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Amitabh Behar named Oxfam International’s Executive Director

Oxfam International is pleased to announce the appointment of Amitabh Behar as its new Executive Director. Behar is a respected global civil society leader, with three decades of experience and extensive work on human rights, economic inequalities, governance accountability, philanthropy, democracy and social justice. He was selected following a competitive recruitment process.

Behar joined Oxfam in April 2018 as the Chief Executive of Oxfam India. More recently, he served as Oxfam International’s Interim Executive Director.

“Behar is a thoughtful and creative feminist leader, with an in-depth understanding of the causes and complexities of poverty, inequality, discrimination and suffering. We are confident in his ability to convene our confederation, alongside our partners, to deliver our vision for a just and equal world,” said Dr. Aruna Rao, the Chair of the Oxfam International Board of Directors.

Behar said: “I embark on this new chapter acutely aware of the global and interconnected challenges we face in our world today. We require urgent action built on new solidarities, new imaginations, and new dreams to deliver a more equal and sustainable future for all.

“Oxfam carries a rich legacy rooted in working with communities while advocating for systemic change. I am eager to channel our collective energies, boldness, resources, and partnerships in support of peoples’ power for the good of majority of the global population.”

Behar has made valuable contributions to Oxfam’s transformation of its own confederation, decolonizing its decision-making and strengthening its collective structure and policies. He has been widely recognized for his work on people-centric advocacy, governance accountability, social and economic equality, and citizen participation.

Prior to Oxfam, Behar was Executive Director of the National Foundation for India and Co-Chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. He has also served as the Vice-Chair of the Board of CIVICUS and the Chair of Navsarjan (Ahmedabad) and President of Yuva in Mumbai. He currently serves on the boards of several other organizations, including the Global Fund for Community Foundation and the Norwegian Human Rights Fund.

Contact: Rachel Schaevitz, [email protected]

G20 must tackle the “cost of profit” crisis causing chaos worldwide, says Oxfam

G20 countries are receiving US$136 million every day in debt repayments from the world’s poorest countries at a time when up to 828 million people are facing hunger.

The “cost of living” crisis is more accurately a “cost of profit” crisis – of rising billionaire wealth and corporate mega-profits – that is driving up poverty, hunger, indebtedness and deprivation around the world, Oxfam says, as the G20 Summit begins in Bali.

“If the G20 are serious about tackling this looming global economic catastrophe they need to put their own houses in order. That’s where the real cause of this crisis lies,” said Oxfam’s G20 Lead Joern Kalinski.

“In reality we are facing a ‘cost of profit’ crisis. The richest are getting richer, while ordinary families and the poorest countries are being squeezed dry,” said Kalinski.

Since the start of the pandemic, poor countries have had to shell out US$113 billion to their rich G20 country creditors, during a time that four times more people died of Covid in poorer nations than in rich ones.

In 2021, on average, poor countries were forced to spend 27.5 percent of their budgets on debt repayment – four times more than on health and 12 times more than on social protection. Even the public climate finance they are getting from rich nations, including many in the G20, are 71 percent loans.

Meanwhile the G20’s biggest corporations are making record profits. BP made £7.1 billion, their biggest profits in 14 years, and BNP Paribas € 2.76 billion in just the past three months. Nine out of ten of the biggest fossil fuel companies are headquartered in G20 countries. US corporations are seeing their biggest profit margins since 1950 and have been accused of ‘greedflation’; driving higher inflation through price hikes.

The G20 is home now to 89 percent of all the billionaire wealth in the world – at around US$10 trillion. This has grown by US$1.88 trillion, creating 287 newly-minted pandemic billionaires, since 2020. Energy and food billionaires are currently getting richer by a half-a-billion dollars a day.

Oxfam urges the G20 to acknowledge the consequences that this shocking inequality is visiting on ordinary citizens the world over in the form of mass hunger, death and worsening poverty.

In Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya historic levels of drought mean that one person will likely die of hunger every 36 seconds between now and the end of the year as the worst-hit areas hurtle towards famine. Women and girls, who are often the main food producers, primary caregivers, and stewards of household nutrition, are at higher risk of hunger.

The Ukraine war is an additional layer to existing problems. While 828 million people face hunger, the world’s main food traders made record profits and food and agribusiness billionaires increased their collective wealth by US$382 billion (45 percent) over the past two years. The United Nations has appealed for US$17.1 billion in humanitarian food security assistance for 2022 but so far donors have only given US$7 billion.

Globally progress in fighting poverty has halted, according to the World Bank, with poverty increasing during COVID-19 for the first time in decades. Inequality has grown too; with the poorest seeing their incomes decline twice as much as the richest.

“Austerity is the exact wrong reaction – a textbook blunder – that is ripping away social safety nets and beating people down into poverty,” Kalinski said.

