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452. The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index 2024
- Author:
- Anthony Kamande, Jo Walker, Martin Matthew, and Max Lawson
- Publication Date:
- 10-2024
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Now in its fifth edition, the Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index (CRI) assesses the commitment of 164 countries and regions to fighting inequality. The CRI 2024 offers powerful new evidence on whether governments are acting to reduce inequality through policies on public services, fair taxation and labour rights. It reveals negative trends in the vast majority of countries since 2022. Four in five have cut the share of their budgets going to education, health and/or social protection; four in five have backtracked on progressive taxation; and nine in ten have regressed on labour rights and minimum wages. Nine out of ten countries have backtracked in one or more area, meaning without urgent policy actions to reverse this worrying trend, economic inequality will almost certainly continue to rise in 90% of countries. Despite some progress, the IMF and the World Bank could do far more to prioritize the fight to reduce inequality. This report assesses their actions across the three CRI pillars of public services, taxation and labour rights. It makes recommendations for how the IMF and World Bank should stop promoting policies that increase inequality and instead support those policies that reduce it, as a matter of urgency.
- Topic:
- Inequality, Tax Systems, Public Service, Wages, Jobs, and Social Protection
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
453. Rights and Responsibilities: Understanding the impact of the tech industry on economic inequality
- Author:
- Meg Roggensack, Gawain Kripke, Michael Borum, and Hana Ivanhoe
- Publication Date:
- 10-2024
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Digital technologies have the potential to either ameliorate or worsen the dynamics underlying poverty and inequality, depending on how those technologies are designed, developed, deployed, and used, as well as on the degree to which the businesses, and business models behind them, respect the rights of users and workers. This paper recommends changes in corporate and government policies and practices to ensure that the information and communication technology (ICT) industry respects human rights and does not exacerbate poverty and economic inequality across five pillars: access and equity, digital civic space, data use and privacy, automation and the future of work, and governance.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Poverty, Science and Technology, Governance, and Economic Inequality
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
454. Defining and Assessing Transformational Climate Change Adaptation: A framework for application to agri-food projects
- Author:
- Richard Kohl
- Publication Date:
- 12-2024
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- This discussion paper proposes a framework of four indicators of transformational adaptation – the breadth and depth of change, the intention to achieve transformation, scale and sustainability – and provides a framework to apply these indicators to four types of interventions in agri-food systems.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Climate Change, Food Security, Sustainability, Adaptation, and Food Systems
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
455. Better Safe Than Sorry: Four fundamentals for scaling up anticipatory action
- Author:
- Lawrence Robinson
- Publication Date:
- 11-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- In the context of ever-increasing humanitarian needs worldwide, anticipatory action is being recognised as one of main the ways in which predictable shocks can be prevented from turning into crises, reducing both the impacts and the costs. Anticipatory action is a critical approach, bridging the work of disaster risk reduction and humanitarian response, and showing great promise as a modality for nexus programming (for example, linking humanitarian to development). While a scale-up of anticipatory action is much needed, it also requires a truly decolonial and feminist approach that supports communities to uphold their rights. To meet this vision, Oxfam has laid out four interconnected fundamental principles for all partners and stakeholders involved in scaling up anticipatory action to use: Feminist and intersectional anticipatory action that is systematic in recognising the strengths and vulnerabilities of people in at-risk communities. It integrates vulnerability indicators to build anticipatory action systems which include at a minimum gender-sensitive, gender-inclusive, and gender-transformative approaches. Decolonial and locally led anticipatory action that challenges global-local power dynamics, recognises and places local leadership as the primary holder of knowledge and decision-making, and ensures funding is accessible for the local and national civil society organisations and communities at the frontlines of disasters. Holistic anticipatory action that does not operate in isolation, that recognises the holistic nature of the system, and responds to the complexity of risks and hazards and the interconnectedness of anticipatory action across disaster management cycles. Collaborative anticipatory action that prioritises common objectives, optimises resources, ensures alignment between efforts, and provides complementarity across the humanitarian, climate, and development sectors. Adopting these principles in the scale-up of anticipatory action will unlock some of the key challenges of the approach. The principles acknowledge the sectoral trends that call for sector-wide transformation in line with key principles, but overall, they are designed to ensure that anticipatory action is effective and fit for purpose. This paper calls for governments, communities, humanitarian, climate, peace and development practitioners, and the private sector to adopt the proposed four interconnected fundamentals in the scale-up of anticipatory action and support at-risk communities to uphold their rights. This principled approach to embedding anticipatory action into policy, practice, and legal frameworks is required to maximise the potential of anticipatory action and prevent predictable shocks from becoming crises.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Development, Disaster Management, and Humanitarian Assistance
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
456. Food Wars: Conflict, Hunger, and Globalization, 2023
- Author:
- Marc Cohen and Ellen Messer
- Publication Date:
- 10-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Most wars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have been “food wars”: food and hunger were used as weapons, food and food-related water and energy infrastructure were damaged intentionally or incidentally, and food insecurity persisted as a legacy of conflict destructiveness. Frequently, food insecurity, in turn, is a trigger or underlying cause of conflict. This paper analyzes 54 active conflict, refugee-hosting, and conflict legacy countries with populations in 2023 facing “crisis-level” acute food insecurity, i.e., at Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) 3 or higher. In total, nearly 278 million people in these countries faced crisis-level hunger in 2023, accounting for 99% of the global population at IPC 3+ (281.6 million people). Analysis indicates that war-displacement-hunger crises occur in countries that continue to rely heavily on primary product exports. Paradoxically, peacebuilding efforts have often assumed that economic liberalization offers the best or only pathway to sustainable peace. Yet struggle for control over fungible primary commodities can fund more violence, increased inequality, continued instability, and the risk of renewed conflict. Agricultural export commodities are important sources of revenue for smallholder farmers and governments in conflict-affected, food-insecure countries. The conflict implications of export- and food-crop value chains are therefore crucial for future food-wars policy discussions and actions. Some efforts seek to link export crops to efforts to achieve peace, sustainable livelihoods, and environmental restoration. Other proposed solutions focus on adopting more holistic national development strategies, including food-systems approaches that protect and promote the right to food and livelihood security, as well as policy approaches and frameworks that might more effectively consider conflict, globalization, and climate change in food and nutrition policy.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Food Security, Hunger, Displacement, and Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
