Jacco Vlastuin, Digital Campaigner at Oxfam Novib, shares his presentation on behavioural insights for digital campaigning from the recent Evidence for Influencing conference. #Throwback Last Tuesday I had the honour of hosting one of the breakout sessions during the #OxfamEvidence conference. A session where I focused on behavioural insights, influencing and framing. The insights I presented were learnt from a …
How can NGOs get better at using evidence to influence governments and companies?
Duncan Green reflects on the Oxfam Research Network’s recent ‘Evidence for Influencing’ Conference, Organised by the Oxfam Research Network and hosted by Konkatkt de Kontinenten in the Netherlands. This week I attended an ‘Evidence for Influencing’ conference in the Netherlands. A couple of Oxfam colleagues had started planning it as a small event, and then found such interest in the topic that …
Keeping education alive in South Sudan
‘Our country had suffered from war and under-development for generations, but we knew education could help us find a better path’. Martin Lubajo shares his journey from refugee in Uganda to teacher and trainer in South Sudan, striving to ensure that children do not miss out on their education even amid the ongoing war and humanitarian crisis. In 2009, I …
Why partnerships are vital to our work in South Sudan
From borehole drilling to peacebuilding Oxfam partners in South Sudan are responding to people’s needs in ways that only local organisations could. Tim Bierley reflects on the strengths of Oxfam’s South Sudan partnerships. There’s risk of a cholera outbreak on islands deep into the Sudd, South Sudan. People are relying on the often-contaminated swamp for their drinking water. New boreholes …
How Oxfam has influenced for change over the last 75 years
In advance of the Oxfam Research Network’s Evidence for Influencing conference (Soesterberg, Netherlands, 23-24 October), Ruth Mayne, Chris Stalker and Andrew Wells-Dang look back over Oxfam’s history of influencing and future challenges. Influencing policymakers is in Oxfam’s genes. Right from its inception in 1942, Oxfam called on Prime Minister Winston Churchill to lift the Allied blockade of Nazi-occupied countries to …
Women’s work? Challenging gender roles in the Philippines
‘We forget our tiredness when the kiss is there.’ Nikki van der Gaag reports from the Philippines on a partnership that is changing ideas about men’s and women’s roles in the home. There is a bright red advertisement on the road from Tacloban airport to the town. It has a photograph of a woman with pale skin and red lipstick …
Building local humanitarian capacity in Yemen
Working with local partners in emergencies enables Oxfam to respond to the needs of more vulnerable people in a timely and sensitive way. Here Bassim Assuqair shares a success story from Yemen where in partnership with Oxfam youth organization GWQ has been able to build humanitarian capacity to respond to the crisis in their local area. Since the escalation of …
A practical tool for listening to the people that matter
Jessica Fullwood-Thomas introduces a new online tool by Oxfam, which can help practitioners to better listen to the viewpoints of the communities we’re working in. TS Elliot famously said, ‘Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?’ Increasingly we have ever greater quantities and sources of data, but do we …
Evidence for influencing: why we’re excited about the first Oxfam Research Network conference
For social justice what needs to change, who holds the power and how do we achieve it? Irene Guijt and Irene de Goede introduce first conference on the evidence processes needed for influencing, where these questions and more will be discussed with 150 experts from Oxfam and the wider sector. Influencing for social justice is a journey during which many …
Using scorecards to influence business: the Behind the Brands experience
In the run up to Oxfam’s Evidence for Influencing conference on Oct 23 – 24, Erinch Sahan shares how Oxfam has used scorecards to influence business. Companies compete, that’s just what they do. As a company’s performance is assessed against competitors’ decision-makers in companies are incentivised to ‘win’. The desire to ‘win’ shapes corporate culture and this is a dynamic …