was welcomed with open arms back into my father’s home, who stood by me, and encouraged me to look at farming as a business of my own.”
– Ipaishe, Zimbabwe.

“Widowhood brings a stigma in our country, especially at such a young age, and I was under pressure from traditional and cultural expectations to marry my husband’s brother, whom I raised when I married my husband.”

“I didn’t – so I was sent back to my birth family, but was forced to leave my son behind. The stigma meant I could never marry again.”

Thankfully Ipaishe’s father was supportive: “I was welcomed with open arms back into my father’s home, who stood by me, and encouraged me to look at farming as a business of my own.”

“Now I feel like I have a huge opportunity – and responsibility – to raise my voice for me, for my country and for the whole nation of Africa.”

It was at this point that Ipaishe became more involved with Oxfam – setting up an irrigation system which has increased crop yields by 240%. It means Ipaishe has enough food, can pay for medical bills and even has enough to support her extended families.

Her potential to change lives didn’t stop there. Ipaishe started using her teaching skills again in health care training, working with Oxfam and other organisations to educate her community on HIV and the prevention of other diseases.

Seeds of change 

But storm clouds loom on the horizon for Ipaishe and farmers like her. A changing climate brings with it more frequent extreme weather, causing many crops to fail and livestock to die. So in December 2015, Ipaishe took to the world stage to tell leaders what they needed to do, for the sake of thousands of people made hungry by climate change.

“I am an empowered and employed woman, and very passionate about sharing and exploring ways to support other women, young widows and young generations who are currently being suppressed by the cultural and traditional expectations we’re subject to.” – Ipaishe, Zimbabwe.

“Now I feel like I have a huge opportunity – and responsibility – to raise my voice for me, for my country and for the whole nation of Africa.”

Ipaishe’s powerful words are worth pausing on for a moment. If she had lived her life within the limits of what society expected, Ipaishe may never have had the chance to do something so significant, for those worst affected by climate change. If every woman across the world could live their life without limits – free from fear of violence, abuse and discrimination – how many more could go on to change lives, and help bring an end to poverty for good?

“My message to my community, and all women and people across the world, is to work hard to get through the many difficulties we face.”

Langgin's story

Langgin is 20 years old and has lived in the farming community of Bagumbayan in the south island of Mindanao in the Philippines her whole life. She loved attending school, until unexpected extremes in weather meant her family’s harvest failed and her parents didn’t make enough money for her to continue her studies. Her plan was to continue onto higher education and train as a vet so she could support her community in caring for their livestock.

Despite this setback, she is using her energy to support her community in the fight against climate change. She is a Youth Leader for her local area, and brings together groups of young people to hear their experiences of the effects of climate change, and raises their voices and concerns to the local government, and other people who have the power to make change happen. The changing climate has meant that her family struggles to grow enough food each season, and she’s also lost her opportunity to continue to learn – but her words are not angry ones.

So it is her urgency for us not to spend time questioning “who is to blame”, but instead for us to come together and “act to mitigate the effects” that we should make sure the people in power hear loud and clear.

“Climate change is a big concern for young people like me"

"If it’s hard to plant and grow crops now, what about the next few decades? What about when we’re trying to grow enough food to survive the longer dry spells in the future? Because of the rising temperatures we know it will be really hard for us to farm and to plant, so we know the changing climate will impact us a lot.
 
As a youth leader, I’m inspired to call for other young people to act on climate change as we know for a fact that we will be the ones directly affected by climate change as it worsens in the future – so all of us should do something to care for our environment. 

It is important for us to dialogue with the people in power – the government officials – so they will know what are issues are, what the issues of young people are in terms of a changing climate. So it’s also important to voice our concerns and needs and what support they can give us in fighting the impacts of climate change."

 

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On Sunday the 21st of September 2014, just days before world leaders gathered for a UN summit on climate change, people around the world came together for the biggest ever mobilisation on climate.

More than 675,000 people at over 2800 events in 160 countries took to the streets to call for action on climate change and Oxfam supporters played a huge part.  Climate change is already making people hungry but you can keep the momentum from the Climate Marches going: join us as we demand action from governments and big business to stop climate change making people hungry.

