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Significant number of Moderna and Pfizer shareholders support vaccine technology transfer

An Oxfam resolution before Moderna shareholders received 24% of the nominal vote, or 29% of the independent vote factoring in the 17% of the vote share owned by the company’s directors and senior executives. A similar resolution before Pfizer shareholders garnered 27% of the vote.

The unprecedented Oxfam resolutions, introduced at the Moderna Annual General Meeting today by Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization and by Ady Barkan, Founder and Co-Executive Director of Be A Hero at the Pfizer Annual General Meeting, urged the companies to study the feasibility of transferring vaccine technology and know-how to urgently ramp up production and improve sustainable access around the world.

In reaction to the votes, Robbie Silverman, Oxfam America’s Senior Manager of Private Sector Advocacy, made the following statement:

“We are pleased to see that nearly 30% of Moderna and Pfizer’s investors agree that the companies should explore the feasibility of transferring its technology to spur manufacturing in low- and middle-income countries.  This is the first time that shareholders have voted for a resolution like this on any company proxy ballot.

“Unprecedented risks posed by an unprecedented global pandemic call for novel solutions – and a significant number of Moderna shareholders agree with the bold action we proposed.

“Only 12% of people in low-income countries are vaccinated today– as Dr. Tedros said, this is a “failure of humanity” and threatens the health of all of us, as new variants continue to emerge. 

“The countries most impacted are clear on what they believe is the best and most effective way to vaccinate their own citizens – transferring the technology and investing in locally-based manufacturing. 

“By every metric, the current donations-based model has failed – it leaves countries at the mercy of rich countries and profit-driven countries; exacerbates on-the-ground distributional challenges; and leaves the world with the same inequities and vulnerabilities that have plagued the global response since the start of the pandemic. 

“We believe this strong vote share demonstrates that a significant number of Moderna and Pfizer’s shareholders recognize that the only sustainable way to end the pandemic is to leverage the world’s full manufacturing capacity as quickly as possible. We call on these companies to actively collaborate with the WHO to use every possible tool to combat the scourge of COVID-19, save lives, and restore public health and the global economy.”

At its Annual General Meeting, Johnson & Johnson did not announce vote totals for the resolutions it faced, including Oxfam’s resolution, introduced by Maaza Seyoum, Global South Convener, People’s Vaccine Alliance, calling on the company to be more transparent about its pricing for its COVID vaccines in light of the billions of dollars of public funding from US taxpayers. The company has four days to file that information with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Demands for austerity and spiralling debt are ‘sabotaging’ Africa’s Covid-19 recovery

43 African governments are facing expenditure cuts totalling $183 billion (equivalent to 5.4 percent of GDP) over the next five years, reveals new analysis from Oxfam and Development Finance International (DFI) today. If these cuts are implemented, their chances of achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals will likely disappear.

The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index: Africa Briefing Paper shows that Africa’s debt burden is stifling post-COVID economic recovery and stagnating the public services necessary to reduce poverty and inequality. Africa’s debt burden has been climbing steadily, averaging 67 percent of GDP in 2021. Debt repayments are equivalent to 51 percent of African countries’ budget revenue and 22 times more than their spending on social protection. Debt servicing exceeds spending on healthcare in all but six African countries, rising to 77 times more in South Sudan. The G20 countries have so far offered little relief: debt cancellation or suspension amounts to just $9.3 billion.

‘‘Majority of African governments know and want to lift their citizens from poverty but their coffers are empty, so they need support instead of more pressure,’’ said Peter Kamalingin, Oxfam’s Pan Africa Program director. ‘‘At a time when poor countries are faced with increasing costs of living and with poor people unable to afford food, it cannot be the time to suffocate them with more austerity. That is the surest way to undermine recovery, widen inequality and destroy livelihoods.’’

The index ranks 47 African countries on their policies on public services, tax and workers’ rights. South Africa ranks first, followed by Seychelles, Tunisia, Namibia and Lesotho. At the bottom are South Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Liberia and the Central African Republic. North Africa outperforms Africa’s other subregions, with Central Africa ranking last.

