It’s World Food Day today – why is global progress going into reverse?

October 16, 2017
Guest post from Larissa Pelham, who is a food security wonk with probably the longest job title in Oxfam (see end for its full glory) World Food Day has come around again and with it the annual report on the State of World Food Insecurity. In a year which declared a potential ‘four famines’  – with South Sudan tipping into famine
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Life in a time of Food Price Volatility: 4 years of research in a 4 page infographic

May 5, 2017
IDS and Oxfam have put together a snazzy infographic/executive summary of their four year research project, with links to the main documents for those old fashioned enough to want to read something. What do you think of the format?
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Precarious Lives: Food, Work and Care after the Global Food Crisis. Launch of new report, 9th September

August 31, 2016
Oxfam researcher John Magrath profiles a new joint Oxfam/IDS report and tries to convince you to come along to the launch in London on 9th September Duncan has written previously about one of the projects he was most proud of initiating while in (nominal!) charge of Oxfam’s Research Team. This started out as Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility’ and
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What have 3 years of campaigning on Big Food achieved? What still needs to happen?

April 19, 2016
Erinch Sahan, acting head of Oxfam’s private sector team, looks back on 3 years of trying to get the world’s food giants to clean up their act, the subject of a new Behind the Brands report. The captains of the food industry have come a long way over the last few years. The “Big 10”, the world’s 10 largest food and
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Some fascinating new research on how food prices affect people’s lives and politics

April 5, 2016
One of the projects I was proudest of getting off the ground while in (nominal) charge of Oxfam’s research team was ‘Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility’, a four year study of the impact of the chaotic food prices of recent years on the lives of poor people and communities in rural and urban communities in ten countries.
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Why the system for managing the world’s food and climate needs to be more like my car

March 25, 2014
Today, Oxfam is publishing a briefing on its ‘food and climate justice’ campaign. Here’s a post I wrote for the launch. When I get into my car in London, I step into a system designed to get me safely from A to B. It has seat belts, airbags, and an increasing number of electronic warning devices. The traffic system has rules
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What’s the the best/worst country in which to feed your family? New Oxfam report.

January 16, 2014
Oxfam researcher and ace number cruncher Deborah Hardoon introduces its new Good Enough to Eat index. Many of us will have overindulged this festive season. According to the British Diatetics Association, the average Brit puts on half a stone at Christmas. And it is not just Christmas Day itself, ‘the whole festive season is riddled with fat traps’. After Christmas,
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Big food companies are moving from charity to rights. With one exception – Associated British Foods

December 11, 2013
Erinch Sahan (right), a private sector policy advisor at Oxfam GB, brings us up to date with the Behind the Brands campaign, and one particularly recalcitrant company. This is a story of a campaign on Big Food. A campaign successful in moving a bunch of companies, but struggling with one in particular. It is a story of corporate responsibility, of
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Brands, bankers and big ideas…… talking food to $5 trillion of investment

June 24, 2013
Oxfam’s tame ex-banker Will Martindale has been discussing food security with some masters of the (financial) universe Imagine a million people, each with a million dollars. Then times it by five. Five trillion dollars. That was the total investment represented by bankers and investors that joined Oxfam last week for a meeting to discuss global food security. The context was
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‘Resource Futures’: good new report on how to confront resource scarcity and conflict

January 15, 2013
Looks like this is going to be crystal ball week on the blog – must be the time of year. Just read Resource Futures from Chatham House (inventors of the ubiquitous Chatham House Rule). The analysis is pretty good, but it really raises the bar on communication, with great interactive infographics and killer facts. Advocacy wonks everywhere, take note. The
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Why the World Bank is wrong (so far) on large land deals

October 26, 2012
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Mouthwash or Global Leadership? What the Hunger Summit will tell us about Britain’s commitment to development

June 1, 2012
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