Here are some of the best pictures from what we got up to around the world:

Auckland, New Zealand

In Auckland, New Zealand people braved the rain to call for change. (Photo: Oxfam NZ)

Beijing, China

Oxfam staff members in China, at Beijing Temple of Heaven.

Brussels, Belgium

A clear message from Belgium (Photo: Oxfam Solidarité – Solidariteit)

Dar es Saalam, Tanzania

Eluka and Student Marchers, gathered for the People’s Climate March organised in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Dublin, Ireland

In Dublin, Ireland people turned up for a People’s Climate Picnic – Sun Sept 21 (Photo Credit: Oxfam Ireland)

London, UK

In London, 40,000 people marched on Westminster, the home of the British Parliament.

Melbourne, Australia

In Melbourne, 30,000 people joined the Climate March. (Photo: Oxfam Australia)

New York, USA

Winnie Byanyima, the Executive Director of Oxfam International, at the People’s Climate March in New York with Angelique Kidjo, Amina J. Mohammed and thousands of supporters.

Angélique Kidjo, Mary Robinson, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Barbara Hendricks, Gro Harlem Brundtland and other supporters at the People’s Climate March in New York, on Sept. 21, 2014. Credit: Kate Bryant/Oxfam

More than 400,000 were on the streets of New York for the People’s Climate March. (photo: Avaaz)

The fantastic Oxfam Action Corps NYC volunteers lined up at the banner in New York making their voices heard (Kate Bryant/Oxfam)

Make some noise! At 1 pm, Oxfam marchers get ready to shout out for climate action, at the People’s Climate March in New York.

A call for Food and Climate Justice, by Oxfam supporters.

A delegation from Peru to the People’s Climate March in New York.

Paris, France

The Climate March in Paris, France stretched for 1.5 km (Photo Credit: Karl Mathiesen)

Oxfam France supporters joined the Climate March in Paris.

Keep the momentum going!

And here (in New York again) is what it’s all about: we’re all fighting to tackle climate change, protect the food we love and end hunger.

(Photo: Kate Bryant/Oxfam)

Sarah Watson is Oxfam Great Britain, Public Campaign Manager (Food & Climate)

This blog originally appeared at blogs.oxfam.org

In the five years since global leaders met in Copenhagen to discuss climate change, a lot has changed, and too much has stayed the same.

Climate change is no longer just coming. It’s here already. In the past five years, more than 650 million people have been affected and more than 112,000 lives lost as a result of weather-related disasters.

It is threatening to reverse development gains as it destroys livelihoods and infrastructure, devastates crops, leaves millions hungry, and undoes people’s efforts to climb out of poverty. And the financial cost of this chaos has been immense – almost half a trillion dollars – three times the costs in the whole of the 1970s.

Yet much has stayed the same. International commitments to reverse the threat of climate change seems to have stalled, both on cutting emissions and on giving developing countries the resources they need to cut their emissions and cope with the effects of climate change that cannot now be prevented.

No country has increased mitigation targets since 2009 and some have gone backwards

When leaders met in Copenhagen in 2009, they agreed to cut the emissions causing climate change, but not enough to keep warming below the 2 degrees Celsius target they set. But in the years since, no country has increased their mitigation targets and some – like Canada and Japan – have even gone backwards. As a result, the world is on course to heat up by almost 4 degrees Celsius (39 F) by the end of the century, and to disastrous effect.

Leaders also called for  a ‘Green Climate Fund’, and rich countries pledged $30 billion from 2010 to 2012, and to increase that to $100 billion a year by 2020, to help poor countries adapt to a changing climate and reduce their emissions. Here too the picture is of flat-lining political ambition: only a few countries have committed to increase their finance contributions in the next years. At best, $16-17 billion will flow this year, though without some creative accounting tricks, this is probably closer to $8-9 billion.

In the meantime, there is ever-increasing spending on fossil fuel subsidies – despite plummeting costs of renewable energy, and despite growing demands from citizens around the world for a different way.

We need a gear shift in the way we deal with this crisis

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has invited world leaders, from government, finance, business, and civil society to a Climate Summit this week, intended to galvanize and catalyze climate action.  The Summit is badly needed. We do need more momentum, a gear shift in the way we deal with this crisis unfolding before our eyes.

