February 6, 2018
Oxfam’s Emily Brown on today’s 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the UK Today marks 100 years since some women in the UK first gained the right to vote. The People’s Representation Act of February 6th 1918 represents both a historic milestone in the post-war opening of public and political spaces to women, but also a move designed to keep
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Book Review: ‘I’ve got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle’ Charles M Payne
January 26, 2018
I’ve given my kids a lot of improving books over the years, and now they’re exacting revenge. Parental devotion means I read anything they give me, which at least gets me out of the aid and development ghetto. My Christmas present this year from son Calum was Charles Payne’s wonderful book on the US civil rights movement, which also kept
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From Dandora to Davos – organising from the grassroots and puncturing the elite
January 24, 2018
With the inequality crisis in focus as the world’s elite gathers in Davos, the Fight Inequality Alliance’s Global Convenor, Jenny Ricks (@jenny_ricks ), examines where real change is likely to come from Inequality, and sage words about needing to tackle it, are once again ringing through the halls of Davos. As a counterpoint to this, we in the Fight Inequality Alliance
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Davos is here again, so it’s time for Oxfam’s new report on prosperity and poverty, wealth and work.
January 22, 2018
As the masters of the universe (or at least planet earth) gather in Davos, here’s a curtain-raiser from Deborah Hardoon, Oxfam’s Deputy Head of Research, introducing its new report. Gotta love a data release. Every year I look forward to the release of the Credit Suisse Global Wealth databook. An immense piece of work, developed over a decade and led by
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What’s your link to bereaved Kenyan mother, Judith Amoit?
January 17, 2018
Guest post from Matthew Spencer, Oxfam’s Director of Campaigns, Policy and Influencing (@spencerthink) Judith Amoit, a 27 year-old policewoman hit the Kenyan news last year when she lost her twins shortly after giving birth prematurely in the Nairobi West hospital. She was prevented from leaving the hospital to bury her children because she couldn’t pay the £20,000 bill. Judith was
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Untangling inequalities: why power and intersectionality are essential concepts
January 12, 2018
Guest post from Fenella Porter, Oxfam’s Gender Policy Advisor In the small and rather quirky Chapel of the House of St. Barnabas in Soho, a group of UK civil society representatives gathered together to have a conversation about inequality. After having been in many discussions recently which have struggled to extend the understanding of inequality beyond wealth, what was interesting
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Why is Support for Women’s Rights Rising Fastest in the World’s Cities?
December 20, 2017
Guest post by Alice Evans Support for gender equality is rising, globally. People increasingly champion girls’ education, women’s employment, and leadership. Scholars have suggested several explanations for this trend: (a) the growing availability of contraceptives (enabling women to delay motherhood and marriage); (b) domestic appliances (reducing the volume of care work); (c) cuts in men’s wages and the rising opportunity
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The Great Leveller: A conversation with Walter Scheidel on Inequality and Apocalypse
November 14, 2017
When I visited Stanford recently at the invitation of Francis Fukuyama, I also dropped in on Walter Scheidel, an Austrian historian who has taken time off from his main interest (the Romans) to write a powerful, and pretty depressing, book on inequality. Like Fukuyama, Scheidel is a big brain who favours the grand narrative – his book is called ‘The
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Is inequality going up or down?
November 2, 2017
My Oxfam colleague and regular FP2P contributor Max Lawson sends out a weekly summary of his reading on inequality (he leads Oxfam’s advocacy work on it). They’re great, and Max has opened his mailing list up to the anyone who’s interested – just email max.lawson@oxfam.org, with ‘subscribe’ in the subject line. Here’s his latest effort – a long, but excellent
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Is it time to get personal on tax dodging?
October 30, 2017
The people who read this blog tend to be rationalists and progressive, so they won’t need much convincing that tax avoidance is a big (and lethal) deal. Oxfam calculates that just a third of the $100bn [approx. £78bn] tax that companies dodge in poor countries annually is enough to cover the bill for essential healthcare (vaccinations, midwives and diarrhoea treatment)
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Can the UK become a Human Economy?
September 15, 2017
Rising inequality is a global problem. Oxfam inequality guru Deborah Hardoon appraises a new report on its manifestations in the UK. Last week the IPPR, a progressive policy think tank, published a new report, ‘A time for change: A new vision for the British Economy’, which argues that “the economy we have today is creating neither prosperity nor justice. This
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Living in interesting times: one year in the life of Oxfam’s Women’s Rights Director
September 8, 2017
Nikki van der Gaag looks back on her first year as Oxfam’s Gender Justice and Women’s Rights Director. ‘May you live in interesting times’ is a Chinese saying that could equally be a promise or a curse. In the past decade, there can’t have been many more interesting times to be working on women’s rights and gender justice. I began
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