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Named after | Oxford Committee for Famine Relief |
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Type | International NGO |
Focus | Poverty Eradication Humanitarian Aid Gender Equality Economic Inequality Climate Justice First Nations Justice |
Area served | Worldwide |
CEO | Lyn Morgain [1] |
Website | www |
Oxfam Australia is an Australian, independent, charity, not-for-profit, secular, community-based aid and development organization, and is an affiliate of the Oxfam International Confederation. [2] Oxfam Australia's work is divided into four broad categories covering climate justice, Economic Justice, Gender Justice and First Peoples Justice as well as Humanitarian response. They believe that poverty in the 21st century is less a problem of scarcity but the result of how resources, opportunities, and protections are distributed and wielded. [3]
Oxfam Australia advocates for long-term inclusive development projects, responding to emergencies, and campaigning to improve the lives of people living with poverty around the world. They aim to give disadvantaged people improved access to social services, an effective voice in decisions, equal rights and status, and safety and security from conflict and disaster.
Oxfam Australia's activities are mainly funded by community support income. In 2020-2021 Oxfam Australia’s development and advocacy programs use 73% of donated funds, 19% is used for fundraising and promotion, and the remaining 8% for administration costs. [4] In the case of emergency appeals, 85% of funds are used directly for emergency response purposes. [5] [6]
In 2020-2021 the global Oxfam Confederation delivered life-saving aid, advocacy support and transformational development programs to 25.7 million people around the world. [7]
Oxfam Australia can be traced back to the work of Father Gerard Kennedy Tucker in the 1950s, who was concerned about poverty in Asia following the Second World War. The first local group was established in Hawthorn, a suburb of Melbourne, in 1953, as the Food for Peace Campaign. Local groups were established in Perth and Sydney, and in 1962 the name was changed to Community Aid Abroad to reflect an emphasis on developing whole communities more broadly than just providing food for peace it is working on making a big company.
In 1965, Community Aid Abroad established Trade Action to provide trade opportunities between Australia and developing countries by selling handicrafts. From 1965 to 1976 Trade Action ran profitably and subsidised the organisation's operating costs, but its performance declined and it was sold in 1979. Local groups continued to trade with project partners, and in 1986 these efforts were combined to form CAA Trading, which by 2005 incorporated 17 shops Australia wide and mail order and wholesale operations in Adelaide. These ventures form the basis of the Oxfam Shop which has been expanding in recent years, selling fairtrade goods.
Community Aid Abroad has always been a supporter of efforts in indigenous Australia to reduce poverty and support projects there. Also in the 1970s support expanded to the Pacific, in particular for anti-nuclear causes. In the mid-1980s Mexico and South America came under the umbrella.
In 1983, Community Aid Development Centres were started. This had more of a commercial focus, and is based on the principles of capacity building. It ran independently of the main Community Aid Abroad and is now called IDSS. In 1991 Community Aid Abroad merged with Australian Freedom From Hunger Campaign, becoming one of the largest Australian development organisations. In 1995 it took the name "Oxfam Community Aid Abroad" to reflect its affiliation with Oxfam International. In 2005 this was changed to Oxfam Australia.
A large part of Oxfam Australia's work involves direct response to humanitarian emergencies. Oxfam Australia works with its partners within disaster struck areas to provide humanitarian aid such as water and sanitation. It also advocates for the observance of human rights in times of disaster and conflict, for instance, upholding the Geneva Convention. Once the immediate dangers of an emergency have passes, Oxfam continues to work in the communities to ensure recovery it is good.
Oxfam Australia had a major role in responding to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Funds to the amount of A$27,777,000 were raised from the Australian public and business community, which was spent over four years up until the end of 2008. Response programs operated by Oxfam Australia included providing shelter to people who lost their homes, as well as small loans to help people setup small businesses. Oxfam Australia tsunami response saw it working in the following countries: Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Somalia, Maldives and Myanmar. [8] [9]
Oxfam Australia is a partner in the operation of the Joint Emergency Stores Warehouse, opened in Brisbane in October 2008. The facility contains 100 tonnes of humanitarian supplies for use in the Asia-Pacific region. [10]
Oxfam Australia have responded in recent times to major humanitarian emergencies such as the Yemeni Civil War (2014–present), 2015 Cyclone Pam, 2015 Nepal earthquake and 2018 Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami.