Climate change is not the only thing on the plate of world leaders at the moment. Rarely in recent years have we known so many international crises – from Syria and Iraq, to South Sudan and Somalia. Yet in many ways climate change is actually one of the low hanging fruit. Unlike some current political crises, where the solutions are hard to identify, we know how to fix climate change. We agree with Ban Ki-moon when he says “instead of asking if we can afford to act, we should be asking what is stopping us, who is stopping us, and why?” The only thing holding us back from securing a safer future are the vested interests in the Fossil Fuel industry.

Too many will offer little more than ‘greenwashing’ spin

Unfortunately, the Summit doesn’t look set to do enough to put us back on course. World leaders are expected to bring little to the table. The political vacuum is being filled by announcements from the private sector, but while there will be some encouraging commitments made, the risk is that too many will offer little more than ‘greenwashing’ spin which won’t add up to much.

Progressive business leaders need to, as the Secretary General puts it, “push back against skeptics and entrenched interests”. Business can help achieve this by pressing governments for better regulation, energy efficiency, and investment in renewables. They can also cut their own emissions and set targets to phase out fossil fuel emissions from their own operations.

But voluntary promises by the private sector will not be enough. Only with political leadership and government regulation can we get the global action that both the science and a growing number of people around the world demand.

If it’s to be a success at any level, this week’s Summit must be the beginning of renewed energy and action to get the world back on track before leaders meet again at the end of next year in Paris to agree a new international climate agreement. There clear government commitments, guided by the science and principles of equity, will be needed.

Climate change is happening now, claiming lives and making people hungry. The costs are mounting and delay will only make the situation worse. We need a step change. That´s why we marched in New York on September 21st. With tens of thousands of others, we’re saying it’s time to stop climate change from making people hungry, and to build a safer world and a just and peaceful future.

Winnie Byanyima is Oxfam International Executive Director. A version of this blog originally appeared at blogs.oxfam.org

Since the start of the crisis Oxfam and local partner the Youth Empowerment Center (YEC) have delivered safe drinking water to more than 250,000 people who have taken refuge in overcrowded schools and other shelters across Gaza.

This video, made by the EWASH coalition, depicts the work of a water truck driver, Ziyaad Mohamed Hamed, in Gaza. He has been driving trucks filled with clean drinking water for thousands of families who have fled their homes, in extremely difficult and dangerous conditions.

The Emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene group (EWASH) is a coalition of 27 local and international organizations – including Oxfam – working in the water and sanitation sector in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Oxfam condemns violence against civilians by all sides, including Israeli military actions and Palestinian rocket fire. We urge the international community to do much more to push for a lasting ceasefire that ends the blockade and addresses the root causes of the conflict.  

Jerusalem – More than 120,000 people have now fled their homes but have nowhere safe to go. With exit through Israel closed under the long-term blockade, and the border with Egypt shut, most people are prevented from escaping the violence. 
 
The past few days have been the deadliest yet in Gaza, with civilians including women and children making up the vast majority of casualties, and on average a child being killed every hour in Gaza. Rockets continue to be fired from Gaza into Israel. 

People have been warned to leave nearly half of Gaza's small territory as airstrikes intensify. However, with bombing and fighting taking place across all of Gaza there is simply nowhere safe for people to go to. Thousands of displaced families are sheltering in school buildings, although at least 85 schools have also been damaged in the past two weeks. 

Um Mohammed Al Azazma, a mother of eight, told Oxfam: "Everyone was running and scared while carrying their children and the tank shells falling around us. I had to jump over dead bodies in the streets. The schools were full and we ended up in a church. My children are scared and we try to convince ourselves that we are in a safe place, but there is no safe place in Gaza right now. The only thing we need is to be safe in our homes."

Conditions in the schools are becoming increasingly desperate, with clean water, food and shelter running perilously low. Oxfam is trucking vital supplies of safe water to 19,000 people sheltering in schools, a church and a mosque. Oxfam is also delivering water to Al Shifa hospital, which has seen a massive influx of civilian casualties in the past few days, including many women and children. Hospitals and health facilities have themselves been hit and seriously damaged. 
 
"The terrible toll on civilians is shocking. Hospitals and water supplies are under massive strain and the needs are increasing by the day. People are fleeing terrified. Normally in crises like this we would see an exodus of people escaping the violence, but in Gaza there is no safe place for them to go. For years the blockade has prevented most people from leaving Gaza, restricted trade and devastated the economy. Lasting peace and security for both sides means ending the blockade and the collective punishment of people in Gaza," said Nishant Pandey, head of Oxfam in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel. 