The analysis shows that African governments’ failure to tackle inequality ― through support for public healthcare and education, workers’ rights and a fair tax system ― left them woefully ill-equipped to tackle the  COVID-19  pandemic.  The IMF has contributed to these failures by consistently pushing a policy agenda that seeks to balance national budgets through cuts to public services, increases in taxes paid by the poorest,  and moves to undermine labour rights and protections. As a result, when COVID-19 struck, 52 percent of Africans lacked access to healthcare and 83 percent had no safety nets to fall back on if they lost their job or became sick.

Quality public services are proven to reduce inequality. For example, they have reduced inequality by 34 percent in Namibia, 22 percent in South Africa and 19 percent in Benin. However, Africa’s unfair tax system is increasing inequality by 1 percent. In Tanzania and Tunisia, fair tax policies have slashed inequality by 10 percent.

Oxfam and DFI are urging the G20 to reallocate and waive off unnecessary conditionalities so that lower-income countries can access most of the $100 billion worth of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) with ease. They are calling for increased aid flows to Africa to increase access to inequality-busting public services and COVID-19 vaccines. The vaccination rate in Africa needs to increase significantly if the continent is to meet the 70 percent vaccine coverage target set for June 2022.

‘‘That some governments have fared better than others at tackling inequality confirms we can end inequality if we make the right policy decisions. This must include taxing the wealthiest, curbing illicit financial flows, restructuring debt held by poor countries and ending the pandemic through equitable access to COVID-19 Vaccines and therapeutics.’’ ― Peter Kamalingin.

 

Notes to editors

Download Oxfam’s Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index: Africa.

Our analysis of the IMF’s COVID-19 loans during the first year of the pandemic is also available for download.

IMF must abandon demands for austerity as cost-of-living crisis drives up hunger and poverty worldwide

87 percent of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) COVID-19 loans are requiring developing countries that have been denied equal access to vaccines and are facing some of the world’s worst humanitarian crises to adopt tough, new austerity measures that will further exacerbate poverty and inequality.

New analysis by Oxfam finds that 13 out of the 15 IMF loan programs negotiated during the second year of the pandemic require new austerity measures such as taxes on food and fuel or spending cuts that could put vital public services at risk. The IMF is also encouraging six additional countries to adopt similar measures.

In 2020, the IMF deployed billions in emergency loans to help developing countries cope with COVID-19, often with few conditions or none at all. Recently, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva urged Europe not to endanger its economic recovery with “the suffocating force of austerity”. Yet, over the past year, the IMF has gone back to imposing austerity measures on lower-income countries.

“This epitomizes the IMF’s double standard: it is warning rich countries against austerity while forcing poorer ones into it. The pandemic is not over for most of the world. Rising energy bills and food prices are hurting poor countries most. They need help boosting access to basic services and social protection, not harsh conditions that kick people when they are down”, said Nabil Abdo, Oxfam International’s Senior Policy Advisor.

  • Kenya and the IMF agreed a US$2.3 billion loan program in 2021, which includes a three-year public sector pay freeze and increased taxes on cooking gas and food. More than 3 million Kenyans are facing acute hunger as the driest conditions in decades spread a devastating drought across the country. Nearly half of all households in Kenya are having to borrow food or buy it on credit.
  • 9 countries including Cameroon, Senegal and Surinam are being required to introduce or increase the collection of value-added taxes (VAT), which often apply to everyday products like food and clothing, and fall disproportionately on people living in poverty.
  • Sudan, where nearly half of the population is living in poverty, has been required to scrap fuel subsidies which will hit the poorest hardest. The country was already reeling from international aid cuts, economic turmoil and rising prices for everyday basics such as food and medicine before the war in Ukraine started. Over 14 million people need humanitarian assistance (almost one in every three people) and 9.8 million are food insecure in Sudan, which imports 87 percent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.
  • 10 countries including Kenya and Namibia are likely to freeze or cut public sector wages and jobs, which could mean lower quality of education and fewer nurses and doctors in countries already short of healthcare staff. Namibia had fewer than six doctors per 10,000 people when COVID-19 struck.

New analysis by Oxfam and Development Finance International (DFI) also published today reveals that 43 out of 55 African Union member states face public expenditure cuts totaling US$183 billion over the next five years. If these cuts are implemented, their chances of achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals will likely disappear. In 2021, an Oxfam review of IMF COVID-19 loans showed that the Fund encouraged 33 African countries to pursue austerity policies in the aftermath of the health crisis. The pandemic has not ended but these policies are already taking shape across Africa.

