News & Media

Health spending in poor countries must double immediately to prevent millions of deaths – Oxfam

March 30, 2020

Oxfam today called for a package of nearly US$160 billion in immediate debt cancellation and aid to fund a Global Public Health Plan and Emergency Response, to help prevent millions of deaths as a result of the Coronavirus. The five-point plan would enable poor countries to take action to prevent the spread of the disease and build the capacity of health systems to care for those affected.

The pandemic has caused widespread suffering in rich countries, overwhelming some of the best healthcare systems in the world. But with the disease now spreading to many poor countries where high levels of poverty and inequality risk accelerating the disease, the public health challenges are even greater. Nearly 3 billion people across the developing world do not have access to clean water, millions more do not have access to adequate healthcare and live in crowded slums or refugee camps where social isolation is impossible. As women make up 70 per cent of health workers and carry out most unpaid care work, it will hit them the hardest.

Jose Maria Vera, Oxfam International Interim Executive Director said “In Mali there are three ventilators for one million people. In Zambia, one doctor for 10,000 people. We know from Oxfam’s experience of fighting Ebola that with rapid action, this disease can be stalled and its catastrophic impact stopped. But we must act now and on a scale never seen before.

“Without urgent, ambitious and historic action, we could easily see the biggest humanitarian crisis since World War Two.”

The Imperial College estimates that in the absence of interventions the Coronavirus could have led to 40 million deaths in the coming year. Oxfam calculates that doubling the health spending of the 85 poorest countries, home to nearly half the world’s population, would cost $159.5 billion dollars. This is less than 10 per cent of the US fiscal stimulus to fight Coronavirus. While some donor institutions have begun to increase funding, the scale is not anywhere near the immense size of the challenge.

Oxfam is working with local partners, ministries of heath and key UN agencies in 65 countries to respond to the crisis and help save lives. In Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh where over 855,000 Rohingya are living in makeshift camps, Oxfam is already scaling up preventive measures like soap distribution and handwashing stations at communal facilities to help 70,000 refugees. In Zaatari camp, Jordan – the largest Syrian refugee camp in the world – Oxfam has already started hygiene and hand washing awareness for 2,000 children and aims to reach 78,000 people with water, hygiene and sanitation. And in Burkina Faso, where 780,000 people are internally displaced (IDP), Oxfam is currently working in some of the largest IDP areas ensuring that both host communities and displaced people have access to safe, clean water. To meet the desperate humanitarian need now emerging, all governments must step up and fully fund the UN Global Humanitarian Response plan.

Oxfam is calling for the G20 and other national governments to tackle the virus head on by agreeing an ambitious Global Public Health Plan and Emergency Response. The five-point plan calls for:

Huge investment in prevention. Public health promotion, community engagement, access for humanitarian workers and provision of clean water and sanitation, especially handwashing
10 million new paid and protected health workers. Together with urgent funding and equipment for local responders and humanitarians already on the ground
Healthcare must be free. All fees for health should be removed, and free testing and treatment delivered
Governments must requisition all private facilities. Governments must requisition all healthcare capacity in their countries, ensuring that all facilities, private and public are directed towards fighting this virus and meeting all other essential healthcare needs
Vaccines and treatments must be a global public good. Global agreement must be reached that vaccines and treatments, when ready, will be made rapidly available to everyone who needs it free of charge. The profits of pharmaceutical corporations cannot be put ahead of the future of humanity

Vera added “It’s understandable that national leaders are focused on helping their own citizens, but G20 leaders must also find the space for supporting poor nations too. We can only beat this pandemic if we act in solidarity with every country and for every person. No one is safe until we are all safe.”

Pandemics know no borders. Neither does compassion.

March 20, 2020

Sometimes a week can feel like a very long time. As we watch the global spread of coronavirus and see our country and our world changing daily in front of us, we naturally feel concern, and even fear, for ourselves, our family, friends and beyond.

Everyone is impacted, whether feeling the distance of loved ones far away, anxiety for those in isolation, uncertainty around a job, or disappointment of having a big life event cancelled.

Take heart: while the pandemic knows no borders, neither does our compassion.

As someone who is part of the Oxfam community, I know you care deeply about how disruptive global forces can impact other’s lives. Thank you for how you care and look out for others – your aroha and ability to look beyond yourself is more precious now than ever.

This pandemic highlights how interconnected we are; our own health depends on the health of the person next to us, and the person next to them. And the same connections that make us a global village also mean we can overcome this challenge as a community, cooperating together.

Though we may have to be physically distant, we can practice social togetherness.