457. Climate Finance Unchecked: How much does the World Bank know about the climate actions it claims?
- Author:
- Christian Donaldson, James Morrissey, and Jason Farr
- Publication Date:
- 10-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Oxfam finds that for World Bank projects, many things can change during implementation. On average, actual expenditures on the Bank’s projects differ from budgeted amounts by 26–43% above or below the claimed climate finance. Across the entire climate finance portfolio, between 2017 and 2023, this difference amounts to US$24.28–US$41.32 billion. No information is available about what new climate actions were supported and which planned actions were cut. Now that the Bank has touted its focus on understanding and reporting on the impacts of its climate finance, it is critical to stress that without a full understanding of how much of what the Bank claims as climate finance at the project approval stage becomes actual expenditure, it is impossible to track and measure the impacts of the Bank's climate co-benefits in practice. The Bank should improve its reporting practices, undertake a climate finance assessment on closed projects, standardize how it reports on climate finance in projects and create a public climate finance database.
- Topic:
- Development, Climate Finance, Accountability, Transparency, and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs)
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
458. Carbon Inequality Kills: Why curbing the excessive emissions of an elite few can create a sustainable planet for all
- Author:
- Mira Alestig, Dabi Nafkote, Abha Jeurkar, Alex Maitland, Max Lawson, Daniel Horen Greenford, Corey Lesk, and Ashfaq Khalfan
- Publication Date:
- 10-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- The only way to beat climate breakdown and deliver social justice is to radically reduce inequality. This briefing paper reveals the catastrophic climate impacts of the richest individuals in the world, and proposes taking urgent action to protect people and the planet. What little carbon dioxide we can still safely emit is being burned indiscriminately by the super-rich. We share new evidence of how the yachts, jets and polluting investments of the 50 richest billionaires are accelerating the climate crisis. Oxfam’s research shows that the emissions of the world’s super-rich 1% are causing economic losses of trillions of dollars; contributing to huge crop losses; and leading to millions of excess deaths. As global temperatures continue to rise, risking the lives and livelihoods of people living in poverty and precarity, we must act now to curb the emissions of the super-rich and make rich polluters pay.
- Topic:
- Climate Finance, Investment, Loss and Damage (L&D), Conference of the Parties (COP), and Billionaires
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
459. Understanding the Onboarding Challenges in Digital Financial Services: A Qualitative Exploration
- Author:
- Faruq Hossain, Jumana Asrar, Aishwarya Sanjukta Roy Proma, and Shahaduz Zaman
- Publication Date:
- 06-2024
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), Brac University
- Abstract:
- In Bangladesh’s financial landscape, digital financial service (DFS) has emerged as a transformative force, bringing the unbanked population into the formal financial system. The growth of DFS across the country has significantly increased the number of registered accounts. Despite this progress, many individuals, especially marginalized groups like women, remain inactive and passive users. As a result, a significant portion of the population cannot avail themselves of the full potential of technology-driven financial services. This paper examines the nuances of DFS adoption and usage in Bangladesh, with a focus on sociocultural factors.
- Topic:
- Women, Marginalization, Banking, and Digital Finance
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
460. UN Tools for Addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: An Analysis of Listings and Sanctions Processes
- Author:
- Jenna Russo and Lauren McGowan
- Publication Date:
- 04-2024
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute (IPI)
- Abstract:
- Since the Security Council first recognized conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) as a threat to international peace and security in 2008, the UN has developed an increasing number of pathways to prevent and respond to such crimes. One of these is the annual report of the secretary-general on CRSV, which includes an annexed list of perpetrators who are credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of CRSV violations in contexts on the agenda of the Security Council. In addition, perpetrators of CRSV may also be designated in UN sanctions regimes. Yet while both of these processes aim to prevent and respond to CRSV, they are not always coherent with one another. This paper analyzes the relationship between the annual reports of the secretary-general on CRSV and sanctions designations to provide recommendations to enhance their complementarity. It provides an overview of the CRSV annual report and the process for listing parties. It then focuses on designations in sanctions regimes for crimes related to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), including the level of coherence between the reporting of the secretary-general and designations in sanctions regimes. Next, the paper analyzes the reporting and political barriers that inhibit more regular designations for SGBV in sanctions regimes. Finally, it provides recommendations to the UN and member states on how to improve the coherence, coordination, and effectiveness of these processes, including the following.
- Topic:
- United Nations, Sanctions, Sexual Violence, UN Security Council, and Armed Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus