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Over 5 million people face extreme hunger as the Tigray conflict surges past six months – Oxfam

May 4, 2021

Planting season comes to a halt as thousands of farmers lost tools, seeds and livestock

Six months since the conflict erupted in Tigray, thousands of farmers have nothing to plant ahead of the rainy season as the crisis compounded by climate-fuelled locust devastated their tools and livestock and pushed over 5 million people to extreme levels of hunger, warned Oxfam today.

Gezahegn Kebede Gebrehana, Oxfam’s Country Director in Ethiopia said:

“Farming should be beginning now ahead of the long rainy season in June, but it has come to a total halt due to conflict and the absence of rain. Many farmers have no seeds to plant, and their oxen and tools were looted or destroyed in the conflict. Trade and market exchanges have stagnated as people fear a resurgence of fighting.”

More than 25% of the total production of Tigray was already destroyed in the last harvest, mostly by locust swarms. Most families have already depleted their food stocks. If this agricultural season is missed, the next harvest opportunity will not come for an additional 18 months.

Fantu Gezay, a farmer and a single mother of six living in Raya Azebo Woreda, Tigray told Oxfam: “The conflict erupted when farmers were about to harvest the produce left from the locust invasion. Whatever remained from the locust was destroyed by the war, and we couldn’t harvest the Teff and Maize crops.”

Nearly 1.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes in Tigray; thousands of families are crammed in small rooms in schools or churches. Women and girls face an additional risk in such conditions. Shelters have no partitions and lack gender segregation which puts them at risk of sexual and gender-based violence.

Freweyni Gebregzabher, from the Raya Azebo Woreda Agriculture Office, said: ‘‘My uncle was harvesting his sorghum crop a day before the war broke out. The next morning as the fighting intensified, he was shot dead while hiding in a church, and all his property was destroyed.”

Oxfam together with our local partners – the Organization for Rehabilitation and Development in the Amhara region (ORDA), and the Development and Inter-Church Aid Commission (DICAC) – have already reached 32,786 people in Tigray and north Amhara region with food, sanitation, and hygiene kits, as well as protection programmes. Oxfam urgently needs USD 10.78 million to support 225,000 people in Tigray and Amhara region by November, and help provide food, water, and sanitation facilities, as well as urgently needed hygiene and sleeping material.

Oxfam calls upon the international community to support the humanitarian response in Ethiopia to help quickly mobilize resources and save lives. To date, despite rising humanitarian needs, only 58% of the total USD 1.3 billion Humanitarian Response Plan for the country, has been funded.

Parvin Ngala, Oxfam’s Acting Regional Director in Horn East and Central Africa (HECA) said: “We are urging parties to the conflict to agree to an immediate cessation of hostilities and find a peaceful resolution to this crisis. This will allow humanitarian agencies to reach people in need, for them to restart their lives. An end to the human rights violations and the fighting can enable farmers to plough their fields and plant their crops in the coming months that will prevent millions from starving.”

Above: Fantu Gezay, a farmer and a single mother of six living in Raya Azebo Woreda, Tigray told Oxfam: “The conflict erupted when farmers were about to harvest the produce left from the locust invasion. Whatever remained from the locust was destroyed by the war, and we couldn’t harvest the Teff and Maize crops.”

Notes to the Editor

Hunger figures are from UN OCHA report as of 27^th April 2021. 2 million people in Tigray are now in urgent need of food assistance.
Oxfam has established offices in South Tigray at Mehoni Town and Southeast Tigray at Mekelle City (capital of Tigray Region), which will also oversee activities in Central Tigray.
Since the early 1970s, Oxfam has been working in Ethiopia to save lives and help over 1.8 million most vulnerable people out of poverty. Working closely with partners, we provide clean water, sanitation, and food, as well as assist marginalised farmers to get out of poverty through long-term development projects. Oxfam works on ending gender injustices and helping women.

Oxfam responds to deadly COVID-19 wave in India

April 30, 2021

Oxfam responds to deadly COVID-19 wave in India

Oxfam India has deployed teams to five of the worst-hit states in India where a second wave of coronavirus is sweeping the country. The international organisation is urgently appealing for $2 million to fund its emergency response to the crisis. Oxfam New Zealand is contributing to this worldwide effort and raising funds for Oxfam India’s response.