Thank you for being together with us. We appreciate your ongoing involvement with Oxfam in this tough time – your support means we can respond to the ever-growing needs. As experts in water, sanitation and hygiene during crises like the current pandemic, we at Oxfam New Zealand are preparing to respond to the compounding impacts of Covid-19 on those in developing countries who are already living in crisis situations.

We’re doing more of what we do best:

working with local community partners to save lives and meet basic human needs in global crises, including to prevent, slow and stop the spread of coronavirus
maintaining our existing overseas work to secure safe water, grow crops and other such needs, that are even more acute in a crisis like this
speaking up for strong, connected communities, with robust public services and governance that leaves no one behind, and that promotes community resilience to better face pandemics and climate destruction.

The challenges ahead are real. Here, in the Pacific, and globally, the impact of the virus will be much worse for people who are poor, not in regular employment or in precarious living environments. Women will be hit hard by this crisis. They make up 70% of the world’s health workers and shoulder the vast burden of unpaid care, which will increase dramatically with caring for sick family members.

Our response to tough realities such as these can strengthen our capacity for connecting across humanity, and demonstrating compassion and kindness.

The good news is that we know we can pull together to get through such crises. Just this week, communities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo were celebrating the containment of a major Ebola outbreak, working hand-in-hand with humanitarian organisations including Oxfam.

Thank you for your commitment to forging a better world and kinder communities. We will let you know of our work to combat this pandemic as the situation unfolds, and we will keep up our efforts to eradicate injustice in all its forms. Strength and kaha be with you in keeping yourself and your loved ones healthy.

Together we will keep working with courage and compassion in the face of this challenge.

Ngā manaakitanga,

Rachael Le Mesurier,

Executive Director, Oxfam New Zealand

New Zealand’s Oxfam Trailwalker 2020 cancelled

March 16, 2020

Statement from Oxfam New Zealand executive director, Rachael Le Mesurier:

“It is with great regret that Oxfam New Zealand announces the difficult but necessary decision of cancelling Oxfam Trailwalker 2020, due to be held in Whakatāne this weekend, March 21-22.

“The safety and welfare of all Oxfam Trailwalker participants, supporters, volunteers and community members is paramount. We have been assessing the risks and have been informed at every stage of our event planning by government and health authority instructions on the issue of COVID-19 containment.

“It takes a great commitment of time and energy by walkers, and their supporters, to prepare for this event. For the event to be cancelled four days out is hugely disappointing for all involved – especially so for walkers and their supporters – as well as the volunteers, Whakatāne community groups and the Oxfam team who have all given so much of their time already.

“Oxfam New Zealand thanks all potential participants for their valued contribution to Oxfam Trailwalker, and the impressive achievements made so far in training and fundraising. We are thinking of them as they have to cancel their trips, their accommodation and most of all, their hopes and aspirations in getting over that line together.

“Likewise, we feel deeply for the community of Whakatāne who will be hard hit by this fresh challenge and who we were looking forward to working alongside in what was to be our fifth and final year in the region. At every stage, for 2020 and over the last 5 years, the full Whakatane community have been absolutely wonderful partners for Oxfam. Warm, generous with real commitment to both Trailwalker and the change in the world we all want to see”.

“Dealing with the challenge posed by the global COVID-19 pandemic is one that we must all face as a community cooperating together.”

Oxfam Trailwalker is the ultimate team endurance challenge – each team of four tackles either 100 kilometres in 36 hours, or 50 kilometres in 18 hours, to raise money for Oxfam’s fight against poverty. It is not a relay – the teams of four start and finish together.

While the event 2020 is not going ahead, the money raised to date is still needed and will be used to continue Oxfam’s committed and vital work into 2020, providing much-needed funds in ongoing humanitarian relief, including preparation for the spread of this pandemic to the Pacific, as well as finding lasting solutions to the challenges of climate crisis, poverty and injustice in the Pacific and beyond.

Oxfam has been very involved in humanitarian responses to epidemics (such as the Ebola crisis) and other communicable health risks around the world. Our WASH programmes have at their heart the need to prevent transmission through clean water and good health and sanitation. As a world leader in this area we appreciate the measures that are necessary to protect our community.

Notes for editors:

Oxfam Trailwalker was to be held this weekend – March 21-22, 2020 – in scenic Whakatāne. Teams of four walk 50 kilometres in 18 hours or 100 kilometres in 36 hours to raise money for Oxfam’s work fighting poverty in the Pacific and all over the world. You can still contribute to this challenge by supporting and donating to your favourite team at www.oxfamtrailwalker.org.nz

The event was held in the Bay of Plenty region for the fourth time in 2019. A hundred kilometres of trail through Whakatāne, Ōhope and Edgecumbe sees participants walking along coastal tracks, sandy beaches, farmland and native bush. It was the first major event to be held in Edgecumbe since the floods in 2017. The top fundraising team for 2019 was team ‘N X NW’ who raised over $15,000. In total, participants raised more than $995,000 towards Oxfam’s work to support communities living in poverty in 2019.