Recent Oxfam research on inequality shows that despite the worst health crisis in a century, half of all poor countries have cut their share of health spending. Almost half of all countries cut their budget share going to social protection, 70 percent cut their share going to education and two-thirds failed to raise their minimum wage in line with economic growth. Over the next five years, three-quarters of all countries globally are planning further cuts totaling US$7.8 trillion dollars.

143 of 161 countries Oxfam surveyed froze tax rates on their richest citizens, and 11 countries even lowered them. Corporate tax dodging also continues on an industrial scale with an estimated one trillion dollars of corporate profits shifted to tax havens in 2019.

The G20 must tackle the root causes of hunger: extreme inequality and poverty, human rights violations, conflict, climate change and food and energy price inflation. Oxfam says the G20 must develop an economic and social rescue plan that protects the rights of the poorest people and tackles extreme inequality. This means:

  • Championing systematic strategies to tackle inequality and monitoring progress by rejecting austerity, boosting inequality-busting public spending, making tax more progressive, and increasing workers’ rights and pay
  • Widescale debt relief and significant debt cancellation for the poorest countries
  • Increasing taxes on windfall profits, wealth and corporations
  • Issuing more Special Drawing Rights, and allocating more to the poorest countries
  • Boosting inequality-busting aid
  • Delivering on climate finance, especially for the most vulnerable countries
  • Committing to enhancing pandemic preparedness and building more resilient systems.

To halt the worsening hunger crises the G20 must:

  • Urgently mobilise financial resources into humanitarian emergencies
  • Address the root causes of hunger crises including climate change, conflict, poverty and inequality, human rights violations and food price inflation
  • Ensure that blockades, economic sanctions and military activities in all countries do not hinder the free, safe and reliable transport of food and agricultural supplies, especially in conflict-affected areas
  • Rebalance the power in food supply chains to create a more sustainable and just food system.

 Notes

  •  “G20 countries are receiving US$136 million every day in debt repayments from the world’s poorest countries”: Oxfam calculations based on World Bank International Debt Statistics database: Principal repayments plus interests paid by low and lower-middle income countries to G20 countries in 2022 divided by 365 days.
  • “Since the start of the pandemic, poor countries have had to shell out US$113 billion to their rich G20 country creditors”: Oxfam calculations based on World Bank International Debt Statistics database: Sum of principal repayments plus interests paid by low and lower-middle income countries to G20 countries in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
  • “The G20 is home now to 89 percent of all the billionaire wealth in the world – at around US$10 trillion. This has grown by US$1.88 trillion, creating 287 newly-minted pandemic billionaires, since 2020”: Oxfam calculations based on Forbes billionaire list from 18 March 2020 and 31 October 2022.

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.”  

The Food System Summit failed hundreds of millions going hungry everyday – Oxfam reaction

In reaction to the United Nations Food Systems Summit which was held over the past two days, Thierry Kesteloot, Oxfam’s food policy advisor said:

“The Food Systems Summit has failed hundreds of millions who are going hungry every day, by offering elitist and mere band-aid solutions rather than tackling the root causes of our broken global food system.

“We cannot end the hunger pandemic without addressing the climate crisis, the erosion of agricultural biodiversity, or the deep inequalities and human rights violations that perpetuate poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

“The Summit ambitions fell short in realising the right to adequate food for all and paled next to a catastrophic hunger crisis that is being made worse by the economic fallout of the coronavirus. 11 people are likely dying every minute from hunger, and three billion people, many of whom are women, cannot afford even the most basic healthy diet.

“Oxfam’s report “Ripe for Change” shows that big supermarkets and other corporate food giants dominate global food markets, allowing them to squeeze value from vast supply chains that span the globe, while the bargaining power of small-scale farmers and women workers who make the food we eat, has steadily eroded.

Yet, the Summit ignored proven solutions and failed to address needed policy actions to radically transform food systems. Instead, it has catered to the interests of a handful of food and agribusiness giants, while side-lining most food and smallholder farmers organisations at the forefront of food production.

“To fix our broken food system, governments must first guarantee the rights of food workers, smallholder farmers and marginalised people, by putting a fair, gender-just, resilient and sustainable global food system at the heart of the post-pandemic recovery. Governments must also support a global social protection scheme to help people overcome poverty and hunger.

“Without putting the rights and needs of small-scale farmers and food workers at the heart of transforming our global food systems, any solutions will only fuel further inequality and hunger.”

 

Notes:

Collective Resilience NZ’s Aid Contributions In Times of Inequality & Crises

This report examines New Zealand’s overseas aid contributions against six principles of a quality aid programme that reduces inequality and poverty. The report finds that while New Zealand’s aid contribution has some firm foundations, there is room for substantial improvement. Sixteen recommendations outline steps that will contribute to building a New Zealand Aid Programme that helps achieve collective resilience for all of humanity.

Now is a good time to assess how well the New Zealand government’s overseas development assistance (ODA), or aid, is responding to international development challenges across the world.

 

Click here to read the full report.

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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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