Welcome to the 12th FAIR-EIU Newsletter
This is a tool for sharing our work on inequality (both programmes and campaigns). FAIR enables us to scale up our influencing and programming on fiscal justice at the national level whilst aligning closely with the Even It Up Campaign, in order to have a significant impact on reducing inequality globally. Simply put, FAIR is the programme side of the inequality equation, whilst Even It Up represents the campaign side. Both work together to enable us help reduce inequality as one Oxfam.
You can also see this in French and Spanish.
- Influencing on social protection, care and fiscal justice in the context of Covid-19 in Bolivia
- Oxfam in Burkina Faso launches a CSO coalition on inequality reduction to influence the upcoming elections!
- Learning about subnational resource mobilization in Sub Saharan Africa
- Responding to Covid-19 inequalities: A People’s Vaccine and the Debt Cancellation campaign
- Gender budgeting for Fiscal Justice and Inequality Reduction in Zambia
- Influencing the debate on inequality: CRI Index and the IFI Annual Meetings
- Report on how the Uganda-Netherlands Tax Agreement benefits oil companies and deprives Uganda of essential tax revenues
- Campaigning for health services in the Solomon Islands
- Education & Inequality wins
- How to share your work in the newsletter
Happy reading!
___
Influencing on social protection, care and fiscal justice in the context of Covid-19 in Bolivia.
Based on the current pandemic context, it is expected that this year there will be a significant contraction of Bolivia’s economy between 7,1% and 5,9% of the GDP. This could be one of the biggest crises since the 1980s and there is a high risk of losing the gain of poverty and inequality indexes reduction that characterized the period from 2006 to 2018.
This crisis arrived in Bolivia at a very challenging time in terms of social inclusion: at the end of 2018, 3.9 million of the Bolivian population still lived in poverty and 1.7 million in extreme poverty. At the same time, a very important fiscal contraction occurred due to the fall of international hydrocarbon prices resulting in the decline of a substantial source of public investment.
Bolivian households´ economies have been highly affected given the governmental COVID measures. The socio-economic impact of the crisis could mean an increase of 450,000 people living in poverty in Bolivia. In this context, Oxfam in Bolivia adopted an influencing strategy with an equality approach focused on informing the public debate, including the discussions about the post-COVID envisioned social changes and recovery proposals. The strategies were:
- The generation of qualified evidence about the socio-economic impact of the COVID pandemic with emphasis on labor income, poverty and inequality. As part of this effort, the team in Bolivia launched a report titled “Who pays the bill?”, in accordance with the regional “Quién paga la cuenta” report and contributing to the global discussion about social protection.
- Enforcement of alliances with international civil society organizations, academics and decision-makers about social protection challenges in response to the emergency and the need to rethink about structural changes. As an example of this work, in order to engage in public advocacy, Oxfam participated in the reflection exchange with UN agencies #DiálogosONUBolivia.
- Contribute to an informed public opinion on the crisis effects and to the evidence based debate about the jump in fiscal policies to mitigate impacts from the crisis and accurately respond in benefit of the most vulnerable groups.
What are the lessons learnt?
- Flexibility on evidence generation agenda allowed for timely and well-qualified information support to strengthen narratives to respond to the crisis.
- Having built previous alliances with other developing agencies such as the UN about shared social concerns allowed Oxfam to relaunch the dialogue about inequality
What comes next?
- The biggest challenges for the next months will be the design of an advocacy strategy involving stakeholders such as women and youth organizations to promote the use of digital platform of monitoring social protection policies in LAC
- The advocacy strategy does not stop with “Quien paga la cuenta”. Advocacy work will continue until the end this year, addressing social protection as well as challenges on care and fiscal policy. The “Quien paga la cuenta” report is a milestone in the current ongoing advocacy work.
___
Oxfam in Burkina Faso launches a CSO coalition on inequality reduction to influence the upcoming elections!
