Oxfam

File:Oxfam.svg

Oxfam International logo

Oxfam International is a confederation of 14 organisations working with over 3,000 partners in around 100 countries to find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice.

The Oxfam International Secretariat leads, facilitates, and supports collaboration between the Oxfam affiliates to increase Oxfam International's impact on poverty and injustice through advocacy campaigns, development programmes and emergency response.

Oxfam was originally founded in Oxford in 1942 as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief by a group of Quakers, social activists, and Oxford academics; this is now Oxfam Great Britain, still based in Oxford, UK. It was one of several local committees formed in support of the National Famine Relief Committee. Their mission was to persuade the British government to allow food relief through the Allied blockade for the starving citizens of Axis-occupied Greece. The first overseas Oxfam was founded in Canada in 1963. The committee changed its name to its telegraph address, OXFAM, in 1965.

History and beginnings

Plaque commemorating first meeting of Oxfam in the Old Library, the University Church, Oxford.

The original Oxford Committee for Famine Relief was a group of concerned citizens such as Canon Theodore Richard Milford (1896–1987), Professor Gilbert Murray and his wife Lady Mary, Cecil Jackson-Cole and Sir Alan Pim. The Committee met in the Old Library of University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, for the first time in 1942, and its aim was to relieve famine in Greece caused by Allied naval blockades. By 1960, it was a major international non-governmental aid organisation.

Oxfam GB (Great Britain)

The largest of the Oxfam International family is Oxfam GB, with 5,955 employees worldwide in 2008, and with a total income of £299.7 million. Oxfam GB's head office is located in Cowley, Oxford and has offices and programmes in over 70 countries in 8 regions. From 2007 to 2009, Oxfam GB has been recognised as one of Britain's Top Employers by CRF.

Oxfam Canada

Main article: Oxfam Canada

Oxfam Canada traces its history to 1963, when the British-based Oxford Committee for Famine Relief sought to establish a Canadian branch.

Oxfam Canada was independently incorporated in 1966; the first Board of Directors included 21 distinguished Canadians. In 1967, Oxfam Canada became a key organiser of the successful Miles for Millions fundraising walks across the country. In that year, Lester Pearson (then Canadian Prime Minister) led Oxfam's first Miles for Millions March. With its revenues, Oxfam began to provide educational materials to schools and undertake advocacy work in public policy development.

The early 1970s was a critical period of growth as Oxfam began its own programming overseas in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and established a network of staff and volunteers across Canada to support its work.

During this same period, Oxfam Canada began to analyse its role in the development process, moving from a traditional model of charity (one-time grants) towards long-term development programming (working with communities to effect lasting positive change.)

Deeply involved in the international movement against apartheid in South Africa and Central American solidarity through the 1970s and '80s, Oxfam Canada sought to address the fundamental, underlying causes of poverty.

This in turn led to Oxfam's role as a major advocacy organisation in the 1990s, to mobilise public support for changing the policies that perpetuate poverty.

Today, Oxfam Canada works with over 100 partner organisations in developing countries, tackling the root causes of poverty and inequity and helping people to create self-reliant and sustainable communities. In Canada, Oxfam is active in education, policy advocacy and building a constituency of support for its work.

Oxfam Canada is a founding member of Oxfam International, the federation of Oxfams worldwide.

Oxfam America

In 1970, Oxfam America became an independent non-profit organisation and an Oxfam affiliate in response to the humanitarian crisis created by the fight for independence in Bangladesh. Oxfam America's headquarters are located in Boston, Massachusetts with a policy & campaigns office in Washington, D.C. and seven regional offices around the world. A registered 501(c)3 organisation, Oxfam America campaigns for climate change adaptation, food security, aid reform, access to medicines, and fair trade.

Oxfam Québec

In 1973, Oxfam Québec became an independent member of the international Oxfam movement. Carried by the popularity of Yvon Deschamps, Oxfam Québec has become a cherished organisation among the Québécois. Its mission is to get the francophone population involved in the situation of developing countries.

