As global water runs dry, how can we make sure billions don’t get cut off?

Jo TrevorClimate Change, Inequality, Water

Over two billion people lack access to safe drinking water – and the situation is set to become bleaker still because of climate change, say Jo Trevor and Padmini Iyer. How do we build equitable and collective approaches to global water security that uphold everyone’s basic right to clean water?

Why are we still waiting for justice on loss and damage?

Chiara LiguoriClimate Change, In the news, Influencing

Remember the fanfare two years ago when rich countries promised new money to respond to the destructive impacts of the climate emergency? Well, the paltry climate finance deal at COP29 contained precisely zero concrete commitments on loss and damage. Chiara Liguori on how the hopes of poorer countries and communities were raised – only to be brutally dashed.

Across Asia, local LGBTQIA+ activists are finding their Voice

Kayla LapizInfluencing, Power Shifts, Rights

Over the past eight years, the Voice programme has been supporting the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights. In a blog for Pride month, Kayla Lapiz and Ishita Dutta look back on some inspiring examples of local action as the programme comes to an end.

Supermarkets are assessing human rights abuses in their supply chains – here’s what they need to do better

Eline AchterbergAgriculture, Private sector, Rights

Eline Achterberg introduces a new Oxfam briefing that supports supermarkets to improve their “human rights impact assessments” in food supply chains – and, crucially, to take action to make real change to workers’ lives.

Why are LGBTQIA+ people in the Philippines still waiting for an anti-discrimination law?

Neal Igan RoxasInequality, Influencing, Rights

Neal Igan Roxas looks back on his childhood, and at the daily challenge for LGBTQIA+ people of “braving spaces” in the face of hostility, to explain why it is so vital the landmark SOGIE equality bill passes into law, after a two-decade battle for anti-discrimination protection.

Defying violence and repression, women are finding new ways to connect and campaign for human rights

Anandita GhoshGender & Development Journal, Research, Rights

Whether resisting oppressive laws in Zimbabwe, peacebuilding in the former Yugoslavia, or speaking up for migrants on the US-Mexico border, women are leading the push for rights across the globe. Anandita Ghosh introduces the latest issue of the Oxfam-edited Gender & Development Journal on “Women Human Rights Defenders”.

Human rights defenders in the crosshairs

Caroline BrodeurInfluencing, Private sector, Rights

Activists are losing their lives in defence of human rights and the environment. Caroline Brodeur introduces a new Oxfam briefing that spells out how the private sector can and must become part of the solution.

On human rights, the US must repair, reflect, and re-engage

Vicki GassActive citizenship, Land rights

On January 16, Julio David González Arango, an Indigenous land defender involved in peaceful resistance to a mining operation in Guatemala, was shot in his home. The next day, two other defenders – Juan Eduardo Donis and Pablo Adolfo Valenzuela – received text messages saying that “they would be next.”   Tragically, this incident is all too familiar to activists and human rights …