As Asia changes and ages, domestic workers are in demand – but who will stand up for their rights?

Saleha Shah Living wage, Research, Women's Economic Empowerment

Paid carers are more important than ever to Asian societies and economies. Yet, say Saleha Shah and Raina Bhattacharya, upcoming Oxfam research will highlight how these millions of workers remain underpaid, exploited and invisible. Building decent care systems will mean paying and treating these workers fairly, and also creating new public care infrastructure that can meet everyone’s needs.

What would a feminist loss and damage fund look like?

Myrah Nerine Butt Climate Change, Gender, Research

Myrah Nerine and Alex Bush introduce a new paper that calls on decision makers at COP28 to pay attention to the gendered impacts of the climate emergency.

How climate change fuels gender-based violence

Myrah Nerine Butt Climate Change, Gender, Violence Against Women and Girls

In a blog for the 16 Days campaign against gender-based violence, Myrah Nerine looks at how women and non-binary people pay a heavy price for climate-driven poverty and migration, through higher rates of violence, more insecurity, or damage to physical and mental health.

How are land rights connected to climate justice?

Pubudini Wickramaratne Climate Change, Land rights, Research

Pubudini Wickramaratne and Rashmini de Silva introduce a new paper that spotlights the voices of rural Asians suffering loss and damage to their land and explain how secure land rights are essential to increasing climate resilience.

An ‘Uber’ app for cooks and cleaners? How tech is starting to change the lives of informal domestic workers

Fatema Tuz Johoora Innovation, Private sector, Women's Economic Empowerment

On International Domestic Workers’ day, Fatema Tuz Johoora and Tarek Aziz explain how gig economy apps can make Bangladesh’s invisible army of domestic workers visible, as well as offering new opportunities to help them claim their rights to better pay and conditions.

How can we manage toilets better in large emergencies? Cox’s Bazar shows us the way

Safwatul Haque Niloy Emergencies, Innovation, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

In a blog for World Toilet Day, Oxfam’s Safwatul Haque Niloy looks at a pioneering project with engineering firm Arup that is pinpointing the best ways to deal with the huge challenge posed by waste from thousands of latrines

From a Rohingya refugee’s perspective, who is local – and why does it matter?

Razia Sultana Gender, Power Shifts, Refugees and IDPs

Interactions between refugee women and aid workers with little connection to Rohingya culture can go terribly wrong, says Razia Sultana of Oxfam partner RW Welfare Society. To win women’s trust, INGOs need to engage with whoever is ‘as local as possible’

Ripple Effects: women in Nepal and Bangladesh forge their own paths in water governance

Suman Gupta Gender, Water, Women's Economic Empowerment

In honour of International Women’s Day (March 8th) and World Water Day (March 22nd), this episode discusses how water systems and water governance are deeply intertwined with women’s lives in riverine communities in Bangladesh and Nepal. We learn about women’s rarely discussed roles in fisheries and how River Camps in Bangladesh offer supportive environments for women to meet with leaders …

Imagining alternative futures

John Magrath Agriculture, Climate Change, Food & livelihoods, Food security, Methodology, Participation and Leadership, Research, Youth

Programme Researcher, John Magrath, describes the process of applying ‘participatory scenario development’ to explore how Bangladesh might achieve zero hunger and zero carbon emissions by 2041. It is tempting to assume that the future will follow much the same trajectory as the past. Imagining alternative futures can be dismissed as dreaming, or science fiction. And if we do imagine the …