Since the beginning of 2022, Oxfam Canada has played a role in funding the current UN humanitarian appeal for Somalia, raising awareness of gender-based financial inequality, and calling for help in the struggle the Philippines has been facing in recovering from last month’s massive Typhoon Rai.
The Humanitarian Crisis in Somalia
Somalis are currently facing a severe food and water crisis. In Oxfam’s report, 7.7 million people in various locations across Somalia are currently witnessing an increase in humanitarian needs as there has been a lack of rainfall for a third consecutive season. It is possibly the worst drought in 40 years, and an estimated 3.2 million people are already suffering from a worsening drought. 1.4 million people will also be displaced in the coming months. Moreover, gastrointestinal issues are spreading due to lack of sufficient clean water and hygiene services. Oxfam has called upon all donors including institutional donors, corporates, foundations, and individual philanthropic donors to urgently fund the current UN humanitarian appeal in order to respond to the escalating drought crisis in Somalia before it is too late. Currently, 98 percent of the UN humanitarian appeal for Somalia of $1.46 billion USD has yet to be met and remains severely underfunded, but there is still great hope to fix the humanitarian crisis.
The Extreme Inequality of Economic Violence
In the past 2 years over the global pandemic, the fortune of Canadian Billionaires has doubled from $875 billion to $1.9 trillion CAD, and they now have six times more wealth than the world’s poorest 3.1 billion people. Oxfam says that inequality is contributing to the death of at least 21,000 people each day, or one person every four seconds. This is a conservative finding based on deaths globally from lack of access to healthcare, gender-based violence, hunger, and climate breakdown. Diana Sarosi, Oxfam Canada’s director of policy and campaigns says “Not only have our economic structures made all of us less safe against this pandemic, but they are also actively enabling those who are already extremely rich and powerful to exploit this crisis for their own profit.” The world’s response to the pandemic has unleashed this economic violence particularly acutely across racialized, marginalized and gendered lines. Oxfam has made recommendations to the government to increase taxes on the new wealth that billionaires have accumulated, tackle sexist and racist laws that discriminate against women and racialized people and enforce laws to protect the rights of workers to unionize and strike.
The Philippines struggle to recover from last month’s Typhoon Rai
The Philippines is struggling to recover from last month’s massive Typhoon Rai that caused losses worth 11.1 billion Php ($215m) to agricultural crops and farmland and another 17.5 billion Php ($330m) damages to homes, roads, electricity and water lines. Oxfam roundly criticized the last COP26 climate talks for showing an “appalling disregard“ for a financial plan needed to compensate The Philippines for loss and damage. Oxfam has urged rich countries to honour their promises not only to cut carbon emissions to avoid a catastrophic global temperature rise but to also increase the funding for mitigation and adaptation. Climate-fuelled extreme weather events, compounded by the economic fallout from COVID-19 and existing inequalities, have pushed millions of vulnerable people in The Philippines to the brink of hunger and poverty. Oxfam is urgently calling for four million Euros to help support its part of the collective humanitarian response in the country.
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