Welcome to the February issue of Oxfam Policy & Practice News!

This month we feature Behind the Brands, the Policy Paper for a new Oxfam campaign, that assesses the social and environmental policies of the world's ten largest food and beverage companies.

There's also new research into labour rights in Unilever's supply chain, and community adaptation to climate change in Ethiopia and Mali, as well as blog posts on working with civil society organisations in South Sudan, and campaigning for gender equality in Zimbabwe.

For more frequent updates on development research and publications from Oxfam, follow @Oxfamgbpolicy on twitter or subscribe to our RSS feeds. 

Going Behind the Brands

The Behind the Brands Policy Paper evaluates the social and environmental policies of the world's largest food and beverage companies, and calls on them to make changes to their policies which will contribute towards the creation of a just food system. The paper launches the Behind the Brands campaign which will use consumer power to influence the companies. There's also a Briefing explaining why the biggest chocolate producers, Mars, Mondelez and Nestlé, should lead the effort to bring about equality for women cocoa producers and women workers in supply chains.

Read the Behind the Brands Policy Paper >

Read the Mars, Mondelez and Nestle Briefing >

Improving labour rights in Unilever's supply chain

New research explores labour rights in Unilever’s Viet Nam operations and wider supply chain, and compares the findings with the company's high-level policy commitments. This study was initiated by Oxfam and Unilever, based on a long period of collaborative dialogue.The report focusses on: Freedom of association and collective bargaining; a living wage; and working hours and contract labour.

Read comment from Tim Smedly at the Guardian, and Stuart Bell, Rosey Hurst, Catherine Howarth, and Liesbeth Unger at Policy & Practice.

Latest blogs

Latest publications

The Role of Local Institutions in Adaptive Processes to Climate Variability: The cases of southern Ethiopia and southern Mali

Todd A. Crane

Although communities in semi-arid zones have organized their cultures and livelihoods around uncertainty and the risk of drought, climate predictions indicate that new extremes will be a real challenge to their adaptive capacity. This report looks at local social institutions in Ethiopia and Mali and their role in adaptation.

Donor in the Dark: putting a spotlight on UK aid to small-scale farmers

Monique Mikhail, Claire Hickson and Robin Willoughby

The IF campaign is calling on the UK government to increase its annual support for sustainable small-scale food production by £425 million. Concern Worldwide - UK, Oxfam GB, and Self Help Africa conducted research into how much of the UK’s aid goes to agriculture. The result is a set of key recommendations to DFID for prioritizing investment in small-scale agriculture.

The Enterprise Development Programme Annual Review 2012

Oxfam's Enterprise Development Programme supports and invests in small rural enterprises in places financial institutions do not reach. This report offers a cumulative picture of the programme over the first four years. It also marks the continuing evolution of the initiative as it builds on the learning, challenges and achievements of this pilot model.

Effectiveness Review: Support to coffee farmers, northern Haiti

Rob Fuller

RECOCARNO is a network of eight fair trade coffee producer cooperatives operating in northern Haiti, supported by Oxfam since its formation in 2001.This report documents the findings of a quasi-experimental impact evaluation carried out in November and December 2011.

Effectiveness Review: Capacity building for rural enterprise development for small producers, Nicaragua

Rob Fuller

This project supports approximately 450 producers in three value chains – dairy products, cocoa, and wooden furniture – in three municipalities of the Atlantic North Autonomous Region of Nicaragua. These full and summary reports document the findings of a quasi-experimental impact evaluation carried out in January 2012 among producers in the dairy and cocoa value chains in the Municipality of Siuna.

Unregulated and Unaccountable: How the private health care sector in India is putting women’s lives at risk

Ceri Averill and Sarah Dransfield, Oxfam India

India has one of the lowest levels of government investment in health in the world, just one percent of GDP in 2010. The gap left by the public health system, and a policy of proactively promoting the private sector, has led to the proliferation of private health providers which are unregulated and unaccountable. Oxfam is calling on the Government of India to prioritise strengthening and scaling-up of a universal public health care system.

How Tackling Tax Evasion Could Help Overcome Poverty in the UK

Krisnah Poinasamy and Matti Kohonen

The equivalent of nearly £200 per household is being lost through illegal tax evasion, as 220,000 people in the UK are forced to go to charity foodbanks, according to this Oxfam media briefing. New figures from Oxfam reveal that illegal tax evasion by some of the country’s wealthiest people is depriving the UK economy of £5.2 billion a year.

Poverty and Inequality in Contemporary Russia

Daria Ukhova, November 2012

Since 2003, Oxfam has been working in the Russian Federation, with civil society partners from Murmansk to Vladivostok. From 2012, advocacy on pro-poor social policy has become central to Oxfam’s work in Russia. This briefing outlines Oxfam’s analysis of poverty and inequality in Russia and introduces policy recommendations.

Free access to articles about Fairtrade from Routledge

Fairtrade Fortnight sets aside two weeks each year to promote the principles and products of fair trade and highlight links between consumers and producers. This year Fairtrade Fortnight runs from the 25th February to the 8th March. To help facilitate access to research on this topic Routledge has created a collection of FREE articles discussing all things fairtrade.
 
Explore the collection