Austerity is Not the Answer to Africa’s Colliding Crises
By Anthony Kamande Our continent faces droughts and spiking prices that are pushing millions into hunger and poverty, a debt crisis and the ongoing pandemic. So why are countries cutting billions in spending? Anthony Kamande introduces a new Oxfam Pan Africa briefing based on our…
Golden Passports – Inequality and Refugees
By Max Lawson and Evelien van Roemburg Once again, daily our screens are filled with the heart-breaking scenes of many hundreds of thousands of people fleeing. At such moments, stories are told in the simplest way, and all distinctions are blurred; refugees become just that,…
CUI BONO COVID?
By Hernan Saenz Cortes Cui Bono? is one of those legal-jargon phrases that all law students (should) know. For the rest of us, it sounds like another Latin phrased that is used only by those who had a very expensive education. However, answering it can…
Former UK PM Gordon Brown on the Extraordinary COVID Response We Need
By Elizabeth Njambi Max and Nabil welcome former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the Oxfam EQUALS podcast for an incisive interview. The pandemic is far from over. Vaccine inequality rages on. We ask Gordon what he would do if he was leading the G20…
In East Africa, the Pandemic has Pushed Millions out of Work: Here’s what Governments Need to do
Anthony Kamande Out of the blue over Christmas, while I was visiting my home village some 200km from Nairobi, a helicopter landed. This was extraordinary: my village only got electricity in 2017 and an event like this had never happened before. (Even now, as most…
Life in Socialist Countries and the Fight against Inequality
By Max Lawson My friend Olga Ghazaryan was born in 1962 in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, a small mountainous country in the Caucasus, and that time one of the republics that made up the USSR. I have known Olga since around 2003, when we…
“AN INCREDIBLE EXPLOSION OF INEQUALITY” – with Renowned Economist, Branko Milanovic
By Elizabeth Njambi We are witnessing a COVID-19 driven explosion in inequality. This week, Oxfam released its annual report, Inequality Kills, showing that the pandemic is killing at least 1 person every 4 seconds, while the ten richest men have doubled their fortunes during this…
Beating back the Billionaire Variant
By Anthony Kamande In the informal settlement area of Kawangware in Nairobi, my friend Joe, a nurse, is quarantining in his small room after getting COVID-19 for the second time. He’s less concerned about the virus than his finances, which have deteriorated severely in the…
Inequality Kills: The unparalleled action needed to combat unprecedented inequality in the wake of COVID-19
The wealth of the world’s 10 richest men has doubled since the pandemic began. The incomes of 99% of humanity are worse off because of COVID-19. Widening economic, gender, and racial inequalities—as well as the inequality that exists between countries—are tearing our world apart. Read…
The Role of Aid in Reparations for the Harm of Colonialism
By Tariq Ahmad, Sara Duvisac and Keny Navarrete Viewing aid and development finance in light of the calls for reparations deserves serious (and long-overdue) consideration. Aid as a part of reparatory justice would not only change the reasons for ‘why’ traditional northern donors provide aid…