Damage to water and electricity systems has disrupted the supply of water to over 1 million people. Destruction of sanitation plants risks raw sewage contaminating the water and increasing the risk of disease. Only half of Gaza's sewage plants are now working. Most of Gaza is now only receiving power for four hours a day or less. 

The ongoing violence and intensive airstrikes makes it extremely difficult and dangerous to deliver aid to people, despite the growing needs. Many Oxfam staff and partners have themselves been affected by the violence and have had to leave their homes. 

Oxfam condemns violence against civilians by all sides, including Israeli military actions and Palestinian rocket fire. We urge the international community to do much more to push for a lasting ceasefire that ends the blockade and addresses the root causes of the conflict. 

Two major injustices – inequality and climate change – are threatening to undermine the efforts of millions of people to escape poverty and hunger. By concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few, inequality robs the poorest people of the support they need to improve their lives. And as climate change devastates crops and livelihoods, it undoes poor people’s efforts to feed their families.

But an historic opportunity is on the horizon as the sun sets on the Millennium Development Goals. Right now the UN is in the midst of a heated debate about new set of Sustainable Development Goals. This new framework for global development is an historic opportunity to end poverty and save the planet.

Laudable progress has been made under the MDGs, which are set to expire next year. The goal to halve extreme poverty has been met – an achievement to celebrate. The MDGs have inspired a common purpose and ambition, and many development successes over the last 14 years.

The widening inequality gap

Yet the twin challenges of inequality and climate change have not been adequately tackled – and Oxfam fears the same mistake will be made again. If we are to create a fairer, healthier world, the new Sustainable Development Goals must be ambitious, and backed up by strong action on climate change.

Recently, Oxfam revealed that the world’s 85 richest people have as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion. That figure was recently revised. Now the richest 67 have the same as the bottom half of humanity. If the global community fails to curb the widening gap, a host of related economic and social problems will ensue, including the undermining of efforts to eradicate poverty. We can only lift up those at the bottom if we tackle the extreme wealth at the top.

Climate change threatens

At the same time, climate change is threatening to undo progress made in tackling poverty over the last decade. More than 800 million people are at risk of hunger. Through its devastating impact on crops and livelihoods, climate change is predicted to increase that number by as much as 20 per cent by 2050.

It’s up to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to set the global framework for climate action. But the Sustainable Development Goals offer the opportunity to complement this and go further, tackling climate change in the context of poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Action on climate change in the framework for development after 2015 could create significant political momentum, and increase ambition for a strong global climate deal.

For these reasons, Oxfam has released a report on addressing inequality and climate change in the post-2015 framework.

Steps toward sustainability

To tackle inequality, we propose goals that eradicate extreme economic inequality, eradicate extreme poverty, achieve gender equality and realize women’s rights, and achieve universal health coverage and education through strong public services.

To address climate change, we propose dedicated goals on climate change and energy, food and hunger, water, and risk, as well as integrating targets on climate throughout the framework. These measures can help ensure development consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5oC.

The UN working group on the Sustainable Development Goals has released a ‘Zero Draft’ containing many proposed goals and targets Oxfam would welcome – including standalone goals on inequality and climate change. As the number of goals and targets are reduced and refined in the process of agreeing a new post-2015 development framework, it is essential that these remain.

There’s also room for targets that are much more ambitious than those currently proposed.

On inequality, we must be bolder

In the inequality goal, we must be bolder. Oxfam backs the target proposed by former Chief Economist to the World Bank and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz – to reduce income inequality so that the income of the top 10 per cent is no more than that of the bottom 40 per cent. Since the world is already on track to end $1 a day poverty, we must set the bar higher and eradicate $2 a day poverty. We must commit to achieving universal health coverage and universal education, provided through well-funded public services. Finally, the proposed climate goal should include targets to limit global warming to 1.5oC and promote low carbon sustainable development.

If we get it right, a bold new framework for global development next year, together with agreement at the UN climate talks in Paris, could provide the impetus for a transition to a more equal world – a world without the scourge of poverty and climate change.