Teams have already started providing face masks, hand sanitizer and other protective equipment in parts of Maharashtra following a request from state health authorities. Distribution of PPE to 500 frontline health workers will begin in Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in the coming days.

Oxfam India is procuring oxygen tanks, beds, digital thermometers, and other medical equipment to help government hospitals where supplies are desperately low. We are also preparing to provide food rations and cash support to stranded migrant workers and other marginalised groups, and handwashing stations in public spaces.

Pankaj Anand, Humanitarian and Programmes Director, said: “I do not know of a single family that has not seen at least one of its members infected. The surge in coronavirus cases has caught the country off guard. We are seeing hundreds of thousands of new cases every day and many more deaths. The health infrastructure in India is bursting at the seams [under huge pressure] and there are widespread reports of shortages of oxygen and other medical supplies in large cities.”

Amitabh Behar, CEO of Oxfam India, said: “Our immediate priority is to supply hospitals and health workers with medical equipment and PPE so they can continue treating those who are sick. But to avoid a worse humanitarian disaster it is vital we stop the spread and so we are also preparing handwashing stations and awareness campaigns to help people stay safe. We are particularly concerned about migrant workers and other marginalised groups who may be stranded in the open and will be hit hardest by lockdowns and the economic shock. Oxfam India is preparing to provide food rations and cash assistance to help the most vulnerable people to survive the coming weeks.”

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Notes to editors:

Oxfam India will begin supplying PPE to 500 frontline health workers in five states in the coming days. It is also procuring oxygen tanks and masks, beds, digital thermometers and other medical equipment to help supply government hospitals, as well as 900 emergency food rations to support the most marginalized groups. Oxfam India and its partners are monitoring the situation in 16 states across India.

Since the first outbreak of COVID-19 last year, Oxfam India has been working to provide food, PPE, safety kits, cash assistance and livelihoods training across 15 states (Assam, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Telangana). Oxfam India is committed to reaching the most vulnerable and marginalized groups including Adivasis, Dalits, Muslims and women and girls.

The sudden disruption caused by lockdowns has had a severe impact on daily wage labourers, migrants and informal workers who are struggling to feed themselves and their families. The sudden spike in cases COVID-19 in states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi has resulted in many migrant workers becoming stranded in railway stations, bus terminals or at their places of work. Oxfam’s field teams report that these groups, who are often excluded from government support, need food and handwashing facilities to reduce their chances of becoming infected.

COVID-19 cost women globally over $800 billion in lost income in one year

April 29, 2021

Women’s lost income in 2020 totaled the combined wealth of 98 countries

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, said Oxfam today.

Globally, women lost more than 64 million jobs last year —a 5 percent loss, compared to 3.9 percent loss for men.

“Economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic is having a harsher impact on women, who are disproportionately represented in sectors offering low wages, few benefits and the least secure jobs. Instead of righting that wrong, governments treated women’s jobs as dispensable —and that has come at a cost of at least $800 billion in lost wages for those in formal employment”, said Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International.

“This conservative estimate doesn’t even include wages lost by the millions of women working in the informal economy —domestic workers, market vendors and garment workers— who have been sent home or whose hours and wages have been drastically cut. COVID-19 has dealt a striking blow to recent gains for women in the workforce.”

While women were losing out, companies like Amazon were thriving. Amazon gained $700 billion in market capitalization in 2020. The $800 billion in income lost by women worldwide also just tops the $721.5 billion that the US government spent in 2020 on the world’s largest defense budget.

Globally, women are overrepresented in low-paid, precarious sectors, such as retail, tourism and food services, that have been hardest hit by the pandemic. Across South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, the majority of women work in informal employment. Women also make up roughly 70 percent of the world’s health and social care workforce —essential but often poorly paid jobs that put them at greater risk from COVID-19.

Across the globe women have been more likely than men to drop out of the workforce or reduce their hours during the pandemic, largely due to care responsibilities. Even before the virus struck, women and girls put in 12.5 billion hours of unpaid care work each and every day —a contribution to the global economy of at least $10.8 trillion a year, more than three times the size of the global tech industry.

