Convening, brokering and co-creating must be at the heart of how INGOs such as Oxfam work in future with urban communities to build resilience to climate shocks. Jessica Valerani introduces a new paper that draws lessons from a recent collaboration between communities, governments, the UN and Oxfam in south-eastern Africa.
Five ways to tackle discrimination against Roma people displaced by war in Ukraine
Powerful, first-hand accounts and evidence gathered by local NGOs show how Roma fleeing Ukraine’s war have been frozen out of the support offered to many other refugees. Padmini Iyer and Sarah Redd introduce a new report that reveals the scale of discrimination facing Roma seeking refuge – and set out five actions that could transform their lives.
‘They offered me nothing for what they had destroyed’: how the scramble for clean-energy minerals is hurting African communities
Today’s mining boom may not be driven by the overt colonialist motives of the past – but the parallels are there, say Dailes Judge and Veronica Zano of Oxfam in Africa.
Is the IMF listening enough? It’s time to make real engagement part of its mandate
Nabil Abdo and Nadia Daar introduce a new Oxfam report, which sets out how the IMF needs to do much more to deliver meaningful engagement with civil society
The messy realities of governance in conflict-affected areas: six dilemmas for development practice
Development projects too often assume there is a simple structure of local governance. But innovative research based on people in Mozambique, Myanmar, and Pakistan writing diaries reveals how in fact their lives are governed by many competing informal and formal actors. Katrina Barnes of Oxfam and Colin Anderson of the Institute of Development Studies on key dilemmas this complexity raises for practitioners
Why access to water may not benefit all women equally
In a study of water projects in Western Nepal Stephanie Leder and Floriane Clement found that community dynamics impacted on planning processes. As a result the more marginalized and disadvantaged women were less likely to benefit from improved water supplies. (Stephanie and Floriane, with Emma Karki, authored an article for the WASH issue of Gender & Development ). Global discourses …