Oxfam Trailwalker is part of an international series of 17 events held worldwide in 10 countries. Over the years, the event has raised hundreds of millions of dollars internationally for Oxfam’s life-saving work.

The event debuted in New Zealand in 2006 and was held in Taupō for 10 years. The event moved to Whakatāne in 2016 – the same year a 50-kilometre trail was introduced as an alternative to the traditional 100-kilometre trail.

Set up by the legendary elite Queen’s Gurkha Signals Regiment in 1981 as a military exercise to test teamwork, endurance and determination, Oxfam Trailwalker is the ultimate physical and mental challenge. It began in 2006 in New Zealand. Since then over 13,000 participants have lined up at the start line and raised more than $11 million.

Oxfam’s international response to Covid-19

March 13, 2020

Oxfam has a comprehensive Covid-19 Staff Health protocol and has socialised best practice procedures for all our staff to follow in hygiene and infection management.

We are following authorities’ advice in every country we’re based. We’re posting time-sensitive updates on our internal channels for all of our staff, including on travel restrictions, self-isolation advice and contingency planning in the event of office closures. We’ve had to cancel various meetings, including for support, training and some staff deployments to avoid the risk of transmission and from staff being blocked on return from assignments. We’ve had some delay and cost increases of essential life-saving equipment as exports tighten from Asia especially. Given that our programs are predominately led, managed and staffed by national staff, and because we hold reserves and procure our goods and services locally where possible, we are hoping to minimise disruptions. However, we are certainly expecting that our operations will be increasingly affected.

Oxfam has substantial expertise in public health work and our preparedness planning for CV-19 is informed by lessons from past disease outbreaks including Zika and Ebola. We are developing guidance for contingency stocks and budget planning. We are working now to support our program teams across more than 65 countries on how best to respond operationally to CV-19 among the millions of people we support. We’ll work under the coordination of national Ministries of Health, key UN agencies and civil society health clusters, via our own local partnerships. We’re already focusing our operational work now on community engagement, i.e. helping people to minimise the risk of infection by providing them with accurate information and advice in local languages. Many of our teams are now increasing the delivery of soap, sanitation services including handwashing facilities, and clean water especially to people in higher-risk environments such as refugee camps or crowded urban areas.

Oxfam is very concerned should CV-19 establish itself in poorer countries with weaker public health systems and whose populations are already facing multiple threats to their health and livelihoods, such as from malnourishment and HIV. If the disease hits refugee camps and where people are already struggling to access adequate or affordable health care, CV-19 could become devastating. Women especially are likely to be hardest hit – 70% of the world’s health workers are women who’ll be on the frontline of infection risk – and women shoulder the vast burden of unpaid care which is bound to increase dramatically, whether caring for sick relatives or looking after children at home because schools are closed. We are also very concerned that the economic effects of CV-19 will likely hit the poorest, most heavily-indebted countries and the poorest, most vulnerable people most heavily because of entrenched issues of inequality. It is crucial that the international community support these poorer countries now in making the strongest-possible preparations.

Rosa Sala
Oxfam International Program Operations Director

How To Wash Your Hands Video

March 12, 2020

Washing hands saves lives, put your hands together and learn how. Oxfam has been providing safe clean water and helping prevent disease around the world since the 1960s. With Coronavirus being declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation, there is no better time than now to learn how to properly wash your hands.

Oxfam Report: After the storm – barriers to recovery one year on from Cyclone Idai

March 10, 2020

Tens of thousands of people across Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique are still suffering 12 months after Cyclone Idai battered Southern Africa, warned Oxfam today. Cyclone Idai, one of the worst cyclones to hit Africa, made landfall on 14^th March 2019.

A new Oxfam briefing, ‘After the Storm,’ highlights that over 100,000 people in Mozambique and Zimbabwe are still living in destroyed or damaged homes and makeshift shelters, while critical infrastructure including roads, water supplies, and schools have yet to be repaired making it difficult for people to access vital services or get back to work. It also shows that 9.7 million people across the three countries remain in desperate need of food aid as a result of cyclones, floods, drought and localised conflict.

Click here to read After the storm – barriers to recovery one year on from Cyclone Idai