News & Media

Updates from West Africa

September 19, 2012

Freelance journalist Kim Vinnell reports from Mali and Niger in West Africa. She visited Oxfam programmes that are addressing the needs of the most vulnerable people, seeing how Oxfam is working to help communities increase their resilience to the crisis.

In video

Kim’s most recent video dispatches

Opening an Oxfam cereal bank: Kim Vinnell witnesses the joy in drought-hit Koussané, Mali. Thanks to generous Oxfam supporters, the residents have been able to build a cereal bank to see the entire community through future lean seasons. Thank you!

In pictures

Photos from field:

Sweet potato renaissance in Papua

September 17, 2012

Our partner in Papua is at the forefront of a revival that’s improving food security and incomes.

Reaction to announcement of improved harvest forecast for Sahel region

September 11, 2012

Oxfam and leading West African farmers network ROPPA today welcomed an initial forecast of an improved harvest in the Sahel region, but warned governments and the UN that the food crisis is far from over. The organisations said an increase in aid is still needed to help farmers and herders overcome the triple challenges of recurrent droughts, persistent poverty and political instability. The forecast was made today by a group of West African regional bodies monitoring food security, and UN agencies including the World Food Programme.

Extreme weather, extreme prices: The costs of feeding a warm world

September 5, 2012

Climate change is making extreme weather – like droughts, floods and heat waves – much more likely. As the 2012 drought in the US shows, extreme weather means extreme food prices. Our failure to slash greenhouse gas emissions presents a future of greater food price volatility, with severe consequences for the precarious lives and livelihoods of people in poverty. This research shows how extreme weather events in a single year could bring about price spikes of comparable magnitude to two decades of long-run price rises. It signals the urgent need for a full stress-testing of the global food system in a warming world.

Download file:

ib-extreme-weather-extreme-prices-embargo-05092012-en.pdf

Food price spikes will get worse as extreme weather caused by climate change devastates food production

September 5, 2012

Oxfam’s new report, “Extreme Weather, Extreme Prices”, highlights for the first time how extreme weather events such as droughts and floods could drive up future food prices. Previous research only tends to consider gradual impacts, such as increasing temperatures and changing rainfall patterns.

Planting the seeds of change

September 4, 2012

Two groups of women in Tongatapu have taken their first steps into the world of market gardening, earning their own money for the first time in their lives.