Over the past months, the team of Oxfam in Burkina Faso has been preparing for the launch of an influencing programme on inequalities called PRIE (Programme d’Influence sur les Elections). The programme seeks to influence on the main political parties in the upcoming elections to the Presidency and General Assembly in the country in November 2020, so that they include measures to fight inequalities in their party manifestos and the policies of the new presidency coming out of the 2020 elections.
Oxfam is not doing this alone, but with a solid alliance of organisations and social movements committed to reduce inequalities in the country, featured by the Association des Femmes Juristes, the Balai Citoyen, the SPONG and the Confédération Paysanne du Faso. The project builds on the key learnt lessons of likeminded initiatives of Oxfam with local CSOs in Paraguay, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Spain and Burkina in 2015, when Oxfam and the CPF piloted a similar experience to achieve the engagement of the main political forces with the rights of peasant women.
As part of its key milestones, and as a key contribution of Oxfam to the coalition, the campaign has launched its Manifesto on Inequalities ‘Ne laissez personne sur le bord du chemin: pour une société burkinabè juste, égalitaire et unie!'’, which includes key evidence and testimonials on the collectives who are paying the price of multidimensional inequalities in the country: women, displaced people and young people from rural areas. The report comes out at a critical time, as the political parties are about to draft their manifestos, at a moment when the country is facing overlapping crisis due to the impact of covid19, internal displacement and security challenges. The report lays out key recommendations the organisations have been already advocating for in a first round of meetings with the key parties, so that the country gets closer to the demands of the people’s and social movements pushing for the democratic transition of 2015.
On September 23rd the coalition did the official launch of the initiative through a press conference that was attended by more than 30 local media. On Friday the 25th, the coalition invited and got the public commitment to reduce inequalities and promote reforms on key policy areas by the main 9 political parties running for the Presidency, and beyond the local coverage, the event was covered by key international media such as RFI (read the article here).
As next steps, the coalition is now working on the monitoring systems to survey and hold candidates accountable on their commitments to inequality. The coalition will also train journalists on inequalities to give visibility to alternative narratives putting the focus on the issue and potential solutions to reduce inequalities in the country.
You can follow up on the next steps of the project, and share the main videos, testimonials and infographics of the campaign by following its Facebook webpage and Twitter ‘Agir contre les inégalités’
___
Learning about subnational resource mobilization in Sub Saharan Africa
In September 2020, Oxfam’s FAIR Knowledge & Learning community hosted three online learning sessions for Oxfam colleagues and partners about subnational resource mobilization in Sub Saharan Africa. Over the course of three weeks, participants explored three learning questions: 1) how local governments can improve sustainable revenue; 2) how civil society can foster a mutually beneficial relationship among citizens and authorities; and 3) how extractives and other major industries can better contribute to local development. The sessions contributed to understanding the barriers to subnational resource mobilization, identifying key policy asks and practical steps that civil society can take to advance work on progressive and sustainable subnational resource mobilization.
Barriers identified include local government’s limited (digital) capacity to collect local revenues, a reliance on outsourcing the collection of revenues and lack of citizen trust in local governments resulting in a weak social contract between citizens and the state.
To tackle some of these barriers, participants identified a number of key asks. These include asks to local government to develop clear and simple communication about revenue and budget processes, asks to Ministries of Finance to eliminate harmful tax exemptions and incentives and to make progressive subnational revenue mobilization a pillar of the national revenue strategy and asks to the private sector to disclose information regarding contracts, property ownership and taxes paid. All asks can be found in this overview.
Participants heard from civil society colleagues, local government officials, academics and regional organizations like the African Tax Administration Forum, the African Property Tax Initiative and the IMF’s Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool. Listen to their presentations and conversations by accessing the recordings in this folder.
For a short summary of the content and outputs from all three sessions, have a look at this communique. If you’d like to share about your own work on subnational resource mobilization or have any questions, reach out to Judith van Neck.
