Policy Papers

Cyclone Idai struck Zimbabwe in March 2019, affecting 270,000 people. This policy brief provides an analysis of the impacts and review of the disaster response to draw lessons and policy implications for post-disaster institutional development.

This paper draws on interviews conducted in 2019 with a broad range of Palestinian, Israeli and other front-row observers of the Oslo process. It focuses on the wider aspects of Palestinian and Israeli engagement in negotiations, and the impact of the Accords as experienced today. 

As Vietnam graduates from IDA, the World Bank’s concessional finance window, there will be a major change in the types of development finance the country can access. Oxfam is concerned about what this changing financial landscape might mean for Vietnam’s fight against poverty, inequality, and gender inequality.

This report analyses and reveals the perceptions and fears that feed xenophobic, sexist and discriminatory stances towards migration, while also encouraging responsible, proactive and human communications and public policies based on evidence and fundamental rights in relation to the migration flows in the Latin American region.

This Oxfam briefing note presents compelling new evidence that our food supply chains are rife with violations of human, labour and women’s rights. it summarises new research commissioned for Oxfam, which shows the depth and scale of human suffering in food production in India and Brazil linked to international supermarket supply chains.

This briefing paper, part of Oxfam’s campaign to end human suffering in food supply chains, looks at in-work poverty and labour rights abuses faced by seasonal workers in Brazil’s tropical fruit sector, which supplies many major international supermarket chains.

Workers on tea plantations in the Assam region of India are systematically denied their rights to decent working and living conditions. Oxfam’s research shows that the solutions lie in a fairer sharing of the end consumer price of tea, stronger gender policies and a review of plantation labour laws.

This paper takes a closer look at the gendered impact of conventional macroeconomic policies supported by the International Monetary Fund in its loan programmes for Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia since 2012.

In Colombia, the women who defend their land, their culture, and the environment are being threatened, harassed, and sometimes even murdered. These women are true peace builders, but the State provides them with barely any protection. If urgent measures are not taken, their lives are in grave danger.

Battered by cyclones and ravaged by extreme drought, poor communities in the Horn of Africa and Mozambique have found themselves on the front line of a climate crisis they did little to create.

This report shows the unparalleled power of public education to tackle growing inequality and bring us closer together. To achieve this, education must be both of good quality and equitable; it should be free, universal and adequately funded.

This report, co-written by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and Oxfam, seeks to show why it is urgent that the effectiveness of tax incentives is reviewed and assessed, in order to guarantee the rights of citizens. 

This report aims to bring the voices and experiences of South Sudanese women to the fore, exploring the motivations and intentions of returning and displaced women in South Sudan. It advocates for a more gender-sensitive and durable solutions approach to population movements in the country.

Despite the recent spate of economic growth, Africa remains afflicted by entrenched poverty and alarmingly high and rising inequality. This paper uses the Reducing Inequality Index (CRI) developed by Oxfam and Development Finance to produce a ranking of African countries on their policies to reduce the gap between rich and poor.

In this briefing, Oxfam sets out the seven key issues the G7 must act on if the Biarritz Summit is to deliver more than just warm words on fighting inequality.

The report seeks to demonstrate the gendered implications of how tax systems are designed, focusing on identifying aspects of taxation that can damage women's economic autonomy. It also offers recommendations for transforming tax policy as an instrument to help combat some of the inequalities affecting women.

This report evaluates the Oxfam confederation's strategic plan for the years 2013–2019. It examines the key outcomes that Oxfam achieved across its change goals and analyzes the success of its approaches, using case studies from programs around the world and interviews with staff.

The Mauritius Leaks show that tax havens continue not only to exist but to prosper, despite government promises to rein in tax dodging. This briefing lists five steps governments can take to tackle tax avoidance, and end the era of tax havens and the race to the bottom on corporate taxation.

As drought devastates the Horn of Africa yet again, the following analysis comparing 2019 to earlier droughts paints a bleak picture and indictment on the humanitarian community. The urgency to better respond is exacerbated by people’s lack of recovery from the 2017 drought and a further deterioration predicted in coming months.

The food price crisis of 2007–08 had devastating impacts for the world’s poorest people, especially for smallholder farmers and in particular for women. Ten years on, new policies are needed to rebalance the system to meet the needs of smallholder communities, with a renewed focus on meeting the needs and aspirations of women.