This would transform millions of lives. So let us embrace the new beginning the Sustainable Development Goals offer.

Winnie Byanyima is Oxfam International Executive Director

This blog originally appeared at blogs.oxfam.org

The people of South Sudan, already exposed to conflict and hunger, are this week facing a new threat – cholera. The outbreak of the highly contagious disease in Juba ahead of tomorrow’s donor pledging conference in Oslo, organised by Norway and the United Nations, demonstrates how urgently funds are needed to respond to the increasingly dire humanitarian crisis unfolding in the world’s newest nation.

Oxfam’s South Sudan country director Cecilia Milan who is in Oslo, said: “The confirmation of 138 cholera cases in Juba is a stark reminder of the multitude of risks the citizens of this country have been forced to endure since conflict broke out in December 2013. There is no question – the international community must act now to prevent a rapidly escalating food crisis – and now potentially a public health emergency – in South Sudan.”

Cholera is spread through contaminated water, human interaction and unclean food, so the often overcrowded urban, camp and settlement areas are most at risk. If untreated, the highly contagious disease can have up to a 50 percent fatality rate, but if treated, this is dramatically reduced to less than 1 percent. Prevention and treatment measures are simple, but with aid budgets for South Sudan already desperately underfunded, lives stand to be lost because responders lack the funds they need to react rapidly to this outbreak.

Milan said: “The people of South Sudan have already suffered too much – so many lives have been lost to conflict and so many more stand to be lost due to hunger. We can’t morally sit by and watch a public health crisis take additional lives in South Sudan. The humanitarian responders stand ready to do what is needed to avert a hunger and disease catastrophe in South Sudan. But we need donors to stand behind us and give vital funding to enable us to carry out our work.”

The UN has revised its appeal for South Sudan, which now stands at 1.8 billion USD until December 2014. Currently, only 515 million USD has been received. The UN has projected that by December, 4 million people will go hungry, 7 million will be in need of some form of humanitarian assistance, 1.5 million will be displaced within South Sudan, and over 850,000 will have fled to neighbouring countries.

In addition to asking donors to pledge funds at the Oslo conference, Oxfam is calling on the public to donate generously to this emergency appeal.

The Oslo conference centres around four core areas: humanitarian access, protection of civilians, regional response for refugees, and the resources required to adequately respond. If all four of these areas are not addressed within the coming months, the victims of this conflict risk being pushed into hunger crisis of catastrophic proportions. With the onset of the rainy season, roads and rivers become impassable, making access to affected communities almost impossible and creating perfect conditions for further spread of disease.

Donor countries and regional neighbours must also use their diplomatic channels to ensure the current ceasefire holds, for without an end to the conflict, conditions will only worsen, pushing thousands more from their homes and hindering the provision of life-saving humanitarian aid.

Oxfam has so far helped over 180,000 people in South Sudan and 63,000 in Uganda, working to prevent outbreaks of communicable diseases by providing access to clean water and sanitation, and providing household items such as mosquito nets, blankets, cook stoves and charcoal for cooking. Oxfam also supports peace building initiatives in communities where it is working, both in South Sudan and Uganda. It plans to expand its work to help many more but needs to find the funds to do so.

In response to the cholera outbreak in Juba, Oxfam is building latrines (only 15 percent of people in South Sudan have access to latrines), providing buckets, treating water, mobilising communities to collect garbage and communicating good hygiene practices to these communities to reduce the spread of the disease. With a quick response, it is hoped that the outbreak can be contained.

More on the South Sudan crisis

Melanie Gallant
Media Relations Officer
Oxfam Canada
media@oxfam.ca

Typhoon Haiyan, the biggest storm to ever make landfall, devastated my homeland. Three days later I attended the opening of the UN climate change talks in Poland. With a deep sense of anxiety about the fate of my family and friends, I pleaded with delegates to recognize that vulnerable countries, such as the Philippines, cannot cope with the overwhelming impacts of climate change alone.

One of the most serious risks we face is escalating hunger. No civilization can flourish without food – many have perished with the crash of food and water systems.

Climate change means hunger

Climate change is already making people hungry. It will change what we all eat. Extreme weather events such as Typhoon Haiyan, unpredictable seasons, increasing temperatures, and rising sea levels are already causing chaos for farmers and fisherfolk. Food prices are going up. Food quality is going down. By 2050, 50 million more people – equivalent to the population of Spain – will be at risk of going hungry because of climate change.

