Oxfam
Oxfam is a secular organization dedicated to creating "a fairer world without poverty." Operating in ninety countries, it encompasses seventeen affiliated groups that focus on local and global initiatives to alleviate poverty and combat inequality. Its efforts include educational programs, humanitarian assistance, and advocacy aimed at fostering social justice and reducing the impact of environmental damage from disasters and conflicts. The organization traces its roots to the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, formed during World War II to aid those affected by the war, and has since evolved to address various global issues, including women's rights and disaster response.
Headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, Oxfam employs a collaborative governance structure with an executive board overseeing its strategic direction. Key projects include lobbying for human rights, improving food security, and supporting education for girls in developing countries. While Oxfam has contributed to significant initiatives like the establishment of the Fairtrade Foundation and support for Syrian refugees, it has also faced criticism for its aggressive campaigning and certain political stances. Funding for Oxfam comes from various sources, including retail shops and fundraising events, allowing it to continue its mission of fighting poverty and injustice worldwide.
Oxfam
Oxfam is a secular organization with a stated purpose of achieving "a fairer world without poverty." It includes seventeen related organizations in ninety countries; these organizations work within their local communities and in the world at large to foster change aimed at ending poverty. Oxfam sponsors educational and developmental programs, advocacy efforts, and humanitarian and emergency assistance intended to reduce poverty and eliminate injustices that stem from inequality. Oxfam also works to lessen the impact of environmental damage from natural disasters and wars.
Headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, Oxfam has affiliated offices around the world. It is governed by an executive board and a board of supervisors. The executive board is composed of executive directors from each Oxfam affiliate. This board manages the Oxfam Foundation, addresses strategic planning and risk, creates policy and procedure, and sets a code of conduct, among other tasks. The board of supervisors includes the chairperson from each affiliate. This group supervises the executive board. It also appoints, dismisses, and sets compensation for executive directors and approves the proposed strategies, policies, and procedures from the executive board.
History
The name "Oxfam" originated with the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, a British organization that was founded during World War II. The group was formed to provide aid to women and children trapped behind the Allies’ naval blockade of German-occupied Greece in 1942. The original Oxfam included Oxford educators, Quakers, and others concerned with social issues. The group's early fundraising efforts produced about £370,000 (about $533,000 USD), which was sent to the Greek Red Cross for relief efforts.
After the war ended, the group continued to work to improve conditions in war-torn Europe. As the post-war situation resolved, Oxfam began to focus on improving conditions in developing countries. In 1951, Oxfam expanded its services by responding to a famine in India; its efforts grew to involve disaster relief and recovery with the 1953 earthquake in the Ionian Islands.
International affiliates began forming in 1963, with Oxfam Canada. The first Latin American affiliate was formed in Lima, Peru, between 1967 and 1968. Oxfam America was founded in Washington, DC, in 1970, largely in response to concerns about a humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh. The affiliate's headquarters were relocated to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1973.
Oxfam International as it is known today was formed in 1995 when the Oxfam affiliates joined together to form Oxfam International. As of 2016, Oxfam International has seventeen affiliates, as well as formal relationships with independent organizations in other countries. These organizations provide fundraising support for Oxfam. Certain other groups are working toward affiliate status; Oxfam refers to these groups as "observers."
Significant Projects
Oxfam uses a six-prong approach in its efforts to reduce poverty and social injustice, as follows:
- Help people claim basic human rights.
- Empower women and children.
- Respond to natural disasters and the aftermath of conflict.
- Lobby for the protection of natural resources.
- Improve food sources around the world.
- Campaign for support services for the underprivileged.
Oxfam was part of the efforts that established the Fairtrade Foundation in 1992, which works toward improving working conditions and fair compensation for workers in poor countries. Oxfam was also part of a coalition that included Amnesty International and others that encouraged the International Arms Trade Treaty in 2006.
Some of the organization's ongoing initiatives include supporting education for girls in Pakistan; improving health and hygiene in a number of locations by providing water pumps and better sanitation, such as toilets; campaigning for free health care in poor countries to ensure that pregnant women and their infants receive appropriate care; and providing seeds, tools, and education to help poor people learn to grow food and create an income for their families. Oxfam also engages in lobbying efforts aimed at food companies to change their practices related to workers’ health, women's rights, climate concerns, and food supply issues.
In the early twenty-first century, Oxfam and its affiliates undertook efforts to help Syrian refugees fleeing that country's civil war. It also worked to combat the spread of the dangerous mosquito-borne Zika virus.
Funding
Oxfam's earliest funding came through donations and revenues from Oxfam Shops (thrift or secondhand shops) across Great Britain. Over time, Oxfam expanded its funding through a number of sources, including sales through an online retail shop; sales of handmade items made as part of a program to help craftspeople in poor countries earn a living; charity concerts with big-name performers, including Oxjam, a regularly scheduled even in the United Kingdom; and the sale of red plastic clown noses as part of the Comic Relief event.
Criticisms
Oxfam has been criticized as overly aggressive in its campaigns to change the policies of corporate giants like Dole and Starbucks, for some of its political stances, and for activities related to its endorsement of the two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In early 2016, Oxfam released a report stating that the wealthiest sixty-two individuals in the world together owned as much wealth as one-half of the rest of the population. They also claimed that the top one percent of the population held as much wealth as the remaining ninety-nine percent of the population. Claims such as these prompted criticisms of the way Oxfam calculates and compares its figures.
Bibliography
Bourne, Robert. "Oxfam's Misleading Inequality Numbers." Foundation for Economic Education. 18 Jan 2016. Web. Accessed 20 Feb 2016. http://fee.org/articles/6-points-about-oxfams-misleading-inequality-numbers/
"Inside Oxfam America." Oxfam America. Oxfam America, Inc. Web. Accessed 20 Feb 2016. http://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/inside-oxfam-america/
"Oxfam versus Starbucks." The Economist. Online Extra. 7 Nov 2006. The Economist Newspaper Limited. Web. Accessed 20 Feb 2016. http://www.economist.com/node/8129387
Wade, Amelia. "Oxfam Urges Kiwis to Avoid Dole Bananas." New Zealand Herald. 28 May 2013. NZME. Web. Accessed 20 Feb 2016. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c‗id=3&objectid=10886637
"What We Do." Oxfam Great Britain. Oxfam GB. Web. Accessed 20 Feb 2016. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what-we-do
"Who We Are." Oxfam International. Oxfam International. Web. Accessed 20 Feb 2016. https://www.oxfam.org/en/about