Oxfam West Africa Blog

Africa in control of its fortune

By Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International

Several African countries are amongst today’s fastest growing economies in the world, boosted in many instances by new discoveries of oil, natural gas and strategic mineral reserves. Extreme poverty on the continent is in decline, and progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals has accelerated. A number of very poor African countries, including Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Ethiopia have made recent and substantial improvements in their levels of income equality.

Yet Africa’s impressive growth is not shared by millions of its people. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to a third of the world’s poorest people, and six of the top 10 most unequal countries in the world. Where income inequality is high, the benefits of economic growth are inaccessible to poor people. Poverty and exclusion are bad for social stability, preventing productive investment and undermining growth itself.

The continent’s potential is also being undermined by illicit capital hemorrhaging out of African countries – often in the form of tax evasion and trade mispricing by multinational oil, gas and mining companies, and in collusion with corrupt elected officials. In 2010, Africa’s oil, gas and mineral exports amounted to $333 billion. But estimates of illicit financial outflows from Africa are up to $200 billion annually, dwarfing the development aid it receives.

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Still celebrating Nigeria’s parliamentary approval of landmark Bill on gender based violence. We ask what, and who, made the difference…. third time around?

RAISING HER VOICES PROJECT IN NIGERIA

 In light of meeting one of its key objectives which is “Putting Women’s Rights at the heart of all what we do” Oxfam has implemented the ‘Raising Her Voice Project’, a portfolio of projects in 17 countries across the world which focuses on improving governance and transparency by recognizing and increasing the significant contribution poor women can make to public life and in promoting their own rights. The project employs four approaches to reach its objectives: networking, lobbying and advocacy with poor women activists; working with public/traditional institutions and decision making forums; empowering and building capacity of CSOs.

In Africa, the RHV project is implemented in 8 countries including Nigeria with the same goal of strengthening national legislation, adequate budgeting and implementation of the AU Protocol on the Rights of Women through community popularization and advocacy activities. Oxfam GB has supported Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA) to work with the African Union, the Nigerian Government and CSOs in Nigeria to ultimately enable the domestication of the Protocol in Nigeria by 2012.

The Raising Her Voice ( RHV ) Project officially took off in Nigeria on 5^th August 2008 and has just come to an end on April 2013 and time has come to talk about its successes.

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Learning the Lessons in the Sahel

By Elise Ford, Oxfam Humanitarian Campaign Manager

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Learning the Lessons: Why is change NOT happening in the response to hunger crises?

I know I go on all the time about ‘how change happens’, but often in development the important question is ‘why doesn’t change happen?’, and we need to get better at answering it.

On Tuesday Oxfam published Learning the lessons, an analysis of the response to the 2012 Sahel food crisis, which affected some 18m people across 9 countries. It’s a serious piece of work, drawing on interviews with 30 external bodies – donors, governments etc, other published research, focus group discussions with affected communities and perspectives from civil society. Continue »

« Après cette évaluation, je porte un autre regard sur la situation des femmes déplacées au Mali »

Kadidiatou Yara est chargée de programme Education et coordinatrice d’un projet de rétention des filles à l’école pour Oxfam à Bamako depuis 2010. Elle a fait partie de l’équipe d’Oxfam qui a conduit une évaluation en février 2013 dans les régions de Mopti et de Ségou, au centre du Mali.

Kadidiatou Yara, chargée de programme Education et coordinatrice d’un projet de rétention des filles à l’école pour Oxfam à Bamako

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2013 International Women’s Day Celebrations in Ghana

Women smallholder farmers  in Ghana find the voices to advocate for responsive
government policies on the International Women’s Day

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Célébration de la journée Internationale de la femme au Niger

Posté par Rassidatou Gakoye,

Responsable de l’ Information Oxfam Niger

Journée Internationale de la Femme: Une journée spéciale pour les femmes… et pour les hommes qui aiment les femmes !! 

Toute l’équipe du bureau est réunie pour célébrer ensemble la journée de la Femme

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Célébration de la journée de la Femme à Oxfam au Sénégal

Les panélistes de la conférence du 8 MARS à Oxfam America

Ce 8 Mars 2013, Oxfam  au Sénégal a encore tenu à rendre hommage  à la femme. Cette année, la manifestation avait comme thème «  le combat des femmes Sénégalaises pour l’accès aux instances de décision ». Après le mot de bienvenue et une brève présentation d’Oxfam America qui a accueilli la cérémonie, nous  avons  assisté à  une conférence débat  sur l’avancée de la lutte pour les droits des femmes avec un grand focus sur la parité. Comme panélistes, Mme Diarra Bousso Fall Coordonatrice du réseau genre du CONGAD (Conseil des Organisations non gouvernementales d’Appui au Développement), Mme Nafissatou Wade Directrice de Société Immobilière, consultante Experte en Urbanisme Aménagement et développement local et Monsieur Ousseynou Ka Juriste, Chef de la Division des Affaires Juridiques de la Réglementation et de la Formalisation. L’échange a été surtout axé sur l’égalité de représentation des hommes et des femmes dans les instances de décision communément appelé parité et  dans ce sens, les deux représentantes de la gente Féminine ont dressé l’état des lieux de la promotion du droit de la  femme au Sénégal. Des lois en faveur des femmes ont étés votées certes mais le grand problème réside en leur application.

Natahalie, Khady, Awa, Elisabeth, Baye Waly, Abladia Dia, Guorgui & Fatime

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Journée Internationale de la Femme au MALI