Speaking Out

Oxfam has sixteen global Ambassadors, and affiliates have their own celebrity

supporters. Ambassadors help Oxfam influence politicians and decision makers,

grab the attention of the media, and support fundraising opportunities such as the

Dubai Gala Evening this December 2011. They give a powerful voice to people who

would otherwise go unheard. Scarlett’s trip is the latest in a busy schedule of

Ambassador activities.

In July, Kristin Davis visited Tanzania for the Grow campaign – then extended her

trip at short notice to highlight the East Africa food crisis, travelling to Dadaab and

carrying out media work in Kenya, the UK and USA. It was a physically and

emotionally gruelling trip, but it generated a huge amount of coverage worldwide and

spikes in donations can be directly linked to her interviews. Also this summer,

Damon Albarn and a team of music producers travelled to the DRC with Oxfam to

make an album, Kinshasa One Two, which is being sold globally to raise funds for

Oxfam. Check out the website here: www.drcmusic.org. This year, Annie Lennox

has launched The Circle in Scotland and in Italy. The Circle is a way for women to

support and empower women. In the UK, it has already made almost a million

pounds for Oxfam, has helped raise the profile of women’s issues, and has led to a

nationwide community fundraising event - we’re hoping to build on these successes.

The celebrities we work with are dedicated, passionate supporters of Oxfam. Over

the last four years Oxfam Ambassadors have met at least 15 world leaders and

lobbied the UN, WTO and EU as well as individual governments. They play a

significant role in raising the profile of the Oxfam brand, boosting fundraising

appeals, increasing media coverage, mobilizing the public and challenging decision-

makers. Claire Lewis - Global Ambassador Programme Manager

Issue 11. Quarterly October 2011

http://www.oxfam.org/

en/ambassadors

Oxfam launches new land-grab campaign highlighting Uganda deal

2

Trailwalker update

3

Women’s rights in Afghanistan

3

What does ‘one Oxfam’ mean to me?

4

SMS fact file: Go-Lives

4

Inside this issue:

Oxfam International Secretariat, Suite 20, 266 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7DL, UK www.oxfam.org

Members Oxfam America Oxfam Australia Oxfam-in-Belgium Oxfam Canada Oxfam France Oxfam Germany

Oxfam GB Oxfam Hong Kong Intermón Oxfam Oxfam India Oxfam Ireland Oxfam México

Oxfam New Zealand Oxfam Novib Oxfam Québec

Observers Oxfam Italy Oxfam Japan

Internal newsletter for staff and volunteers

Scarlett Johansson working with Oxfam

Oxfam Ambassador Scarlett

Johansson chats with Martha,

currently working for Oxfam at

'IFO 3' section, Dadaab camp,

the world’s biggest refugee

camp. Credit: Andy Hall/Oxfam

September 2011

“I'm incredibly proud to be an Oxfam Ambassador. Every time that I travel with Oxfam it's always such an incredible learning experience... I'm seeing the problems and the solutions. Also as an Oxfam Ambassador I do fundraising, I raise awareness of global issues,

global crises, and basically just try to get the word out there."

Oxfam staff spent months gathering news and intelligence from many different land deals around the world while they were researching and writing up our ‘Land and Power’ campaign report. We found that nearly a quarter-billion hectares of land had changed hands since 2011, a lot of it in secret, and much of it in Africa. International media paid much interest in this story when we published it on 22 September.

The more we dug into one particular deal, in Uganda, involving a little-known UK forestry business called New Forests Company (NFC), the more it seemed to illustrate exactly what we were worried about - that poor people’s rights and livelihoods were being trampled in the competitive rush to invest in land.

We are now campaigning against NFC. Despite a public promise to investigate, NFC continues to say it has done nothing wrong and dismisses our research that says more than 20,000 Ugandans were evicted from its two timber plantations without consent or compensation, in some cases against court rulings, and amid claims of violence.

We say the Uganda deal goes against the international social and ethical standards that a company like NFC must abide by from its own investors (in this case, the

World Bank, HSBC and the European Investment Bank) and certification agencies (i.e. the Forestry Stewardship Council). These voluntary guidelines are all that we have at the global level to keep companies in check from their projects harming local people. In this case, Oxfam is highlighting the fact that they haven't worked, in an effort to change things.

Journalists from the New York Times, Al Jazeera, the Dutch agency NOS and other media spoke to the affected communities and independently filed their own stories alleging violence and forcible eviction without compensation. People gave powerful accounts of fleeing burning houses, claiming that local police and officials and company employees were involved in this force and in destroying crops. The people who were evicted have been left in destitution and have been given no help to recover from their losses.