Typhoon Haiyan devastated my country. Thousands of people perished and millions more lost their homes and livelihoods. My own family witnessed the storm up close. Today, millions of my people live in damaged homes and continue to rely on emergency relief to survive. The overall losses in the agriculture sector could come close to $1 billion.

But the story doesn’t end there. The prospect of a serious global food crisis looms because of climate change. And it’s the world’s poorest and most food insecure countries that are least prepared and most at risk.

So what can we do?

We need urgent support to stop millions more people from going hungry in the next two decades as a result of climate change. This need not break the bank. Poor countries’ adaptation needs are estimated to be around $100 billion a year – equivalent to just 5% of the wealth of the 100 richest people in the world.

We also need urgent and ambitious emissions reductions to avoid a runaway global food crisis that could have grave repercussions for our children. Our gluttony for dirty energy stands in the way of a global solution to the problem of climate change and food. We must end this fossil-fuels gluttony.

Worldwide, people are already fighting climate change. But too few governments and big businesses are taking the threat seriously enough. We must act together to pressure them, and make changes in our own lives, to stop climate change making people hungry.

You may also like

• Oxfam’s Report, Hot and Hungry – How to stop climate change derailing the fight against hunger
• Read the blog – Why the system for managing the world’s food and climate needs to be more like my car
• Together, we can win the fight against hunger – Join us

Yeb Sano is Philippines Climate Change Commissioner.

This blog was originally published at blogs.oxfam.org

When I get into my car in London, I step into a system designed to get me safely from A to B. It has seat belts, airbags, and an increasing number of electronic warning devices. The traffic system has rules – speed limits, highway codes, traffic lights, enforced by cameras and cops. In countries that have introduced such systems, the result is falling casualty rates, despite rising traffic volumes.

All this effort to ensure a safe traffic system, so you would think that much more elaborate mechanisms would be in place to ensure that the world fulfils the much more elemental task of feeding its people.

You would be wrong. Ahead of next week’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) evidence on climate change and global hunger, a new report from Oxfam analyzes the state of readiness of the global food system, as it confronts a changing climate, and it arrives at some alarming conclusions.

Extreme weather events are in line with what scientists have been telling us to expect from a warming climate

Already this year there have been a number of record-breaking weather events around the globe, which have badly affected agriculture and the availability and affordability of food. In Brazil, the worst drought in a decade has ruined crops in the country’s breadbasket region – including the valuable coffee harvest, causing the price of coffee to shoot up by 50 per cent.  In California the worst drought in over 100 years is hitting the state’s agricultural industry, which produces nearly half of all the vegetables, fruits and nuts grown in the US.

These extreme weather events are in line with what scientists have been telling us to expect from a warming climate. Leaked drafts of the IPCC report conclude that the impact of climate change on global hunger will be worse than previously reported, and severe impacts will be felt in current, not future, generations– in the next 20–30 years in the poorest countries.

According to the IPCC, net global agricultural yields are likely to decrease by up to 2% per decade due to climate change, while demand for food (driven by rising affluence and populations) will rise by 14% a decade. It doesn’t take a climate scientist to realize that these numbers don’t add up.

The gaps in preparedness are driven by poverty, power and politics

The Oxfam stress test for a ‘hot and hungry’ global food system rates 10 critical areas of national and global food and climate policy: funding for adaptation to climate change (a hot topic in the UK following recent floods); social protection programmes for the most vulnerable groups; humanitarian aid for food crises; food reserves; support for women farmers; public investment in agriculture and related research; crop insurance and weather monitoring.

Across all ten areas, the stress test found a serious gap between what is happening and what is needed.  These gaps in preparedness are driven by poverty, power and politics.  While many countries – both rich and poor – are inadequately prepared for the impact of climate change on food, it is the world’s poorest and most food insecure countries that are generally the least prepared for and most susceptible to harmful climate change.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. Countries such as Ghana, Viet Nam and Malawi are bucking the trend, enjoying far higher levels of food security than countries such as Nigeria, Laos and Niger, which have similar levels of income and face comparable magnitudes of climate change. A key difference is that Ghana, Viet Nam and Malawi have already taken action on some of the 10 key policy and practice measures highlight in the report.