Oxfam Australia supports self-help development projects in 30 countries. These countries can be divided into five regions.
For more than 40 years, Oxfam Australia has worked with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to advance their rights. Oxfam Australia works with a range of partners across the areas of land rights, climate justice, justice reinvestment and holds the biannual flagship political program Straight Talk, which brings Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women to Canberra to meet politicians, learn about Australia’s political system, and leverage/wield/use those learnings to make change happen in their communities. [11]
Oxfam Australia has worked in the Pacific region since the 1960s, supporting projects in areas such as primary education, youth community theatre, independent media, human rights training and business skills for women.
The countries in which Oxfam Australia are currently working are Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
In Southern Africa, Oxfam Australia is working in the following countries: Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Areas of work include: providing clean water, emergency relief, ensuring communities have sufficient food, conflict reconciliation, gender issues, preventing HIV and AIDS, and debt forgiveness.
In East Asia, Oxfam Australia currently works in seven countries, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.
In this region, Oxfam Australia has programs operating in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Oxfam Australia is involved in a wide range of advocacy campaigns:
This is a successful and ongoing campaign to raise awareness of disadvantages of Indigenous Australians. Particularly, Oxfam Australia has publicised the life expectancy gap of Indigenous Australians, who on average die almost 20 years earlier than non-Indigenous Australians. [12]
Oxfam Australia is working together with other international organisations to persuade sportswear companies to respect and implement workers’s rights. [13] Oxfam Australia supports unions and organisations in Asia to campaign for labour rights in factories, workplaces, and to lobby governments and companies to ensure the rights of workers making sportswear products are upheld. [14] The vast majority of workers who make sports gear are young women who have migrated from rural to urban areas in their own country, to earn money to support themselves and their families. Oxfam Australia also seeks to promote solutions by researching labour rights issues and making recommendations to major brands. [15] Oxfam Australia’s campaign focuses on several of the largest sports brands (including adidas and Nike) who collectively, through their suppliers, employ hundreds of thousands of workers throughout Asia. Major campaign issues include the need for sportswear companies to respect the right of workers to form and join unions (known as freedom of association) and the right to collective bargaining, ensure the payment of living wages, an end to workplace harassment and discrimination, and an end to unsafe or exploitative working conditions (often referred to as “sweatshops”).
Oxfam Australia actively lobbies Australian mining companies and governments for them to adhere to policies and practices that support the rights of disadvantaged people who might be adversely affected by mining activities. Through its Mining Ombudsman process, Oxfam Australia works to defend against human rights abuses and environmental destruction by Mining companies.
Oxfam Australia supports Publish What You Pay a campaign that lobbies mining companies to disclose monies paid to foreign governments in order to secure mining rights. Oxfam Australia believes these payments can lead to increased corruption in developing countries. [16]
Oxfam Australia put pressure on Melbourne-based miner, OceanaGold, over its Didipio gold-copper project in the Philippines. Oxfam Australia called for an Australian Federal Police investigation in 2007 after uncovering reports of bribery and human rights abuses. [17] OceanaGold subsequently halted the project in October 2008, citing poor economic conditions. [18]
Oxfam Australia believes that poor communities in developing countries will be the ones worst affected by climate change and the least able to adapt. For this reason, Oxfam Australia advocates that developed countries cut carbon emissions and provide support for people in developing countries.
Oxfam Australia questions the activities of development banks such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and particularly the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Oxfam Australia makes the point that the programs funded by these large organisations through loans to the governments of developing countries, may not always be assistive to the public good of those countries.
Oxfam Australia supported fair trade through its chain of Oxfam Shops. Oxfam Shop was a registered Fair Trade Organisation by the International Fair Trade Association. Oxfam Shop was a wholly owned subsidiary of Oxfam Australia and operated as a non profit. It worked to provide a market for food and hand crafts produced in third world countries. It had over 100,000 producer partners around the world, including Indigenous Australians. Oxfam Shops supplied up to 50% advance payment for the goods it bought and provided support for product and skills development. The final 13 Oxfam Shops were closed in 2019 and Oxfam now distributes its Fair range of coffee through existing retailers in Australia.