“For women in every country on every continent, along with losing income, unpaid care work has exploded. As care needs have spiked during the pandemic, women —the shock absorbers of our societies— have stepped in to fill the gap, an expectation so often imposed by sexist social norms,” said Bucher.

The effects of these dramatic changes will be unevenly felt for years to come. An additional 47 million women worldwide are expected to fall into extreme poverty, living on less than $1.90 a day in 2021. In the US, 1 in 6 women of color are facing food insecurity because of the pandemic. According to the World Economic Forum, closing the global gender gap has increased by a generation from 99.5 years to 135.6 years due to negative outcomes for women in 2020.

Although some governments have taken positive measures to address women’s economic and social security, including the infusion of $39 billion by the Biden administration into the childcare sector and new legislation in Argentina that offers flexible work schedules to those caring for children or the disabled, the response remains grossly insufficient. Only 11 countries have introduced shorter or flexible work arrangements for workers with care responsibilities, while 36 have strengthened family and paid sick leave for parents and caregivers.

“As we move from emergency measures to long-term recovery, governments around the world must seize this opportunity to build more equal, more inclusive economies for all. They must invest in a gender, racial and climate-just economic recovery that prioritizes public services, social protection, fair taxation, and ensure everyone everywhere has access to a free vaccine,” added Bucher.

“A fair and sustainable economic recovery is one that supports women’s employment and unpaid care work through strong social safety nets and vibrant care infrastructures. Recovery from COVID-19 is impossible without women recovering.”

Notes to editors:

Photos and stories of working women and mothers impacted by the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic are available for download.

Women’s total income loss is an estimate derived from the change in the number of women working between the years 2019 and 2020, as captured in the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) indicator: Employment by sex and age — ILO modelled estimates, Nov. 2020 (thousands) — Annual. To achieve our income loss figure, Oxfam first estimated the average income among women globally and then multiplied this figure by the number of women working in 2019 and 2020. The average income figure comes from the International Labour Organization’s indicator: Mean nominal monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity for the year 2019. The ILO’s monthly earnings data includes fifty countries representing every region of the world. The monthly averages are multiplied by twelve to estimate an annual earnings figure. We keep women’s annual average income constant between 2019 and 2020 (2019 is the last year there is data available). The calculation is an estimate and is susceptible to data limitations. For example, using average income among women globally diminishes the extent of economic inequality among women. Further, regarding data describing employment by sex, the ILO cautions: Imputed observations are not based on national data, are subject to high uncertainty and should not be used for country comparisons or rankings.

For interviews or more information please contact:

Joanna Spratt, [email protected], Ph: 0210-664-210

New Zealand Must Up Ambition, Oxfam Says

April 23, 2021

Oxfam supports the policies that Prime Minister Ardern showcased during the first day of the virtual Climate Summit hosted by the United States of America, and acknowledges their important contribution to stop global heating, but urges our Government to significantly ramp-up its ambition.

Oxfam New Zealand’s Communications and Advocacy Director, Jo Spratt said: “despite being an active voice globally on climate change right now, New Zealand is not a leader in this collective fight. We are not even a fast follower. Our emissions are continuing to go up, and we are not contributing our fair share of climate finance to those on the frontlines of climate breakdown.”

“President Biden’s new climate target to halve their emissions demonstrates that he and his administration are serious about tackling the climate crisis, and really puts the heat on the New Zealand government to at least match this level of ambition, or else get left further behind. New Zealand must do far to achieve our fair share of staying within 1.5 degrees.”

“While the introduction by the government of legislation to require climate reporting for large financial institutions is a welcome move, as is our focus on climate adaptation, what we need to see next is the government stepping up with further policies that can bring emissions down in our most polluting sectors at home – agriculture and transport – and doing more to support those on the frontlines of the climate crisis through climate finance.

“We hope the New Zealand Government can follow through with inclusive and just policy changes that reflect the seriousness of the issue and their obligations under the Paris Agreement to lift the momentum of ambition and action.”