Oxfam is calling for urgent action by governments, business and individuals to stop climate change making people hungry. This includes building people’s resilience to hunger and climate change, rapidly cutting greenhouse gas emissions, international action on climate change, and political and personal action at an individual level.

It’s a tall order, the alternative hardly bears thinking about. Unless we act now, we face a species climate crash of horrific proportions.

And here’s the inevitable infographic:

You may also like

Oxfam’s Report – Hot and Hungry – How to stop climate change derailing the fight against hunger

Together, we can win the fight against hunger – Join us

Duncan Green is Oxfam Great Britain Senior Strategic Adviser.

This blog originally appeared at blogs.oxfam.org

Today I led hundreds of people from around the world in a walk out of the 19th UN climate talks. Oxfam has been keenly involved in the talks for a long time, fighting to help stop climate change, and to support people affected by it, and every day the urgency for governments to help gets greater. But year after year, the talks have been mostly just going through the motions – with very little progress on reducing emissions, or on raising the $100bn governments have promised to support people affected by climate change by 2020.

We have campaigned passionately and powerfully. Yet the public’s shouts of urgency for governments to act seem to be falling on deaf ears. This year, the talks have reached new lows: the hosting Polish government has colluded with the coal industry to present “clean coal” as a solution to climate change (it isn’t a solution). Australia has attacked the very principle of climate finance. Japan has even pledged to increase – not reduce – their emissions!

Enough is enough

This year we have an unprecedented opportunity to reconnect with people worldwide, and to start building a truly powerful movement for climate action in Warsaw. The solidarity movement for the Philippines, Filipino delegate Yeb Sano’s fast – and all the people who joined him are strong, loud and important. The world is getting impatient.

Now is the time to show governments that we won’t accept their lack of political will. That people around the world demand action. And that world leaders can’t ignore climate change any longer. That’s why so many organizations and individuals have walked out: to go and gather the voices of the public and return stronger than ever in 2014. We’ll be back.

Winnie Byanyima is Oxfam International, Executive Director

“At the Warsaw Conference, rich country governments have come with nothing to offer.”

Enough is enough.

We have said we stand in solidarity with the millions impacted by Typhoon Haiyan, and with all climate impacted people. Our solidarity compels us to tell the truth about COP 19 – the Warsaw Climate Conference.

The Warsaw Climate Conference, which should have been an important step in the just transition to a sustainable future, is on track to deliver virtually nothing. In fact, the actions of many rich countries here in Warsaw are directly undermining the UNFCCC itself, which is an important multilateral process that must succeed if we are to fix the global climate crisis.

The Warsaw Conference has put the interests of dirty energy industries over that of global citizens – with a “Coal & Climate Summit” being held in conjunction; corporate sponsorship from big polluters plastered all over the venue; and a Presidency (Poland) that is beholden to the coal and fracking industry. When Japan announced that it was following Canada and backtracking on emission cut commitments previously made, and Australia gave multiple signals that it was utterly unwilling to take the UN climate process seriously, the integrity of the talks was further jeopardized.

This week saw a “finance ministerial” with almost no actual finance, and loss and damage talks that have stalled because rich countries refuse to engage on the substance of an international mechanism. Warsaw has not seen any increase in emission reductions nor increased support for adaptation before 2020 – on these things it has actually taken us backward. And a clear pathway to a comprehensive and fair agreement in Paris 2015 is missing.

We as civil society are ready to engage with ministers and delegations who actually come to negotiate in good faith. But at the Warsaw Conference, rich country governments have come with nothing to offer. Many developing country governments are also struggling and failing to stand up for the needs and rights of their people. It is clear that if countries continue acting in this way, the next two days of negotiations will not deliver the climate action the world so desperately needs.

Therefore, organizations and movements representing people from every corner of the Earth have decided that the best use of our time is to voluntarily withdraw from the Warsaw climate talks. Instead, we are now focusing on mobilizing people to push our governments to take leadership for serious climate action. We will work to transform our food and energy systems at a national and global level and rebuild a broken economic system to create a sustainable and low-carbon economy with decent jobs and livelihoods for all.  And we will put pressure on everyone to do more to realize this vision.