___
Responding to Covid-19 inequalities: A People’s Vaccine and the Debt Cancellation campaign
Earlier this year, Oxfam became joined the People’s Vaccine Alliance, a coalition of organisations and activists united under a common aim of campaigning for a people’s vaccine for COVID-19 that is based on shared knowledge and is freely available to everyone everywhere.
Back in May 2020, more than 140 world leaders, former leaders and economists joined a call to governments to unite behind a People’s Vaccine. Ahead of the high-level Covid-19 meeting at the UNGA on 30 September, the Alliance published a joint open letter signed by Covid-19 survivors, bereaved relatives and people at increased risk from the virus. The letter urges leaders from pharmaceutical corporations to support a People’s Vaccine. There is also a short video on the new People’s Vaccine Alliance website; you can also see Oxfam’s related press release and tweets.
The Alliance believes that our best chance of all staying safe is to have a COVID-19 vaccine and treatments that are available for all - free from patents. A People's Vaccine, not a profit vaccine.
It is pushing pharmaceutical corporations to give up their monopolies and share more of their vaccine knowledge and technology, and governments to support fair access to vaccines and treatments across the world. See more on the Alliance website.
Members of the coalition include Frontline AIDS, Global Justice now, Nizami Ganjavi International Center, Oxfam STOPAIDS, UNAIDS and Wemos and works with many groups as it grows, including Amnesty, MSF, Free the Vaccine and the Yunus Centre.
Oxfam is also pushing hard for debt cancellation during the pandemic.
Oxfam's reaction to the G20 Finance Minister's October meeting on debt (where an extension of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative was agreed along with a common framework, and where we released a new report on private debt with allies titled Under the Radar) was heavily picked up across all major newswires like AP and EFE, as well as The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Wall Street Journal, and more. Under the Radar is a joint agency media briefing that shines a light on the debt owed to private creditors by five African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Zambia.
Oxfam supported a ‘Global Week of Action for Debt Cancellation’ (10-17 Oct) around the G20 meeting, including activities like an online concert and rally on 14 October; a week-long social media action called ‘Sounding the Debt Alarm’ (#DebtAlarm and #CanceltheDebt); the debt petition hand-ins and stunts in Berlin, London, Brussels, and Paris (with over 850,000 signatures between Oxfam and its allies!); and the joint statement during the week.
Meanwhile, we continued to call out the World Bank for not taking action on debt relief itself.
___
Gender budgeting for Fiscal Justice and Inequality Reduction in Zambia
On September 16th, Oxfam in Zambia – in collaboration with the National Assembly of Zambia and the Ministries of Finance and Gender – organized a virtual session with Parliamentarians on the need to make budgeting in the country gender-responsive. This followed the formulation of Zambia’s Fair Tax Monitor report, an evidence-based tool to assess the fairness of the national fiscal system. The latest FTM methodology includes stronger gender considerations, accompanied by guidelines for gender and tax. These guidelines were used to identify barriers and opportunities to gender-responsive planning and budgeting. It marked the first time the National Assembly of Zambia (NAZ) was engaging on the subject.
Key outcomes of the session included the identification of flaws within the current planning and budgeting process which did not provide enough opportunities for members of parliament to engage with their constituents to define priorities for the national budget, including gender considerations. Prior to the session, a targeted gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) training was held for national assembly staff in August 2020. It was agreed that Oxfam and partners would organize follow-up training for more staff and support the Ministries of Gender, Finance and National Development Planning to engage the parliamentarians on mainstreaming gender-responsive budgeting.
In keeping with the drive to advance gender in fiscal justice, the launch of the Fair Tax Monitor on 23 September 2020 resulted in a request by the government to Oxfam, CUTS International and the Civil Society Poverty Observatory Group (CS-POG) to explore ways – together with the Ministry of Gender and the Zambia Revenue Authority - to develop indicators and other measures that would result in segregation of tax data in terms of gender and identify opportunities for tax reform.