The analysis also shows that African governments’ failure to tackle inequality ― through support for public healthcare and education, workers’ rights and a fair tax system ― left them woefully ill-equipped to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. The IMF has contributed to these failures by consistently pushing a policy agenda that seeks to balance national budgets through cuts to public services, increases in taxes paid by the poorest, and moves to undermine labor rights and protections. As a result, when COVID-19 struck, 52 percent of Africans lacked access to healthcare and 83 percent had no safety nets to fall back on if they lost their job or became sick.

“The IMF must suspend austerity conditions on existing loans and increase access to emergency financing. It should encourage countries to increase taxes on the wealthiest and corporations to replenish depleted coffers and shrink widening inequality. That would actually be good advice”, said Abdo.

 

Notes to editors

Download Oxfam and DFI’s “Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index: Africa”. Our analysis of the IMF’s COVID-19 loans during the first year of the pandemic is also available for download.

Oxfam estimates that over a quarter of a billion more people could crash into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 because of COVID-19, rising global inequality and the shock of food price rises supercharged by the war in Ukraine. For more information, download Oxfam’s brief “First Crisis, Then Catastrophe”.

The IMF negotiated 22 COVID-19 loans with 23 countries between 15 March 2021 and 15 March 2022. 15 are loan programs that came with a full suite of conditionality or policy requirements, six are conditionality-free emergency financing and one is a Flexible Credit Line that does not usually include conditionalities. The IMF’s USUS$1.4 billion (SDR 1,005.9 million) disbursement to Ukraine was not included in Oxfam’s analysis, as it intended to help meet urgent financing needs and mitigate the economic impact of the war.

In December 2021, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva told Euronews that the European Union should not put economic recovery in danger with “the suffocating force of austerity”.  The IMF’s own research shows austerity worsens poverty and inequality.

Photographs and video from East Africa are available. As many as 28 million people across East Africa at risk of extreme hunger. West Africa is facing its worst food crisis in ten years, with over 27 million people suffering from hunger.

According to Sudan’s latest household survey (2014), 44 percent of the population lives in poverty. However, this data does not reflect the impacts of the recent economic decline, high inflation and recent flooding. The IMF estimates that the ongoing economic crisis, exacerbated by COVID-19, will likely have significantly negative effects on living conditions and poverty.

According to the World Food Program, 9.8 million people in Sudan are food insecure. 14.3 million are estimated to need humanitarian assistance in 2022 — the highest in the past decade.

According to the World Bank, Namibia had 0.59 doctors per 1,000 people before the pandemic began.

Add link when available. [AT1]

“Terrifying prospect” of over a quarter of a billion more people crashing into extreme levels of poverty and suffering this year

Over a quarter of a billion more people could crash into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 because of Covid-19, rising global inequality and the shock of food price rises supercharged by the war in Ukraine, reveals a new Oxfam brief today.  

“First Crisis, Then Catastrophe”, published ahead of the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in Washington DC, shows that 860 million people could be living in extreme poverty — on less than US$1.90 a day — by the end of this year. This is mirrored in global hunger: the number of undernourished people could reach 827 million in 2022. 

The World Bank had projected COVID-19 and worsening inequality to add 198 million extreme poor during 2022, reversing two decades of progress. Based on research by the World Bank, Oxfam now estimates that rising global food prices alone will push 65 million more people into extreme poverty, for a total of 263 million more extreme poor this year —equivalent to the populations of the UK, France, Germany and Spain combined. 

“Without immediate radical action, we could be witnessing the most profound collapse of humanity into extreme poverty and suffering in memory,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher. “This terrifying prospect is made more sickening by the fact that trillions of dollars have been captured by a tiny group of powerful men who have no interest in interrupting this trajectory.” 

As many people struggle now to cope with sharp cost-of-living increases, having to choose between eating or heating or medical bills, the likelihood of mass starvation faces millions of people already locked in severe levels of hunger and poverty across East Africa, the Sahel, Yemen and Syria.  