Oxfam Australia's biggest event is Trailwalker, which takes place annually in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. In 2009 over 700 teams of four will take part in Trailwalker Melbourne. Each team must cover 100 km in 48 hours.
Oxfam Trailwalker originated in Hong Kong in 1981 as a military training exercise for the Queens Gurkha Signals Regiment. In 1986, Oxfam Hong Kong was invited to co-organise the event and then in 1997, completely took it over. Over time, Oxfam Trailwalker became one of the largest fundraising sports events in Hong Kong and now also has massive success annually in the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Belgium.
Trailwalker is separate to the Walk Against Want, which was first held in 1967 as 45 km walk from Melbourne to Frankston. The Walk Against Want was a major Australian fundraising event in subsequent decades. Today community groups around Australia hold several Walk Against Wants throughout the year.
![]() | This article's "criticism" or "controversy" section may compromise the article's neutrality .(December 2012) |
In April 2007, two Melbourne based academics lodged formal complaints with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate Oxfam, alleging that Oxfam Australia was guilty of misleading or deceptive conduct under the Trade Practices Act, over the sale of Fairtrade coffee. They believed that Fairtrade coffee should not be promoted as helping to lift Third World producers out of poverty because growers are paid very little for their beans. [19]
Oxfam’s activism has been criticized for being misguided and ill-informed over a number of years. For example, the organization’s stance on intellectual property was said by Tim Wilson, then a policy director from the Institute of Public Affairs, to be "far too quick to blame the HIV/AIDS crisis in the developing world on patents and intellectual property regimes. But their concern does not match the facts - patents are not the major barriers preventing access to vital medicines" and that the organization "may need to decide how serious they are about fixing this problem, and perhaps consider a reconciliation with private enterprise." [20] In 2008 a report criticized Oxfam’s funding and Aid projects stating that it was "fundamentally misguided" and that "Oxfam is wrong on the economics of multilateral trade negotiations." [21]
Christian Aid is the relief and development agency of 41 Christian churches in the UK and Ireland, and works to support sustainable development, eradicate poverty, support civil society and provide disaster relief in South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.
Islamic Relief Worldwide is a faith-inspired humanitarian and development agency which is working to support and empower the world's most vulnerable people.
Save the Children Australia is an aid and development agency dedicated to helping children in Australia and overseas. It is an independent, not-for-profit and secular organisation.
Make Poverty History were organizations in a number of countries, which focused on issues relating to 8th Millennium Development Goal such as aid, trade and justice. They generally formed a coalition of aid and development agencies which worked together to raise awareness of global poverty and achieve policy change by governments. The movement has existed in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Romania, South Africa, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom. The various national campaigns were part of the international Global Call to Action Against Poverty campaign.
The Fair Trade Towns campaign is the result of a grass-roots citizens movement that started in the UK in 2001. It allows citizens to get together in order to self-proclaim their town as a region that complies with a few general Fair Trade criteria, that can be adapted from country to country but which retain their main elements.
Australian Red Cross, formally Australian Red Cross Society, is a humanitarian aid and community services charity in Australia. Tracing its history back to 1923 and being incorporated by royal charter in 1941, Australian Red Cross Society is the national member of the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and part of the International Red Cross Movement. Australian Red Cross is guided by the Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and as such is a non-religious, neutral, impartial and independent humanitarian organisation.
Traidcraft was a UK-based Fairtrade organisation, established in 1979. Its trading arm, Traidcraft plc, which sold fairly traded products, went into administration in January 2023.
Tearfund is an international Christian relief and development agency based in Teddington, UK. It currently works in around 50 countries, with a primary focus on supporting those in poverty and providing disaster relief for disadvantaged communities.
Global Justice Now, formerly known as the World Development Movement (WDM), is a membership organisation based in the United Kingdom which campaigns on issues of global justice and development in the Global South.
The Walk Against Want is an annual event held in support of Oxfam Australia, an independent organisation that works with communities in 27 countries on development projects, humanitarian relief efforts, and advocacy campaigns.
