In the run-up to World Humanitarian Day this week, Isabelle Tallec looks at Oxfam’s locally led response to the Ukraine crisis, working with dozens of local and community organisations to support the most marginalised groups of refugees and displaced people.
Four ways women can help to end the Middle East’s water crisis
We know women have to be at the heart of designing and delivering the response to the region’s water problems, says Oxfam MENA’s Sally Abi Khalil. She sets out four principles for a fresh, feminist approach to managing water.
There’s magic in letting people tell their own stories
International media and aid agencies have too often taken people’s voices and used them to promote their own agendas. This has to change, writes Misozi Tembo.
Compliance for INGO partners is riddled with colonial attitudes: here’s how that can change…
As international NGOs, we need to stop assuming partners are risky, respect local standards, accept we should prove ourselves as much as partners do, and slash the form-filling, says Oxfam compliance advisor Dominic Vickers. In fact, how about encouraging partners to apply for funds by video?
How can we prevent future hunger in Somalia? Start by empowering Somalis themselves
The news that over eight million Somalis are set to be in hunger crisis next year must trigger massive prevention efforts, alongside the emergency response, says Abdiaziz Adani of Oxfam in Somalia. And central to effective prevention is unlocking the huge potential of local organisations to build famine resilience.
INGOs must share data and power with local partners – but that doesn’t mean dumping privacy risks onto them
In the future, more smaller, local aid organisations will be involved in collecting data – but their international partners must not forget they still have important ethical and legal duties when it comes to privacy, says Lori Roussey
As Oxfam turns 80, here are three big ideas that I think will shape its future…
Eight decades after Oxfam began with a meeting in an Oxford church, we must respond to challenges our founders could not have dreamed of, from re-imagining what an international NGO should be, to the need for totally new sources of funding, to the world-changing impact of technology, says Oxfam GB CEO Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah
In so many places, women’s mental health has been neglected for too long. Here’s how we’re working with communities to change that
In a blog for World Mental Health Day, Julian Kosh looks at a pilot project to support survivors of abuse, trauma and cancer in Kenya and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. At its core is a ‘flexible funding’ approach that gives women’s rights organisations the freedom to test new approaches to mental health in the ways they think best
The high price of lowballing local organisations
There’s a glaring missing piece in the funding of humanitarian organisations like ours, says Hero Anwar: the overheads and indirect costs essential to our survival
Locked out. What do local leaders say about reforming the humanitarian system?
Amy Croome reports back on a very different kind of discussion on shifting power and resources – one led by local activists and organisations