Why are local organisations still missing out on funds for overheads that don’t just keep the lights on but are vital to their survival? Dominic Vickers reports back on a webinar that brought SIDA, UNHCR, Oxfam and Development Initiatives together to tackle the thorny problem of ICR, or Indirect Cost Recovery.
Will the new loss and damage fund replicate the same old exclusion of local voices and organisations?
How can a community-based organisation with three staff compete with the World Bank or an INGO for resources to address climate damage? Lyndsay Walsh on why this week’s crucial pre-COP meeting on recommendations to establish the loss and damage fund must create more space, money and support for local organisations.
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?
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
The UK’s new development strategy shows it’s in the midst of an identity crisis
Despite warm words about doing ‘what works’ for the world’s poorest, there are worrying elements in this new strategy, says Sam Nadel – including what looks like a shift towards aid for trade
What do small women’s rights organisations want from INGO funders? Less red tape and a seat at the table
In the first of a series of blogs for International Women’s Day, Laura Norman and Mona Mehta set out three things women’s rights organisations want from international NGOs – and how Oxfam is responding with an innovative fund that aims to give women activists real power to do what’s best for their communities
When failure is an option
Innovative, unfiltered, and impact-driven. Lyndsay Stecher describes what it means for Oxfam to work in partnership with trusts and foundations. Everything we do at Oxfam is possible because of funding. We are not naïve to the fact that this has an impact on programme decisions. Funding provides great opportunities, but when misapplied, it can also drive the wrong priorities. Last …