Fairtrade Fortnight is an annual promotional campaign which happens once every year, organized and funded by the Fairtrade Foundation to increase awareness of Fairtrade products. It makes use of volunteers who support the goals of Fairtrade but who may also be committed to the more general concepts of fair trade, ethical trading or concerned by development issues. The concept was pioneered by the Fairtrade Foundation in the United Kingdom, initially held in 1997 in Scotland and directed by Barnaby Miln.
The fair trade movement has undergone several important changes like the operation for ten thousand villages to open their businesses since early days following World War II. Fair trade, first seen as a form of charity advocated by religious organizations, has radically changed in structure, philosophy and approach. The past fifty years have witnessed massive changes in the diversity of fair trade proponents, the products traded and their distribution networks.
World Vision Australia (WVA) is an ecumenical Christian non-governmental organisation based in Melbourne, Australia. It is a part of the World Vision International Partnership led by World Vision International. WVA is Australia's largest overseas aid and development organisation, operating primarily to assist overseas communities living in poverty. It also carries out development work in Australia with First Nations communities.
CARE Australia is an Australian, not-for-profit, secular humanitarian aid agency assisting in disaster relief efforts and addressing the causes of global poverty in developing countries. It is one of a confederation of 12 national members of CARE International, forming one of the world’s largest international emergency aid and development assistance organisations. It was founded in 1987 by former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser who led it until 2002.
Australian People for Health, Education and Development Abroad (APHEDA), also known as Union Aid Abroad, is a non-government organisation of the Australian union movement. The non-government organisation was established in 1984 as the international aid agency of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. APHEDA was initiated in the pursuit of global justice through “stronger union and social movements, sustainable development programs, global solidarity and support in times of crisis” in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East, South Africa and the Caribbean. APHEDA is also a registered charity with the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission.
Humanitarian Accountability Partnership International, established in 2003, was the humanitarian sector's first international self-regulatory body. A multi-agency initiative working to improve the accountability of humanitarian action to people affected by disasters and other crises, HAP members ranged from organisations with a mandate for emergency relief and development activities to institutional donors. The organisation aimed to strengthen accountability towards those affected by crisis situations and to facilitate improved performance within the humanitarian sector. The ultimate goal of the organisation was to uphold the rights and the dignity of crisis-affected populations across the world.
Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent non-governmental organizations (NGOs), focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International. It began as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief in Oxford, UK, in 1942, to alleviate World War Two related hunger and continued in the aftermath of the war. By 1970, Oxfam had established an international presence, in India, Australia, Denmark, and North America.
Salil Shetty is an Indian human rights activist who was the Secretary General of the human rights organization Amnesty International (2010–2018) till 31 July 2018. Previously, he was the director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign. Before joining the UN, he served as the Chief Executive of ActionAid. Most recently, Shetty had a short stint as the Vice President of Global Programs at the Open Society Foundations.
RedR is an international NGO whose stated mission is to “rebuild lives in times of disaster by training, supporting, and providing aid workers to relief programmes across the world.” It was originally an acronym for Register of Engineers for Disaster Relief, although it is no longer used as such.
Fair trade is where a farmer or craftsperson is paid a fair price for their product, one that represents its true worth, not just the lowest price that it is possible to pay. This is a price that covers the cost of production and enables the producer to live with dignity. Fair Trade New Zealand is an organisation that was launched in 2005 which supports fair trade by ensuring that farmers and workers' rights are not exploited. According to Oxfam New Zealand, there are several companies to support fairly traded goods from, which are exported to New Zealand. From 2013-2014 there were 42 Fair Trade Licensees and Traders in New Zealand. From 2015-2016 this number rose to 54 Fair Trade Licensees and Traders in New Zealand. Gwen Green, Oxfam's Engagement Director, says: "when farmers are paid fairly for their products, we see people able to make real improvements to their lives and their communities. Producers who used to struggle to feed their families are able to give their children an education, and communities can build schools and develop businesses. It is one of the smart solutions to poverty". In 2009, Wellington became the first fair trade capital city in the Southern Hemisphere. In 2017, Whangarei was recognised by the Fair Trade Association of Australia New Zealand as being one of four fair trade councils in New Zealand, and the first fair trade district in New Zealand.