The brief notes that a wave of governments is nearing a debt default and being forced to slash public spending to pay creditors and import food and fuel. The world’s poorest countries are due to pay US$43 billion in debt repayments in 2022, which could otherwise cover the costs of their food imports. Global food prices hit an all-time high in February, surpassing the peak crisis of 2011. Oil and gas giants are reporting record-breaking profits, with similar trends expected to play out in the food and beverage sector.   

People in poverty are being hit harder by these shocks. Rising food costs account for 17 percent of consumer spending in wealthy countries, but as much as 40 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Even within rich economies, inflation is super-charging inequality: in the US, the poorest 20 percent of families are spending 27 percent of their incomes on food, while the richest 20 percent spend only 7 percent. 

For most workers around the world, real-term wages continue to stagnate or even fall. The effects of COVID-19 have widened existing gender inequalities too — after suffering greater pandemic-related job losses, women are struggling to get back to work. In 2021, there were 13 million fewer women in employment compared to 2019, while men’s employment has already recovered to 2019 levels. 

The report also shows that entire countries are being forced deeper into poverty. COVID-19 has stretched all governments’ coffers but the economic challenges facing developing countries are greater, having been denied equitable access to vaccines and now being forced into austerity measures.  

Despite COVID-19 costs piling up and billionaire wealth rising more since COVID-19 than in the previous 14 years combined, governments — with few exceptions — have failed to increase taxes on the richest. An annual wealth tax on millionaires starting at just 2 percent, and 5 percent on billionaires, could generate US$2.52 trillion a year —enough to lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty, make enough vaccines for the world, and deliver universal healthcare and social protection for everyone living in low- and lower middle-income countries. 

“We reject any notion that governments do not have the money or means to lift all people out of poverty and hunger and ensure their health and welfare. We only see the absence of economic imagination and political will to actually do so,” Bucher said. 

“Now more than ever, with such scale of human suffering and inequality laid bare and deepened by multiple global crises, that lack of will is inexcusable and we reject it. The G20, World Bank and IMF must immediately cancel debts and increase aid to poorer countries, and together act to protect ordinary people from an avoidable catastrophe. The world is watching”. 

Oxfam is calling for urgent action to tackle the extreme inequality crisis threatening to undermine the progress made in tackling poverty during the last quarter of a century: 

  • Introduce one-off and permanent wealth taxes to fund a fair and sustainable recovery from COVID-19. Argentina adopted a one-off special levy dubbed the ‘millionaire’s tax’ that has brought in around US$2.4 billion to pay for pandemic recovery. 
  • End crisis profiteering by introducing excess profit taxes to capture the windfall profits of big corporations across all industries. Oxfam estimated that such a tax on just 32 super-profitable multinational companies could have generated US$104 billion in revenue in 2020. 
  • Cancel all debt payments for developing countries that need urgent help now. Cancelling debt would free up more than US$30 billion in vital funds in 2022 alone for 33 countries already in or at high risk of debt distress. 
  • Boost aid and pay for Ukrainian assistance and the costs of hosting refugees with new funding, rather than shift aid funds earmarked for other crises in poorer countries. 
  • Reallocate at least US$100 billion in Special Drawing Rights (SDR), without burdening countries with new debt or imposing austerity measures. The G20 promised to deliver US$100 billion in recycled SDRs but only US$36 billion has been committed to date. A new SDR issuance should also be considered and distributed based on needs rather than countries’ quota shares at the IMF.  
  • Act to protect people from rising food prices, and create a Global Fund for Social Protection to help the poorest countries provide essential income security for their populations, and maintain these services in times of severe crisis. 

 

Notes to editors 

Download Oxfam’s briefing “First Crisis, Then Catastrophe”. 

The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US$1.90 per day. 

The World Bank projected that COVID-19 will increase the number of people living in extreme poverty by 198 million people in 2022. This projection assumes that the Gini coefficient of income inequality will increase by two percent in all countries. The IMF, World Bank and OECD agree that COVID-19 is highly likely to drive up inequality. 

New Oxfam estimates, building on World Bank projections and prior research conducted by the World Bank and Center for Global Development on food price spikes, show that 65 million more people could be pushed below the US$1.90 poverty line because of the harsh increases in food prices. See “First Crisis, Then Catastrophe” for more information. 

