Six months after the flood disaster began, this briefing paper evaluates the humanitarian response so far, the continuing crisis, and the challenges that lie ahead. It looks at the immediate reconstruction task, as well as the underlying socio-economic and political issues that need to be tackled by the Government of Pakistan, backed by the international aid community, in order to help vulnerable Pakistanis rebuild stronger, safer communities and a more equitable and self-reliant country.
Tajikistan is a poor country with limited industry, significant energy production from hydropower, and a low carbon footprint. Poverty in Tajikistan is predominantly found in rural areas, and is increasingly feminized as significant numbers of men migrate to other countries for work. This mountainous terrain of Tajikistan leaves many of its population reliant on marginal land for their livelihoods and thus vulnerable to climate change.
The earthquake that struck Haiti on 12 January 2010 had a devastating impact on the already vulnerable island nation, leaving more than 200,000 people dead and over one million homeless. In October 2010, Haiti was struck by a second disaster: as of mid December 2010, a cholera outbreak has affected more than 122,000 people, leaving at least 2,600 dead.
Topic:
Development, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and Natural Disasters
Even before the earthquake struck on 12 January 2010, Haiti was the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, ranked by the United Nations Development Programme as one of the world's 50 poorest countries (2009). In short, life was already a struggle for most families. Then the earthquake hit, and lives were turned upside down. It was the most powerful earthquake in Haiti for 200 years.
Topic:
Development, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and Natural Disasters
Female education has faced significant obstacles in Afghanistan, yet there have been enormous gains since 2001. Under the Taliban, the majority of girls‟ schools were closed and gross enrollment fell from 32% to just 6.4%.In the early years after the fall of the Taliban, education was a top priority for the Afghan government and donors. Much of this donor focus was on getting children back into school, with a particular emphasis on primary level. The Back to School campaign, launched in 2002, significantly ex-panded enrollment, which has increased nearly seven-fold, from approxi-mately 900,000 in 2000 to 6.7 million in 2009.For girls, the increase has been even more dramatic: official enrollment figures have increased from an estimated 5,000 under the Taliban to 2.4 million girls currently enrolled.
Effective aid helps save lives, protect rights and build livelihoods. Yet in conflicts and politically unstable settings from Afghanistan to Yemen, lifesaving humanitarian assistance and longer-term efforts to reduce poverty are being damaged where aid is used primarily to pursue donors' own narrow political and security objectives. This is not only undermining humanitarian principles and donors' development commitments; it impacts on the lives of some of the most vulnerable people affected by conflicts and natural disasters.
Topic:
Security, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, Natural Disasters, and Foreign Aid
At a macroeconomic level, the Global Economic Crisis (GEC) has had less impact on many Pacific countries than on most other developing countries across the world. However, this does not imply that Pacific country economies are performing well. Economic growth rates for most countries in the Pacific region are expected to be low for 2009 and 2010 and the majority of economies are likely to contract on a per capita basis in these years.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Poverty, and Financial Crisis
Ten years after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed by world leaders became the greatest-ever commitment for a 'more peaceful, prosperous and just future', progress is slow and many hard-won achievements have been undone after the global food, fuel and economic crises. Unless an urgent rescue package is developed to accelerate fulfillment of all the MDGs, we are likely to witness the greatest collective failure in history.
Topic:
Development, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, and Poverty
This response to the Coalition Government's proposals on working age benefits and tax credits in its consultation paper, 21st-Century Welfare, takes a gender lens to the reforms. It is written in the context of Oxfam's work against poverty in the UK and its longstanding concern with the poverty and inequality of women. The response below follows the same structure as the consultation document.
When the G20 meets in Seoul in November 2010, it has a big choice to make. It can either retreat into a narrow focus on its own interests, or it can prove it is capable of genuine global leadership in the face of the interlinked economic, food, and climate change crises. The G20 must adopt a Seoul 'development consensus' that confronts the challenges of the 21st century: reducing inequality and tackling global poverty through sustainable, equitable growth that gives poor women and men, and their governments, the tools they need to overcome poverty.