Three ways cash is king for asylum seekers in Greece

Stefania ImperiaAid, Emergency, Refugees and IDPs

Stefania Imperia asks what cash assistance means in practical terms for asylum seekers in Greece.  With tens of thousands of refugees and migrants stranded in Greece for an undefined period, providing cash grants to asylum seekers living in the Epirus region of north-west Greece may represent not only an efficient and dignified means to provide humanitarian assistance – but also an …

Evolving ICTs in humanitarian: The power of networks

Amy O'DonnellICT4D, Innovation, Methodology

Amy O’Donnell unpacks the idea that ICTs save time, money and improve accuracy, whilst exploring the conditions needed for them to add value in humanitarian response. For three years, the Scaling Humanitarian ICTs Network (SHINE) funded by Sida has been exploring the role of Information Communications Technologies in humanitarian response. Last month all five countries in the network: Ethiopia, DRC, …

Cash transfer programming in Zimbabwe

Khodeza RumeAid, Food & livelihoods, ICT4D

Khodeza Rume, a Humanitarian Support Personnel in Food Security and Livelihoods, reflects on a recent electronic cash programme with the World Food Programme and Econet.  With the 2008 financial crash, Zimbabwe suffered a cash crisis and economic collapse which resulted in chronic food insecurity. The situation has since been exacerbated by the effects of El Niño with an estimated 4.1 million …

Employment charters: a potential tool to challenge inequality?

Emily BallInequality

Emily Ball and Ceri Hughes explain employment charters; what they can achieve, their limits and Oxfam GB’s hopes for an employment charter for Greater Manchester. More than half (7.4 million) of the people in poverty in the UK are in working families. Concerted action is required if we are to take on this long-term trend but one way to begin …

Who needs religious literacy? In a disaster, maybe we all do

Tara GingerichConflict, Disasters, Humanitarian

Tara Gingerich reflects on her recent work researching religious literacy; what she realised about her own point of view and why we need to engage with religion. I remember when I first started to talk with Oxfam colleagues about the new research project I would be leading, together with the Harvard Divinity School. It was on how Oxfam and other …

One year on from the Panama Papers: how well is the UK tackling tax avoidance?

Oliver PearceInequality, Tax

One year on from the leaking of the Panama Papers, Oli Pearce, Policy Manager at Oxfam GB,  explores how well the UK is dealing with tax avoidance.  If a week was a long time in Harold Wilson’s politics, then a year in the era of Trump’s tweets is something else. The election of Donald Trump to the American presidency and …

Fundamental questions, women’s rights responses

Caroline SweetmanGender, Gender & Development Journal

Caroline Sweetman, Editor of Gender and Development, introduces their latest issue on women’s rights and fundamentalisms. The new issue of Gender & Development focuses on nothing less than the question of what constitutes heaven on earth. While visions of global development suggest that’s about realizing rights and social justice for everyone, religious fundamentalists peddle an alternative vision of heaven – …

Co-creating feminist innovation: Lessons learned from the Roots Lab design process

Chloe SafierGender

Roots Lab is an exciting new social innovation lab for young women’s rights, created in partnership with FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund, Global Fund for Women, Oxfam, and the Young Foundation. Chloe Safier takes us through how and why it came about.  “My mom was a fighter, she taught me to believe in other women. I believe in every single …

Revisiting Yemen in the midst of conflict

Jonathan PuddifootConflict, Food & livelihoods, Humanitarian

The people of Yemen are experiencing one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises. The conflict between a Saudi-led coalition of Gulf countries and the Government of Yemen against the Ansar-Allah movement (also known as the Houthis), escalated in March 2015. Two years on, Jonathon Puddifoot reflects on a recent visit to the country he knows so well.  Its 30 years …