Featured image for “RIP Father Frans von Hoff – the co-founder of the Fairtrade Movement”

RIP Father Frans von Hoff – the co-founder of the Fairtrade Movement

March 11, 2024
Guest post from Kelly Hawrylyshyn, Head of Global Resource Mobilization at Fairtrade International; and Harriet Lamb (CEO WRAP, former CEO of Fairtrade International & Fairtrade Foundation UK) On February 13th, the Fair Trade movement mourned the passing away of the liberation-theology worker-priest,  Father Frans von der Hoff,  the co-founder of a global movement that now generates over €8 billion in
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Featured image for “Thirty Years of Anti-Corruption: A Personal Reflection”

Thirty Years of Anti-Corruption: A Personal Reflection

March 5, 2024
Journalist, activist and anti-corruption legend John Githongo reflects on the shifting story of anti-corruption in Africa, from Western models to new agendas. This is an edited-down version of a piece published in The Elephant. Corruption, however you define it, is so integral to the way human commercial and political affairs play out that all major global developments in its regard
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Featured image for “A UN tax convention is finally in the making. Now what?”

A UN tax convention is finally in the making. Now what?

January 23, 2024
This post by Farida Bena (right) first appeared on the Kiliza blog A few months ago, I interviewed Abdul Muheet Chowdhary (below) from the South Centre to discuss the ongoing negotiations on a landmark United Nations tax agreement that is in the making. If approved by enough Member States, this global agreement – also called the UN Framework Convention on
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Featured image for “Corporate power is driving up inequality. This is how to make corporates work for the common good instead – this year’s Oxfam Davos report”

Corporate power is driving up inequality. This is how to make corporates work for the common good instead – this year’s Oxfam Davos report

January 15, 2024
Oxfam’s annual ‘Davos Report’ has become a bit of an institution. On the eve of this year’s megarich schmoozathon, Anthony Kamande introduces the main findings of the 2024 version. Full paper here. Last Christmas eve, my cousin Lucy came to my rural village. She needed some help. Lucy’s son had excelled in the national exams and was selected to join
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Featured image for “Will growth be enough to end poverty? New Projections of the UN Sustainable Development Goals”

Will growth be enough to end poverty? New Projections of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

October 17, 2023
Guest post by Arief Anshory Yusuf, Zuzy Anna, Ahmad Komarulzaman and Andy Sumner Today, October 17th is the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (you already knew that, right?). In new analysis for UNU-WIDER, we assess progress towards the global poverty-related SDGs, specifically monetary poverty, undernutrition, child and maternal mortality, and access to clean water and basic sanitation.
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Featured image for “A historic global agreement on tax is under threat. Here’s why.”

A historic global agreement on tax is under threat. Here’s why.

August 22, 2023
This post by Farida Bena was originally published on the Kiliza website Every year, an estimated USD 312 billion are lost in unpaid corporate taxes around the world. By using legal loopholes, many companies avoid paying their dues – often to Southern countries that host their operations and provide cheap labour. This happens because the governments of those countries are unable to
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Featured image for “The Gross Domestic Problem: what would a new economic measure that values women and climate look like?”

The Gross Domestic Problem: what would a new economic measure that values women and climate look like?

August 3, 2023
Measuring progress by Gross Domestic Product leads straight to gender injustice, austerity and environmental ruin. Anam Parvez Butt and Alex Bush introduce a new Oxfam discussion paper that aims to encourage debate about alternative metrics, and calls on advocates to join the “Beyond GDP” movement Since its official adoption at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, Gross Domestic Product or
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Featured image for “Evaluating the Evaluations: What lessons can Oxfam draw from a Decade of Scrutiny?”

Evaluating the Evaluations: What lessons can Oxfam draw from a Decade of Scrutiny?

July 27, 2023
Propaganda and opinion are easy; establishing the truth is hard (and I speak here as someone once branded Oxfam’s ‘chief opinionator’ – thanks John Magrath). Oxfam has been wrestling with different ways to evaluate impact for decades and in a new paper, a team led by Katrina Barnes ploughed through 67 ‘Effectiveness Reviews’ – rigorous impact evaluations on randomly selected
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Featured image for “How the United Nations and the World Bank can turbo charge the effort to reduce Inequality”

How the United Nations and the World Bank can turbo charge the effort to reduce Inequality

July 26, 2023
Guest post from Oxfam’s Anthony Kamande Over the past decade, many leading economists and global institutions such as the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have taken a keen interest in economic inequality. Tons of inequality data have been unearthed, and inequality is now on ordinary people’s lips. Indeed, in 2015 the UN adopted
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Featured image for “Showing Your Working when you come up with a ‘Killer Fact’”

Showing Your Working when you come up with a ‘Killer Fact’

July 12, 2023
Oxfam got some headlines last week with ‘World’s 722 biggest companies ‘making $1tn in windfall profits’’. This is a good example of a ‘killer fact’ – a memorable statistic that summarizes an injustice, in this case a massive windfall for big corporates at a time of global austerity and spiralling food and fuel prices. Here’s my 2019 guide to writing
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Featured image for “How to get people to take the Care Economy seriously? Some top (evidence-based) tips”

How to get people to take the Care Economy seriously? Some top (evidence-based) tips

June 1, 2023
Been taking a look at Silvia Galandini, Anam Parvez and Nick Gadsby’s new Oxfam new ‘toolkit’ on building public pressure for change on the care economy, by constructing a ‘fresh and compelling narrative about the value of all care’. The toolkit is based on research to understand how the general public across the UK thinks about paid and unpaid care
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Featured image for “Food and energy protests signal failures of accountability on a global scale”

Food and energy protests signal failures of accountability on a global scale

April 20, 2023
Guest post by Jeff Hallock and Naomi Hossain While the world was watching the war in Ukraine, its side-effects via rising food and energy prices were also playing out in the form of mass protests about the cost-of-living crisis in 148 countries. This global wave, unprecedented in world history, tells us that not only is the global economy in bad
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