Oxfam Canada Blogs

This year for Mother's Day, think globally, and give your mom a gift that crosses boundaries and makes a lasting impact on the lives of people around our planet. Visit OxfamUnwrapped.ca for all the details.

Wednesday, April 25 was World Malaria Day, and there is news about a disease that afflicts 225 million people and killed about 650,000 in 2010. First the good tidings: In the last decade, deaths from malaria have been cut by one third in Africa and the number of at-risk people contracting the disease globally has fallen by 17 per cent. The worrying news is rumours of an about-face in Canadian policy that would divert millions in scarce aid money to a risky experiment, while proven strategies go unfunded.   

Since the first warnings of drought and poor harvests in Africa’s Sahel region in late 2011, communities in many areas have been threatened by a looming food crisis

Oxfam ambassador Helena Christensen, a supermodel and photographer, recently returned from her third trip with Oxfam, this one to document the toll that climate change has had on the women of rural Turkana in northern Kenya.  Read an excerpt from the article from Hello!Canada.

Oxfam Canada policy coordinator, Mark Fried, blogs on the possibility of achieving a conventional Arms Trade Treaty with bite. After years of lobbying, Oxfam and other members of the Control Arms Campaign say a final breakthrough is in sight.  Is Canada helping or hindering? 

"From what I’ve learned from one of the seven most influential—and I think, inspiring—women in the world, putting women and gender justice at the heart of the conversation about food reminds us to redefine difference as shared power. It reminds us to work for the reversal of inequality and to harness the power of difference for the promotion of diversity.  When it comes to gender and other intersections, we are diverse people on a diverse planet. But, our differences don’t preclude a common goal or global community. Our planet, farms and food system will flourish if they reflect, not stifle, this diversity." - Oxfam intern, Jesse Firempong's, insightful learning from the event.

This year, the Sahel region of West Africa is once again likely to face a serious food crisis that could, if early and effective action is not taken, prove as costly to lives and livelihoods as the past food crises in 2005, 2008 and 2010. Every year, these crises affected more than 10 million people.

Just a coincidence that it’s Oscar day in Hollywood, but we’ve had our own moment in the spotlight with The Global Journal ranking Oxfam No. 3 on the world’s Top 100 Best NGO’s list.

The UN climate change conference in Durban, South Africa, set a path towards a new legally binding agreement for all countries to cut emissions. But the deal does little to meet the needs of poor people fighting climate change right now, and risks blurring important distinctions between the responsibilities to act of developed and developing countries.