Population of Germany (83 million), France (67 million), the UK (67 million) and Spain (47 million) from the World Bank. Total: 264 million. 

Photographs and video from East Africa are available. As many as 28 million people across East Africa at risk of extreme hunger.  

Data on debt servicing is from UNCTAD. FAO estimates food import bills for all low-income countries to be $46 billion (2021).  

The COVID-19 crisis cost women around the world at least $800 billion in lost income in 2020, equivalent to more than the combined GDP of 98 countries. 

Billionaires’ wealth has risen more since COVID-19 began than it has in the last 14 years combined. 

Download “Taxing Extreme Wealth” for more information about an annual tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires, what it would raise and what it could pay for.   

Argentina has collected 223 billion pesos (around $2.4 billion) from its one-off pandemic wealth tax. 

Oxfam estimated that a ‘Pandemic Profits Tax’ on 32 super-profitable global companies could have generated $104 billion in revenue in 2020 to address COVID-19. Download Oxfam’s report “Power, Profits and the Pandemic” for more information. 

Some governments are contemplating raids on aid funds earmarked for other crises to pay for the new costs of Ukrainian support. Oxfam is aware that the EU has more than halved its humanitarian funding to Timor-Leste, for example, and that some donors have indicated that they will cut their aid to Burkina Faso by 70 percent, with other West African countries hearing similar news. At the same time, West Africa is facing its worst food crisis in ten years, with over 27 million people suffering from hunger. 

SDRs are distributed based on countries’ quota shares at the IMF. As such, the US$650 billion SDR issuance delivered almost US$400 billion in added reserves to the world’s richest economies, US$230 billion to middle-income countries, and US$21 billion to low-income countries. Last October, G20 countries pledged to reallocate $100 billion in SDRs to “vulnerable countries whose economies have been hard hit by the COVID-19 crisis.”  

Fears that wheat stocks could run out in the Occupied Palestinian Territory within three weeks

Ukraine conflict worsening food crisis and decimating families purchasing power

Wheat flour reserves in the Occupied Palestinian Territory could be exhausted within three weeks and the cost of this food staple has surged by nearly 25 percent because of the Ukraine crisis, warns Oxfam.

“Palestinian households are being hit hard by rising global food prices, and many are struggling to meet their basic needs. The reliance on imports and the constraints forced upon them by Israel’s continuing military occupation, settler violence and land-grabs are compounding the food crisis,” says Shane Stevenson, Oxfam Country Director in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has to import 95 percent of its wheat but it owns no food storage infrastructure so is forced to rely instead on Palestinian private sector and Israel’s facilities. Israel in turn imports half of its grain and cereals from Ukraine.

According to the World Food Program, the Ukraine crisis has increased food prices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory such as wheat flour (up by 23.6 percent), corn oil (26.3 percent) lentils (17.6 percent) and table salt (30 percent), decimating Palestinians’ purchasing power.

Most households in the Gaza Strip are now buying food on credit. Many families are eating less and lower quality of food items. Families are cutting out more expensive food such as fruit, meat and chicken that are necessary for a healthy diet.

The cost of animal feed (wheat bran) is up by 60 percent in the West Bank. This adds to the existing burden on Palestinian herders who face outbreaks of animal disease, worsening violent attacks by Israeli settlers and forced displacement because of Israeli annexation policies.

To save the livestock sector from collapsing, the Palestinian Farmers Union is urging the government to cancel the VAT on fodder.

Abbas Melhem of the Palestinian Farmers’ Union said: “The sector is on its last breath and needs to be supported before its completely crashes. We have called upon the Palestinian Prime Minister to take immediate action. Farmers in Area C are facing daily attacks by Israeli settlers to push them off their land. With these challenges, especially with the extremely high prices of fodder, livestock breeders cannot stay and defend their lands if no immediate action is taken from our government to help save the livestock sector.”.

Area C – consisting of 60 percent West Bank territory – is critical to the geographic integrity of the West Bank. Its fertile agricultural lands offer the solution to Palestine increasing its agricultural investments and reducing its dependency on imports. However, Israeli authorities have rejected 99 percent of all the construction plans put forward to develop Area C.