We must do this not only for New Zealanders, but also for communities across the Pacific and beyond, who are already enduring the worst impacts of global heating, and are relying on countries like New Zealand to do our fair share.

/Ends

For interviews or more information please contact:

Joanna Spratt, [email protected], Ph: 0210-664-210

Pharmaceutical Giants Shell Out Billions to Shareholders as World Confronts Vaccine Apartheid

April 22, 2021

Total pay-outs enough to vaccinate 1.3 billion people, equal to the population of Africa

Ahead of shareholder meetings for the giant pharmaceutical corporations, the People’s Vaccine Alliance calculates that Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca have paid out $26 billion in dividends and stock buybacks to their shareholders in the past 12 months.

This would be enough to pay to vaccinate at least 1.3bn people, the equivalent of the population of Africa.

The shareholder meetings begin on 22^nd April with Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson followed by Moderna and Astra Zeneca in the coming weeks. Protests are expected outside the meetings in the US and UK while investors inside the meetings will be presenting resolutions to expand vaccine access. There is a growing backlash against the de facto privatisation of successful Covid-19 vaccines and pressure on the pharma firms to openly license the intellectual property and share the technology and know-how with qualified vaccine producers across the world.

While the global economy remains frozen due to the slow and uneven vaccine rollout worldwide, the soaring shares of vaccine makers has created a new wave of billionaires.

The founder of BioNTech, Ugur Sahin, is now worth $5.9. billion and Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel $5.2 billion. According to regulatory filings, Bancel has cashed out more than $142 million in Moderna stock since the pandemic began. Many other investors have also become billionaires in the last few months, while the International Chamber of Commerce projects a worst-case GDP loss of $9 trillion due to global vaccine inequity.

“This is a public health emergency, not a private profit opportunity,” said Oxfam Health Policy Manager Anna Marriott. “We should not be letting corporations decide who lives and who dies while boosting their profits. We need a people’s vaccine, not a profit vaccine.”

‘Vaccine apartheid is not a natural phenomenon but the result of governments stepping back and allowing corporations to call the shots. Instead of creating new vaccine billionaires we need to be vaccinating billions in developing countries. It is appalling that Big Pharma is making huge pay-outs to wealthy shareholders in the face of this global health emergency,” Marriott said.

While one in four citizens of rich nations have had a vaccine, just one in 500 people in poorer countries have done so, meaning the death toll continues to climb as the virus remains out of control. Epidemiologists are predicting we have less than a year before mutations could render the current vaccines ineffective.

One of the reasons Pharma companies have been able to generate such large profits is because of intellectual property rules that restrict production to a handful of companies.

Last week, 175 former heads of state and Nobel Prize winners, including Helen Clark, Gordon Brown and Francoise Hollande wrote to President Biden to ask him to support the temporary waiving of intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines to enable the rapid scale up of vaccine production across the world. They join the 1.5 million people in the US and other nations who have signalled their support for a Peoples Vaccine.

Over 100 low- and middle-income nations, led by India and South Africa, are calling at the World Trade Organisation for a waiver of intellectual property protections on Covid-19 products during the pandemic, a move so far opposed by the US, EU and other rich nations. New Zealand has not yet come out in support or in opposition to the waiver proposal. The Biden administration is reportedly considering dropping US opposition to the waiver, with the US Trade Representative saying at the WTO that ‘the market once again has failed in meeting the health needs of developing countries.’

Moderna, Pfizer/BioNtech, Johnson & Johnson, Novovax and Oxford/AstraZeneca received billions in public funding and guaranteed pre-orders, including $12 billion from the US government alone. They also made use of many years of publicly funded research and discoveries. Researchers for Universities Allied for Essential Medicines found that only 3% of the R&D costs to develop the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and its underlying technology was privately funded. AstraZeneca is producing and supplying the vaccine at no profit during the pandemic.

“These vaccines were funded by public money and are desperately needed worldwide if we are to end this pandemic,” said Heidi Chow, Senior Campaigns and Policy Manager at Global Justice Now.

“It’s morally bankrupt for rich country leaders to allow a small group of corporations to keep the vaccine technology and know-how under lock and key while selling their limited doses to the highest bidder.” Chow added.

Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech’s successful mRNA vaccines are set to become two of the three bestselling pharmaceutical products in the world. The companies are projecting revenues of $33.5 billion in 2021 from their vaccines.

Their vaccines are also the most expensive, ranging from $13.50 to $74 per course, with both firms looking to increase prices. In an investor call, Pfizer cited between $150 and $170 a dose as the typical price it receives for vaccines. This is despite a study from the Imperial College in London showing that the cost of production of new mRNA vaccines could be between 60 cents and $2 a dose.

The two firms have also sold the vast majority of their doses to rich nations. Moderna has so far allotted 97% of their vaccines to wealthy countries and Pfizer 85%. Co-developed with the US Government’s National Institutes of Health, Moderna’s vaccine is likely to make $5 billion in profits in 2021. The company received $5.45 billion in public subsidy.

All the major pharmaceutical companies are fiercely opposed to the open sharing of technology and the suspension of intellectual property protections. The CEO of Pfizer responded to moves by the WHO to pool vaccine technology to enable other qualified producers to make vaccines by saying he thought it was ‘nonsense, and… it’s also dangerous.’

The African Alliance’s Maaza Seyoum, who is leading the People’s Vaccine Alliance’s Africa efforts said ‘Big business as usual will not end this pandemic. This is clearer now more than ever. President Biden has an historic opportunity to show that he will put the health of all of humanity and shared economic prosperity ahead of the private profits of a few corporations.’

/ENDS

Notes to Editors

The People’s Vaccine Alliance is a movement of health, humanitarian and human rights organisations, past and present world leaders, health experts, faith leaders and economists advocating that Covid 19 vaccines are manufactured rapidly and at scale, as global common goods, free of intellectual property protections and made available to all people, in all countries, free of charge. www.peoplesvaccine.org

More information of each of the leading western vaccine producers: Oxford/ Astra Zeneca, Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer/ BioNtech, Moderna/NIH and Novovax can be found in the Oxfam media brief, Shot at Recovery.

The total shareholder payouts is the sum of Total Dividends Paid and Share Repurchases in the companies’ financial year 2020, as found in company financial filings. The average vaccine cost, $19, is based on the median average of the 5 leading vaccine producers. At this price, the $25.74 billion in shareholder pay-outs could pay for 1.354 billion doses. The Peoples Vaccine does not endorse a price of $19 dollars and is only using this as an illustration. Prices can and should be far lower than this to make vaccinating the world possible. The population of Africa is estimated by the UN to be 1.36 billion people.

The AGM dates are: Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson – 22nd April 2021; Moderna – 28th April 2021; Novavax – Not listed yet; AstraZeneca – 11th May 2021.

The New Zealand Government has not yet come out in support of the proposal to waive intellectual property rights on coronavirus products, including the vaccine, for the duration of the pandemic. Instead, it has put its efforts behind encouraging the pharmaceutical corporations to voluntarily share their intellectual property, know-how and technical capacity.

For interviews or more information please contact:

Joanna Spratt, [email protected], Ph: 0210-664-210

TABLE: SUMMARIZING MEASURABLE INDICATORS TOWARD A PEOPLE’S VACCINE

^[1] Transparency in public funding is lacking across all the COVID-19 vaccine developers, making firm figures difficult. Oxfam has arrived at these estimates by analyzing the research and development, manufacturing and advanced purchase deals made between the companies and some governments, notably the US. While Oxfam attempted to include all sources of public funding across these 3 areas (research and development, manufacturing and procurement), we were not able to be comprehensive due to contract opacity. Note also that these sums do not include the public investments in years of early research, which preceded COVID but was essential to these vaccines succeeding. Theses amounts also do not include purely philanthropic contributions. As a result, these estimates are conservative, and likely much less than the total public investments.

A Shot At Recovery Report

April 22, 2021

Scientists have delivered multiple safe and effective vaccines, but pharmaceutical corporations and governments are still failing to make enough doses and facilitate their distribution everywhere. Vaccines could indeed get us back to our lives and our global economy going again, but only if they are accessible to everyone, everywhere, as soon as possible.

Click here to download A Shot At Recovery Report