NFC says it tried to compensate some people but that government agencies - which the company claims are solely responsible for the entire process - said no. NFC said that the people were ‘illegal encroachers’ and that the 'voluntary clearances' were non-violent. Oxfam believes that these excuses and denials fly in the face of international standards and of the evidence we gathered.

We believe this is a strong and important campaign. We’re determined to support the thousands of people in Uganda who have exhausted all avenues in their power to get justice. And we’re determined to get the ‘holes’ plugged in the international standards that this case has highlighted. In 2011 it shouldn’t be acceptable for a company to dump all the responsibility onto the government when things go wrong in one its projects. We’re after proper compensation for the people affected by NFC’s projects and for international guidelines to be tightened up as a result.

Page 2 I ssue 11 . Quar ter ly

Oxfam launches new land-grab campaign highlighting Uganda deal

Source: Land and Power. The growing scandal surrounding the new wave of

investments in land. http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/

Matt Grainger, Head of Media, Oxfam International

Forced eviction in central Uganda. Credit: Oxfam

Source: http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/campaigns/tackle-landgrabs

See The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/

video/2011/oct/06/uganda-international-land-deals?INTCMP=SRCH

Page 3 I ssue 11 . Quar ter ly

Trailwalker update

Since it began in 1981, thousands of walkers from around the world have successfully taken on Oxfam’s Trailwalker endurance challenge: walking 100km, in teams of four, in a limited time and with next to no sleep. Each team must start together, stick together and finish together. The event is not just physically demanding, but is also a fundraising challenge, as each team is tasked with raising a minimum sponsorship amount for Oxfam’s work across the world.

The trails are located in spectacular locations including the mountainous landscape around Barcelona, the Australian bush, and the volcanically active Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park in Japan. Over 32,000 teams (128,000 individuals) have collectively walked over 11.5 million kilometers, becoming great ambassadors for Oxfam's work and raising over US$60 million. The thousands of volunteers who support the teams during the event bring huge amounts of enthusiasm, joy and motivation (not to mention food and water) to spur the walkers on.

No two Oxfam Trailwalkers are ever the same. Oxfam Canada’s Trailwalker in July took place in extreme heat, causing problems of dehydration and heatstroke. In September, Oxfam Ireland’s participants battled heavy rain and mist and even caught the tail end of a hurricane!

The very last Trailwalker of 2011 is in Hong Kong in November. Oxfam Trailwalker is now a global phenomenon, with trails in 12 countries this year, and with Oxfams India and Québec launching their first

Trailwalkers next year. If you haven’t been tempted to take part so far, one of Oxfam GB’s Trailwalker participants, Grahame Smee, had this to say:

The Rights in Crisis (RiC) campaign took a critical moment - the 10th anniversary of the intervention in Afghanistan and when western governments are looking to both assess their impact and draw down military forces - to launch the new RiC Afghanistan campaign report: ‘A Place at the Table: Safeguarding women’s rights in Afghanistan’1 and the Green Scarves campaign.2

The protection of women’s rights in Afghanistan was promoted as a positive outcome of the international military intervention which began on 7 October 2001. But Oxfam’s report, co-authored with well-known Afghan academic Orzala Ashraf Nemat, argued that Afghan women could face a dangerous future after 2014 if their rights were sidelined in the search for peace. In the past decade, many Afghan women have seen real progress but these hard-won gains remain fragile and risk being sacrificed in order to reach a political settlement.

The report, which gained worldwide media coverage in over 400 outlets, argues that the international community and the Afghan government should not only intensify efforts to fulfil women’s rights now, but uphold women’s role and rights in any political negotiations to ensure that any peace deal is just and sustainable. We’re calling on world leaders to renew their promises to Afghan women at December’s Bonn Conference and to pledge that any political settlement with the Taliban and other armed groups will explicitly guarantee women’s rights.

They must ensure that women play an active role in any peace negotiations and renew efforts to improve women’s access to basic services, such as health and education.

Afghanistan has its own vibrant women’s movement and women are campaigning and mobilizing to make sure that the international community doesn’t forget the promises that it made to Afghan women.

The women’s movement in Afghanistan has long used green scarves in their campaigning to symbolize their movement - so the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), with the support of Oxfam and Channel 162, is calling on people to join the campaign and wear green scarves in solidarity with the women of Afghanistan. Go to http://ch16.org to see celebrities, supporters, and Oxfam staff joining the campaign.

“Quite simply the best team event I have taken part in. From start to finish, excellent support, stunning scenery and the knowledge that you are making a positive difference to the lives of those less

fortunate make this a 'must do' experience.”