Mazen Sinokrot, the Regional Director of the Arab Food Industries Federation, said: “Palestine cannot expect to rely on the Israeli food reserves in times of crises. Palestine could attempt to strategically bring to the forefront the political issue of Area C once more into the international arena so that Palestinians may use their land for planting wheat and building their self-sufficiency”.

Oxfam calls on the international community to urgently adopt a common and coordinated economic and diplomatic position that challenges Israel’s restrictive policies and allows Palestinians to invest in local food production and infrastructure. Oxfam believes that the international community must not forget its responsibility towards the Palestinian people, impacted by the policies and practices of an expansionist state operating with full impunity.

The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute, MAS, told Oxfam: “Effective policies must be taken by the government in order to find urgent alternatives to wheat and flour imported from Russia and Ukraine. This is critical in order to protect poor and marginalized families from rising food insecurity and fluctuations in the supply chain due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The government must monitor and control prices in local markets and prevent monopoly on basic commodities.”  

Even before the Ukraine crisis, more than 115,000 families were registered with the Palestinian National Cash Transfer Programme (PNCTP) and received a quarterly payment between 700-1800 NIS (200-500 EUR) from the PA. 14,000 more poor households are on the PNCTP waiting list, which is expected to rise. However, registered families have not received payments since May 2021 because the PA is in financial crisis. This is exacerbated by the decision of the European Commission – as largest donor to Palestine and contributing to roughly 50 percent of the PNCTP – to continue withholding 214 million Euros in aid to the PA.

Najla Shawa, Oxfam’s Head of Food Security in Gaza, said: “Every day we meet people who are searching for jobs and money just to feed their children. We feel very stuck at this stage. How can we draw attention from the international community to the deteriorating socio-economic situation in Gaza? Our work in Gaza is becoming increasingly challenging. It is difficult to describe the true level of damage that all this is causing on people’s lives – it is devastating.”

 

Notes

  • The Ministry of National Economy estimates that its wheat flour reserves will last around 2-3 months, but economic experts dispute this, saying stocks could be exhausted in 2-3 weeks. In order to cope with rising food prices, the Ministry of National Economy added VAT exemptions of 16 percent on wheat flour (25kg and above) for 3 months (March – May), as well as a VAT exemption of 16 percent for bakeries for 3 months.
  • In 2022, 2.1 million Palestinians across the oPt will require some form of humanitarian assistance, of whom 64 per cent, or 1.3 million people, live in Gaza.[1] Food insecurity has reached 31.2 percent in Palestine. In Gaza food insecurity has reached 64 percent compared to 9 percent in the West Bank.[2] Vulnerable families in the West Bank and Gaza rely heavily on both humanitarian assistance and support from the Palestinian Ministry of Social Development (MoSD), which manages the national social protection system, including the Palestinian National Cash Transfer Programme (PNCTP).[3]
  • Oxfam together with the ILO, UNICEF and local partners are providing support to the Ministry of Social Development’s Sector Strategy to ensure that a rights-based and cross-nexus programmatic coherence of social protection is enhanced.

[1] OCHA, Humanitarian Key Facts. March 2022.

[2] WFP. Impact of the Ukraine Crisis on the Economic Situation in Palestine. March 2022

[3] Responsiveness of the Palestinian National Cash Programme to Shifting Vulnerabilities in the Gaza Strip (openrepository.com)

As rains in South Sudan start again, communities face more flooding amid a growing hunger crisis, says Oxfam

Increased flooding in South Sudan threatens to deepen the dire hunger crisis, with an estimated 8.3 million people expected to experience severe food insecurity in the coming months.

Just weeks after devastating floodwaters finally receded across South Sudan, rains have begun again with dire humanitarian consequences expected.

In this narrow window between receding and rising waters, Oxfam and other humanitarians are acting urgently to reach communities that had been cut off by flooding and unrest to assess the need. As the full scale of the crisis is becoming clearer, the humanitarian community is scaling up our response and preparations to help communities cope with the current rainy season and calling for more resources and access to save lives.

The arrival of a heavy rainy season has left communities without a chance to recover – if projections hold true, the current rainy season will potentially bring additional flooding later this year and another cycle of hunger, displacement, and disease.

This is the latest in an unprecedented cycle of climate disasters, as cycles of extreme drought followed by heavy rainfall have caused devastating floods for the fifth consecutive year in South Sudan. The worst impacts have been felt in Upper Nile, Lakes, and Jonglei states, affecting 835,000 people, and forcing 350,000 to flee their homes, according to OCHA. This flooding is one of the many-layered crises, in addition to intercommunal conflict, COVID-19, and more, that is leading to a growing hunger crisis across the country. One that has already left over 7.19 million people struggling with crisis levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or higher).

According to the 2022 HNO, the people of South Sudan will experience the highest level of food insecurity in their history with an estimated 8.3 million people (including refugees) expected to experience severe food insecurity by the peak of the lean season (May – July 2022), 7% more than 2021 which had 7.7 million people at the same level during the same period. To respond to this hunger crisis Oxfam South Sudan alongside other Oxfam Countries in the horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia) has declared the Hunger crisis a Category 1 emergency calling for an urgent humanitarian scale-up. Through this response, Oxfam South Sudan hopes to reach 383,000 people with a multi-sectorial lifesaving Food Security, WASH, and Protection response.

Oxfam in South Sudan’s Acting Country Director, Juliet Moriku Balikowa said, “After historic flooding, families have been pushed past the brink. We’re just now able to reach some of the worst-impacted communities, and soon many will be cut off again by more rains. So many people are without clean drinking water and safe hygiene and have lost their homes, crops, livestock, and livelihoods – the tools they would need to get back on their feet. The flooding is only the latest deadly challenge South Sudanese people are facing and we will only see this hunger crisis grow exponentially if we don’t see a massive and urgent humanitarian scale-up. We have a narrow window and donors, leaders, and humanitarians must act now.”

Hunger is a massive threat and is only set to grow – There were already areas of South Sudan categorized as “famine-likely” last year, and this additional climate shock has driven communities into an even deeper food crisis, such as farmland, crops, seeds, and livestock have been devastated. These losses are especially painful in a context of already severe levels of hunger and where the resilience of communities has been seriously eroded by years of conflict.

The flooding has additional knock-on effects – it has forced people into cramped communal living – another risk during COVID-19 – on top of the risks of sexual and gender-based violence and other health risks. It’s also putting South Sudan’s fragile education system in jeopardy as many schools have been forced to close while they’re used as shelters for the displaced. As Oxfam reported last year, school disruptions are particularly harmful to girls, who have struggled to pick their studies back up due to increased child marriage, family obligations, and more.

While Oxfam and partners have been adapting to address the flooding and its impacts, the response is insufficient due to funding, access, and other factors – and people’s needs are growing by the day as their small savings and other coping measures run out.“In Walgak, after distribution of unconditional cash assistance to 500 most vulnerable households, most of which have children and women suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition and Moderate Acute Malnutrition. We see them feeling helpless and overwhelmed as their needs surpass our resources. We are concerned that women are still seen walking long hours to get wild foods to feed their families”, says Lakes Tesfaw, Oxfam Program Manager in Walgak.

Oxfam condemns the continued violence against humanitarians and civilians and calls on the government and armed groups to ensure that humanitarians are protected as they deliver lifesaving aid. The recent attacks on aid workers add to a terrible legacy of violence that makes South Sudan one of the most dangerous places in the world to deliver humanitarian assistance and appealing to those with power to provide unhindered access to humanitarian workers

 Ms. Balikowa added, “South Sudanese communities impacted by repeated flooding and growing hunger – on top of the seemingly endless cycle of challenges they meet every day – need urgent support so they can recover, rebuild, and form a foundation to withstand future shocks like these. But, in the long term, the people of South Sudan ultimately need sustainable peace – to help prepare for and respond to massive issues like the climate crisis together. Communities and the humanitarian workers striving to support them must be protected and given the resources to meet these challenges head-on.”

 

Notes:

Copyright © 2024 Oxfam Aotearoa.

Oxfam is a worldwide development organisation that mobilises the power of people against injustice. Oxfam Aotearoa is a registered charity with the New Zealand Charities Register (registration CC24641). Donations are tax refundable.

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