Coming out of the Warsaw Climate Conference, it is clear that without such pressure, our governments cannot be trusted to do what the world needs. We will return with the voice of the people in Lima to hold our governments accountable to the vision of a sustainable and just future.

– 30 –

Oxfam International
Anna Ratcliff
anna.ratcliff@oxfaminternational.org

Among the people gathered was a vibrant group of Oxfam activists who had taken a train all the way from Belgium to tell governments from around the world how important climate jutsice is. Armed with placards, balloons, face paint and chants (all of them green), they wowed us with their energy and passion. Of course, the fact that they’re so enthusiastic should be no surprise – climate change is hitting poor people hard around the world.

Our ebullient activists had one particular message for world leaders: a climate crisis is a food crisis. Rising temperatures are having a huge impact on food. Unless we get climate change under control, food prices will keep rising, floods and droughts will devastate harvests, more crops will fail, food quality will drop, farmers around the world will struggle to cope, and millions more people will be trapped by chronic hunger.

We can prevent this from becoming our new reality. But the time for action is now. Climate change is a global problem; world leaders need to take clear steps towards a global response at the climate talks in Poland – now.

Al Kinley is Oxfam Great Britain Digital campaigner.
A version of this blog originally appeared at blogs.oxfam.org

Related

• Four reasons why Oxfam – and the Oxfam big heads – are at the UN Climate Talks in Poland
• Three reasons I hope the Poland climate talks are just like Poland

Philippines Typhoon Emergency Appeal

The Government of Canada has indicated that until December 9, 2013,
they will match every eligible dollar donated by individual Canadians to
registered Canadian charities, in response to the impact of Typhoon
Haiyan on the Philippines and other affected countries.

I’ve just arrived at the annual UN climate change talks. Here, governments from around the world come to try and work out a solution to the massive problem of climate change. (Though some of them seem to come to actually slow down progress!)

Three things struck me almost as soon as I got to Poland – and they’re all examples that governments should make a note of if they want to help protect people around the world from the devastating effects of climate change.

1. They move frighteningly fast

Maybe it was just my taxi driver, but he drove like there was nothing more urgent than getting us Oxfam staff to our hotel to get started – with all the swerving, braking and hurtling, I was a little nervous I wouldn’t make it alive! Unfortunately, the only frightening thing about the UN climate negotiations’ speed is they are moving too slowly to avoid dangerous climate change.  (There’s a fair bit of swerving and braking to avoid progress too.) With emissions needing to peak by 2015 for a safe future, we urgently need countries – especially developed countries – to show how they’re going to reduce their emissions; and to promise how much money they’ll give to help the fight against climate change.

2. They keep it clean

One thing you can’t help noticing in Warsaw is just how clean it is – there’s barely a graffito or a stray piece of litter to be seen. If only  governments worked to keep our energy as clean as this city’s streets, climate change would be much less of a threat. In fact, dirty energy is the single biggest driver of climate change. Unchecked, it will wreck the climate. Governments must start investing in clean energy now. (Ironically, the Polish government is using these talks as a platform to sell the false solution of ‘clean coal’ – Poland makes a lot of money from the sale of coal. To protect people from the effects of climate change, it’s really important that world leaders invest in safe, clean energy – not fossil fuels.)

3. They love good food

Poland isn’t exactly renowned for its cuisine, but I’ve discovered some lovely cafes – selling some exquisite snacks – from which to write these blogs. Of course, all this is a tenuous excuse for me to talk about climate change and food – because Oxfam knows it’s important to draw attention to the powerful relationship between the two. Climate change means floods and droughts that devastate harvests. It means crops fail. And less food being available means prices rise – so people who spend most of their income on food can now afford less food. Climate change means millions of poor people trapped by chronic hunger.

We can’t let this happen. Speed, food, and cleanliness are the three things governments and the UN climate negotiations could learn from host country, Poland.

The Oxfam team will be here for two weeks of talks, keeping you updated and informed about the process, and explaining why and how Oxfam is working to stop climate change and ensure people have enough to eat always – by making sure the right governments make the right commitments (on finance and emissions); that poor people get a fair deal; and that the world cleans up its energy.

You can follow us here on the blog, or on Twitter: @OxfamAtCOP.

This blog originally appeared at blogs.oxfam.org