As part of Oxfam’s Behind the Barcodes campaign, Rachel Wilshaw outlines what Lidl can do to tackle worker exploitation in their supply chains. How many of us have teabags and tinned tomatoes in our cupboards, or spring onions in our fridges? Most people would be horrified to learn that these products and more are tainted with human suffering and exploitation, …
Does channelling aid into private sector partnerships always lead to the best development outcomes?
Aid donors increasingly assume that private sector partnerships are crucial for global development. Marc Cohen, Senior Researcher at Oxfam America, outlines why we need to proceed with caution. Back in 2014, the UN estimated that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will require an additional $2.5 trillion per year over planned investments between 2015 and 2030. Just to get a sense of what a trillion dollars looks like, it …
Improving the sustainability of water supply schemes in Nepal
[buzzsprout episode=’2559190′ player=’true’] This podcast focuses on the alternative models we used to boost the profitability and sustainability of rural water supply schemes in Nepal. We speak to Anjil Adhikari who is an Innovation Advisor working for Oxfam on water sanitation and hygiene, and Jessica Graf who is Managing Director of LeFil Consulting. They talk about how they worked together …
What are supermarkets doing to tackle human suffering in their supply chains?
Last year, Oxfam embarked on a campaign asking 16 supermarkets to take responsibility for ending human suffering in their food supply chains. A year on, Monica Romis asks, what has changed? Slow progress to respect human rights The 2019 Supermarket Scorecard shows that, while some are doing better than others, all supermarkets lack sufficient policies to properly protect the people who produce our food. No supermarket does even 40% of what the Oxfam benchmark asks them to. Eight of the 16 companies, including Lidl, Plus and Whole …
Why businesses are addressing unpaid care work
Sarah Hall, Oxfam’s Women’s Economic Empowerment and Care (WE-Care) Programme Manager, explores what businesses stand to gain from easing the burden of unpaid care and domestic work. A productive, healthy workforce is the backbone of any successful business. A ground-breaking new report from Oxfam and Unilever shows how businesses are identifying and addressing the challenges that limit workers’ full participation. A hidden, and often underestimated barrier, is the unequal responsibility for unpaid care and domestic work that frustrates the progression and productivity of women employees. For many businesses globally, the first …
5 lessons learned on how to conduct a Human Rights Impact Assessment
Oxfam recently conducted a Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) with Finland’s biggest supermarket. Tim Gore shares more. Human rights abuses are widespread in global food supply chains – from forced labour on fishing vessels in southeast Asia, to poverty wages on Indian tea estates, and exposure to dangerous chemicals on banana plantations in central America. Supermarkets are the powerful last …
A different approach to water management in Nepal
How a financially viable management model could work to ensure sustained safe water access for communities long after project’s end.
When failure is an option
Innovative, unfiltered, and impact-driven. Lyndsay Stecher describes what it means for Oxfam to work in partnership with trusts and foundations. Everything we do at Oxfam is possible because of funding. We are not naïve to the fact that this has an impact on programme decisions. Funding provides great opportunities, but when misapplied, it can also drive the wrong priorities. Last …
Investors driving better quality jobs
Rachel Wilshaw, Oxfam GB’s Ethical Trade Manager, explains why investors are key to improving working conditions in global supply chains. At the World Economic Forum in January, an exchange between Oxfam’s Winnie Byanyima and the CFO of Yahoo went viral. Why? Because it highlights two contrasting views of job creation. For many business leaders, a low unemployment figure is a …
Are supermarket canned tomatoes now free from labour exploitation?
Tim Gore shares three key findings from Oxfam’s human rights impact assessment of the Italian processed tomato sector. There have been a range of media and NGO reports in recent years about endemic labour exploitation in the Italian tomato sector. But as Oxfam’s The People Behind the Prices, shows, while some progress has been made, many of the root causes …