The discussion paper just launched by Oxfam, A Safe and Just Space for Humanity, has many positive aspects that can be shared with organisations and movements in the Global South. It also contains elements that are in line with Oxfam's commitment to eradicating poverty and protecting the environment.  The document proposes a doughnut, which adds a pastry to the mix of sustainable development recipes, and we should review... Read more

Last year countries in the Horn of Africa were hit by a major drought. Approximately 13 million people have been affected by the impacts of the drought, conflict, high food prices and chronic poverty. Peoples' lives in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti have been turned upside down and many thousands are struggling to recover, pushed into desperate poverty from which it will take decades to recover. No one knows exactly how many people... Read more

It's not a new price plan for mobile phones or even a new smartphone app. But, it is smart and it is mobile. Vodafone's recent Connected Agriculture report is all about sharing information to help smallholder farmers grow more and grow better. And ultimately helping them grow their productivity and income. The report, co-published by Vodafone and Accenture with a foreword from Oxfam GB, suggests that mobile... Read more

What you make of 2011 depends on your vantage point. The year's events look completely different depending on whether you are sitting at the bottom or the top, in the old north or the old south. From the bottom, this was a year of protest and revolution, toppling tyrants and throwing up new governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and (probably) Yemen. So far, thankfully, fears about the negative impact of such revolutions on women's... Read more

You're unlikely to have missed the news that the world's population reached 7 billion people on 31 October and the subsequent commentary on resource implications for an increasingly crowded planet. Central to the debate is how this will impact on water security. We recognise that we are entering an era of global scarcity with competition for land, water, and energy. Much has been said about the fair shares agenda in that proper... Read more

In 2009, 29 of the world's leading Earth-system scientists drew up a set of nine 'planetary boundaries': critical natural processes that we must not breach if we want to maintain Earth's stable state of the last 10,000 years. Like what? Like climate change, ozone depletion, and biodiversity loss. No small fry. They got bold and attempted a first quantification of these boundaries (eg setting a climate change boundary... Read more

Kindles, iPads and other gadgets have been appearing in the office all this week as we test our exciting new venture - Oxfam's first ever eBook.  The digital edition of the Growing a Better Future: Food justice in a resource constrained world report launches today to coincide with GROW week - a week of activism highlighting the world's broken food system that sees one billion people going hungry each day.  ... Read more

16 October is World Food Day and the theme for 2011 is food prices - very fitting in light of Oxfam's recently launched GROW campaign.  In this year's address for World Food Day, Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), has called for serious reflection on what causes swings in food prices, and on what needs to be done at national, regional and global levels to... Read more

There are many silver bullets currently being offered in East Africa to prevent the current crisis from happening again: DRR, irrigated agriculture, reduction in grain prices, better early warning, contingency planning, conflict resolution, cutting green house gas emissions. Obviously the roots of the Somalia crisis - the inability to establish a government and ensure stability - must not be overshadowed.  However of the 13... Read more

If you’re heading for the UK’s annual Development Studies talkathon in York next week, why not drop in to Oxfam’s panel on the new GROW campaign, catchily titled ‘Rethinking Development in an Age of Scarcity and Uncertainty: New Values, Voices and Alliances'? It’s on Wednesday 21 September at 2.30 in room 123 in Vanbrugh College, and features the following line-up of top notch gabsters (and me): How... Read more