2011 Intermón Oxfam Trailwalker Credit: Nil Bohigas/Intermón Oxfam

Women’s rights in Afghanistan

Clea Ferguson, Marketing and

Fundraising Officer, Oxfam International

“I am inspired by the AWN - and in fact, women all over Afghanistan, who struggle every day to build lasting peace at every

level.”

Article by Anita Kattakuzhy, RiC Campaign Coordinator, Oxfam International

1 https://sumus.oxfam.org/rights-crisis-afghanistan/documents/place-table-en-pdf 2 http://ch16.org/afghanwomen

The newsletter is compiled by the OI Secretariat Editorial Team. Comments or questions to tracey.dyer@oxfaminternational.org

Page 4 I ssue 11 . Quar ter ly

What does ‘one Oxfam’ mean to me?

Colleagues reflect on what being part of ‘one Oxfam’ will mean for them. Our move towards a Single Management Structure (SMS) is paving the way for us on the journey to becoming one Oxfam, a global network of organizations in the 21st century.

But what does this mean?

We’re certainly a ‘global’ organization. We work in 98 countries and campaign globally too, but we’re also local in developing our new country strategies, as part of the SMS process, that are tailored to individual countries’ needs.

We are ‘integrating’, with our joined up local to global campaigning, and the multi-country, multi-Oxfam opportunities of fundraising and shared services that will enable us to achieve greater effectiveness.

And we’re a ‘network’; our affiliates will remain autonomous but will work even closer together, connected by common values, strategies, campaigns, program standards and experience.

So what does this actually mean for some of the people working in Oxfam?

Monica Gorman, Oxfam Ireland, Country Director of Tanzania, said that being one Oxfam: “Means and feels like a much stronger sense of connection with people throughout the Oxfam family, an expanded pride in the work of Oxfam and also a sense that we are part of building the future Oxfam and the direction it will take in its work in tackling poverty.”

Abdirizak Abdi Kontoma, EFSL-Deputy Coordinator, Oxfam GB, Southern Somalia: “Sharing information with other members of the Oxfam family, learning, harmonizing approaches, more of a consortium of Oxfam so it’s easier to lobby for funding than independent Oxfams.”

Andrew Osiany, Human Resources Officer, Oxfam GB, Somalia Program: “For me, it will mean a more consolidated approach towards achieving sincere service delivery to the poor, especially in as far as human resource management is concerned.”

Juma Ally Mnwele, Oxfam GB, Program Quality Coordinator in Tanzania: “It excites me because we will be much stronger and more visible to outside Oxfam including the Government, Communities and Partners. The visibility is very important to give us a positive platform to push our agenda on issues that are affecting poor communities.”

Harrismus Nzavi, Oxfam GB, Program Accountant for Somalia: “Being part of ‘one Oxfam’ means increased strength and greater impact on the ground. In my community we say one finger has no capability of killing a lice. You need both thumbs and fingers in the mission to squeeze this parasite (the lice), and likewise we need ‘one Oxfam’ to squeeze the parasite of poverty.”

xxx

SMS fact file: countries that have

celebrated SMS Go-Live

Managing Affiliate Implementing Affiliates

Cuba Oxfam Canada Oxfam-in-Belgium

Malawi Oxfam GB Oxfam Ireland

Bolivia Oxfam GB

- Intermón Oxfam from 2014

Intermón Oxfam; Oxfam

Québec; Oxfam America

Zambia Oxfam GB Oxfam Hong Kong

South Africa Oxfam Australia Oxfam GB; Oxfam Canada;

Oxfam Novib

Senegal Oxfam America Oxfam Novib; Oxfam America

Russian Federation Oxfam GB - single affiliate country

Vietnam Oxfam Novib Oxfam America; Oxfam-in-Belgium; Oxfam GB; Oxfam Hong Kong; Oxfam Québec

Program spend (million Euros) 2009-10

1.4

2.9

4.2

3.0

5.1

2.1

0.6

6.0

Tanzania Oxfam Ireland Oxfam GB; Intermón Oxfam 7.3

Nicaragua Intermón Oxfam Oxfam-in-Belgium; Oxfam

Canada; Oxfam GB

5.0

Ecuador Intermón Oxfam Oxfam America 1.5

Tajikistan Oxfam GB Oxfam GB 2.7

(source: CONSOL)

What does it mean for you? Find out more about one Oxfam by visiting: https://sumus.oxfam.org/single-management-structure-sms/documents/statement-about-

one-oxfam

Samantha Scott, SMS Communications

Coordinator, Oxfam International