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Influencing Behaviours and Practices to Tackle Poverty and Injustice

January 16, 2018

Effective behaviour change strategies can play a vital role in combating poverty, injustice and environmental degradation. They can help prevent violence against women and girls; enable better health, hygiene and environmental behaviours; motivate and empower people to participate in campaigns or to become change makers; or influence people to make more equitable, ethical or sustainable purchasing and investment decisions. There is growing understanding among civil society organizations, governments and others about how to enable behaviour change, but many interventions still rely too much on information provision and awareness raising.This discussion paper draws on learning from theory and practice to provide practitioners with an understanding of the range of influences that shape different behaviours at individual, group, societal and system levels. It suggests a menu of possible interventions to address them, and highlights the need for resources and skill-building. It will be relevant for practitioners involved in programming, humanitarian, influencing and campaigning work, as well as for government officials and donors.

South Africa vs. the Drug Giants: A challenge to affordable medicines

November 16, 2017

On 5 March 2001, 39 of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies took the South African government to court over the terms of its 1997 Medicines Act. The Act was intended to provide a legal framework within which medicines could be made more affordable in South Africa. The companies' decision to pursue the legal proceedings initiated in 1997, despite the devastation caused by South Africa's public health crisis, sparked international condemnation. This briefing and update, produced for Oxfam's 'Cut the Cost' campaign, provide details of what became a landmark case with implications far beyond South Africa.

US Bullying on Drug Patents: One year after Doha

November 8, 2010

One year after WTO trade ministers agreed the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health, the US government, at the behest of giant pharmaceutical companies, continues to bully developing countries to introduce unnecessarily high standards of patent protection on medicines. This continued bilateral pressure restricts and delays the production of cheaper generic medicines, with potentially devastating consequences for millions of poor people.

TRIPS and Public Health: The next battle

November 8, 2010

The Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health agreed at the WTO Ministerial in Doha in November 2001 was an important step forward in the campaign for affordable medicines. It affirmed the primacy of public health over intellectual property rights, and the rights of governments to make full use of the public health safeguards in TRIPS. Ministers also recognised a fundamental imbalance in the TRIPS Agreement and promised to find a solution before the end of 2002. This concerns the way the TRIPS Agreement, by restricting countries like India from exporting cheap generic medicines, will prevent many developing countries from finding affordable sources of vital new medicines.

Food Crises in Africa: An overview

November 3, 2010

For people to be hungry in Africa in the 21st century is neither inevitable nor morally acceptable. The world's emergency response requires an overhaul so that it delivers prompt, equitable, and effective assistance to people suffering from lack of food. More fundamentally, governments need to tackle the root causes of hunger, which include poverty, agricultural mismanagement, conflict, unfair trade rules, and the unprecedented problems of HIV/AIDS and climate change. The promised joint effort of African governments and donors to eradicate poverty must deliver pro-poor rural policies that prioritise the needs of marginalised rural groups such as small-holders, pastoralists, and women.

Free Trade Agreement Between the USA and Thailand Threatens Access to HIV/AIDS Treatment

November 3, 2010

Access to HIV/AIDS medicines makes a huge difference to the lives of infected people and their families. Not only do these medicines help people live longer, they also greatly improve the quality of their lives, reduce the stigma and discrimination that they might experience, and enable them to contribute to the economic and social welfare of their families, their communities, and their countries as a whole. Thailand is a positive example of a developing country that has developed effective HIV/AIDS treatment programmes, with beneficial results for its population. It has a health-care system that can deliver antiretroviral therapy and other treatments to those in need. And thanks to the availability of affordable generic medicines the government is able to offer some key HIV/AIDS medicines to around 30,000 people, with plans to scale up the programme in coming years.

Causing Hunger: An overview of the food crisis in Africa

October 29, 2010

For people to be hungry in Africa in the 21st century is neither inevitable nor morally acceptable. The world's emergency response requires an overhaul so that it delivers prompt, equitable, and effective assistance to people suffering from lack of food. More fundamentally, governments need to tackle the root causes of hunger, which include poverty, agricultural mismanagement, conflict, unfair trade rules, and the unprecedented problems of HIV/AIDS and climate change. The promised joint effort of African governments and donors to eradicate poverty must deliver pro-poor rural policies that prioritise the needs of marginalised rural groups such as small-holders, pastoralists, and women. This paper describes two key challenges in reducing hunger in Africa. The first is to improve the immediate response to food crises. The second is to tackle the root causes of acute and recurring hunger. The paper is not a complete explanation of causes and solutions. Rather, it hopes to offer some insights based on Oxfam's programme experience and research with pastoralists, farmers, and others across Africa.

Tax Havens: Releasing the Hidden Billions for Poverty Eradication

June 1, 2000

Tax havens and offshore financial centres (OFCs) have seldom figured as prominently in media coverage of economic affairs as they do today. Interest has focussed on the concerns of northern governments and the interests of powerful transnational corporations (TNCs). The main actors in the debate are revenue authorities, corporate lawyers, tax accountants and financial journalists. By contrast, the world's poorest countries are conspicuous by their absence. This is unfortunate because offshore tax havens represent an increasingly important obstacle to poverty reduction. They are depriving governments in developing countries of the revenues they need to sustain investment in basic services and the economic infrastructure upon which broad-based economic growth depends. This paper argues that off-shore centres are part of the global poverty problem - and that the interests of the poor must be brought onto the reform agenda.