Oxfam's work

Oxfam clothing and shoe bank

Though Oxfam's initial concern was the provision of food to relieve famine, over the years the organisation has developed strategies to combat the causes of famine. In addition to food and medicine, Oxfam also provides tools to enable people to become self-supporting and opens markets of international trade where crafts and produce from poorer regions of the world can be sold at a fair price to benefit the producer.

Oxfam's programme has three main points of focus: development work, which tries to lift communities out of poverty with long-term, sustainable solutions based on their needs; humanitarian work, assisting those immediately affected by conflict and natural disasters (which often leads in to longer-term development work), especially in the field of water and sanitation; and lobbyist, advocacy and popular campaigning, trying to affect policy decisions on the causes of conflict at local, national, and international levels.

Oxfam works on trade justice, fair trade, education, debt and aid, livelihoods, health, HIV/AIDS, gender equality, conflict (campaigning for an international arms trade treaty) and natural disasters, democracy and human rights, and climate change.

Shops

Oxfam shop in Cirencester, England

See also: Oxfam bookshops

Oxfam has numerous shops all over the world, which sell many fair-trade and donated items. They opened their first charity shop in 1948. The proceeds from these usually get paid to different charities or are used to further Oxfam's relief efforts around the globe. Much of their stock still comes from public donations but they currently also sell fair trade products from developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America, including handcrafts, books, music CDs and instruments, clothing, toys, food and ethnic creations. These objects are brought to the public through fair trade to help boost the quality of life of their producers and surrounding communities.

In 2008, Oxfam GB worked with over 20,000 volunteers in shops across the UK, raising £17.1 million for Oxfam's programme work.

Of the 750 Oxfam charity shops around the UK, around 100 are specialist bookshops or book and music shops. Oxfam is the largest retailer of second-hand books in Europe, selling around 12 million per year.

Oxfam has near to 15,000 shops worldwide.

Fundraising

Oxfam has a number of successful fundraising channels in addition to its shops. Over half a million people in the UK make a regular financial contribution towards its work, and vital funds are received from gifts left to the organisation in people's wills. Many London Marathon competitors run to raise money for Oxfam, and Oxfam also receives funds in return for providing and organising volunteer stewards at festivals such as Glastonbury. In conjunction with the Gurkha Welfare Trust, Oxfam also runs several Trailwalker events in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Japan.

In August 2009, it was announced that Arctic Monkeys would release a 7-inch vinyl version of their new single "Crying Lightning" exclusively through Oxfam shops, with proceeds going to the charity. Recently Oxfam India is emerging as a successful fundraising unit, it is mainly with the help of always motivated team and the Resource Mobilization Heads.

Criticism

Conflict with Starbucks on Ethiopian coffee

On 26 October 2006, Oxfam accused Starbucks of asking the National Coffee Association (NCA) to block a U.S. trademark application from Ethiopia for three of the country's coffee beans, Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe. They claimed this could result in denying Ethiopian coffee farmers potential annual earnings of up to £47m.

Robert Nelson, the head of the NCA, added that his organisation initiated the opposition for economic reasons, "For the U.S. industry to exist, we must have an economically stable coffee industry in the producing world... This particular scheme is going to hurt the Ethiopian coffee farmers economically". The NCA claims the Ethiopian government was being badly advised and this move could price them out of the market.

Facing more than 90,000 letters of concern, Starbucks placed pamphlets in its stores accusing Oxfam of "misleading behavior" and insisting that its "campaign need[s] to stop". On 7 November, The Economist derided Oxfam's "simplistic" stance and Ethiopia's "economically illiterate" government, arguing that Starbucks' (and Illy's) standards-based approach would ultimately benefit farmers more.

Nonetheless, on 20 June 2007, representatives of the Government of Ethiopia and senior leaders from Starbucks Coffee Company announced that they had concluded an agreement regarding distribution, marketing and licensing that recognises the importance and integrity of Ethiopia's speciality coffee designations.

Political neutrality

Oxfam Great Britain has been strongly criticised by other NGOs for becoming too close to Tony Blair's New Labour government in the UK.

Internal structures and political role

In 2005, the magazine New Internationalist described Oxfam as a "Big International Non-Government Organisation (BINGO)", having a corporate-style, undemocratic internal structure, and addressing the symptoms rather than the causes of international poverty – especially by acquiescing to neoliberal economics and even taking over roles conventionally filled by national governments.

Similar criticisms have been voiced by Red Pepper magazine (The New Scramble for Africa, July 2005) and Katherine Quarmby in the New Statesman (How Oxfam is Failing Africa, May 2005).

Bookshops

Oxfam has been criticized for aggressively expanding its specialist bookshops, using tactics more often associated with multi-national corporations. The charity has been criticized as some claim this expansion has come at the expense of independent secondhand book sellers and other charity shops in many areas of the UK.

Fair trade coffee

On 28 April 2007, two academics in Melbourne, Australia, representing a think tank lodged a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission accusing Oxfam of misleading or deceptive conduct under the Trade Practices Act in its promotion of Fairtrade coffee. The academics claimed that high certification costs and low wages for workers undermine claims that Fairtrade helps to lift producers out of poverty. These claims were subsequently dismissed by the Commission.

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

In 2003, Oxfam Belgium produced a poster with a picture of an orange drenched in blood. The poster read, "Israel's fruits have a bitter taste...reject the occupation of Palestine, don't buy Israeli fruits and vegetables". Oxfam was widely criticised because of the poster's anti-Israel political message. Following publicity and pressure from the NGO Monitor, Oxfam removed the poster from their web site and Ian Anderson, the chairman of Oxfam International, issued a letter of apology. However, Oxfam maintained its support for products grown in the West Bank and Gaza. Oxfam was criticised for its policy of what has been termed "selective morality" by NGO Monitor.

In October 2009, Oxfam was accused by Israeli NGO Regavim of aiding Palestinians in illegal activities in Kiryat Arba, including water theft. Oxfam has denied their participation.

Confrontation with The Optimum Population Trust

In December 2009 Duncan Green, head of research at Oxfam, attempted to discredit The Optimum Population Trust’s (OPT) recently launched PopOffsets initiative, under which individuals can offset their carbon emissions by funding family planning services in the developing world. Duncan Green, head of research at Oxfam, wrote in an op-ed in the New Statesman that assumptions such as those in the OPT report equating population growth and environmental degradation are a "gross oversimplification." In response OPT describes the response of parts of the development lobby to the initiative as “frankly disgraceful”, adding: ”The world badly needs a grown-up, rational discussion of the population issue…without blame, abuse and hysteria.”

Book and film references

In the non-fiction book Into the Wild, the protagonist donates his savings of $24,000 to Oxfam before beginning his journey.

Oxfam is mentioned briefly on a number of occasions, favourably and unfavourably in the Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen film Beyond Borders (2003).

In the 2005 film The Constant Gardener, Oxfam is cited briefly in regards to the observation of and campaigning against experimental drug-testing by pharmaceutical companies in developing countries, such as Kenya, the film's setting.

See also

• Disasters Emergency Committee
• Make Trade Fair
• Oxfam International Youth Partnership
• Oxfam Australia
• Oxfam Canada
• Oxfam France (French)
• Oxfam Hong Kong
• Oxfam Novib
• Oxfam bookshops
• Seoul Peace Prize
• Ox-Tales

Further reading

• Maggie Black, A Cause for Our Times: Oxfam the First 50 Years (Oxford: Oxfam, 1992). ISBN 0-85598-173-3
• Susan Blackburn, Practical Visionaries: A Study of Community Aid Abroad (Melbourne University Press, 1993). ISBN 0-522-84562-2

External links

• Oxfam International