‘THE ZAMBIA WE WANT’ IN A CONTEXT OF DEBT AND A PANDEMIC
In October 2020, Oxfam Zambia launched a radio program series dubbed ‘The Zambia We Want’. It is a space for citizens to co-create solutions to Zambia's current governance and development challenges especially now in the run up to the 2021 elections. The overall objective of this initiative is to build active citizenship and foster social accountability through public debate, citizen and media engagement.
The ambition is not only to offer consulted responsive solutions, but also to use findings from the FTM Report to promote debate on revenue transparency and accountability for enhanced fiscal justice, especially for women and girls. A key outcome of this initiative will be an advisory note to government on all topics debated and discussed. Other topics to be discussed include private sector debt, social protection and Covid-19, women leadership, debt and youth and mining for development.
___
Influencing the debate on inequality: CRI Index and the IFI Annual Meetings
On 8 October, ahead of the World Bank and IMF annual meetings, Oxfam launched the third edition of the Commitment to Reducing Inequality index (CRI) in partnership with Development Finance International. In addition to our Davos report, the CRI is a major global product on inequality. It shows that inequality is not inevitable, but that it is a policy choice, that practical policies can be put in place to reduce the gap. You can find our press release here. This year our major focus is on the link to Covid-19. The report is packed full of interesting country stories, whether it is India having the fourth lowest health spending in the world, or South Korea providing universal benefits in response to Covid-19.
Our headline fact is that only one in six countries was spending enough on health when the virus hit.
Despite a World Bank report on poverty being released on the same day, we secured great coverage in countries all over the world, from Lebanon to Pakistan to Vietnam to Kenya to the UK and India, and Chema had a great op ed on Al Jazeera who also covered the index.
The World Economic Forum did a great video based on our results, tweeted out to their 3.8 million followers. National teams have been very active on social media too. Many countries also produced national policy briefs to accompany the launch and we have been in direct contact with governments who could be potential champions in reducing inequality. Our allies at Fight Inequality are carrying out a series of people’s assemblies this week and have a global rally on Saturday. This is just the beginning.
Check out the excellent website, www.inequalityindex.org, and please do join the conversation, tweet and retweet, using hashtag #inequalityindex.
'Oxfam and Development Finance International’s insightful investigation into what governments are actually doing to reduce inequality... provides an urgent wake up call to all governments about what can be done in terms of taxation, spending and labour policies.' --Jayati Ghosh, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Alongside the CRII, Oxfam's work at the Annuals also pushed back against the IFIs' efforts to implement austerity as part of its Covid response financing. We released hard-hitting International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank analysis on their COVID-19 financing all found in our Annuals press release.
On the IMF, our analysis finds that a whopping 84 per cent of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) COVID-19 loans encourage, and in some cases require, countries to adopt more tough austerity measures in the aftermath of the health crisis.
76 out of the 91 IMF loans negotiated since March 2020 push for belt-tightening that could result in deep cuts to public healthcare systems and pension schemes, wage freezes and cuts for public sector workers such as doctors, nurses and teachers, and unemployment benefits.
Together with this analysis, we have made open-access our dataset ‘Behind the Numbers’ on spending, accountability, and recovery measures included in the IMF’s COVID-19 loans that we’ve been compiling since March so that anyone can get a sense of the fiscal policies being discussed between their government and the IMF.
Together with allies around the world, we led a massive initiative signed by over 500 organizations and academics urging the IMF to change course and not set countries down a path of austerity in the aftermath of this pandemic (read it in English, Arabic, Spanish & French).
On the World Bank, we analysed the full set of emergency health projects that are part of the World Bank’s COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Program (SPRP) as of June 30th, covering 71 countries.
We found that only 8 out of 71 projects make any move to eliminate or suspend fees that exclude people from life-saving health care, despite fees being prohibitive in at least 56 of those countries.
Out-of-pocket healthcare expenses hit the poor and women the hardest and, prior to the pandemic, pushed 100 million people into poverty every year. You can read more in a blog on some of our key findings and this article, and in the report 'From Catastrophe to Catalyst'. You can help by sharing the report and retweeting Oxfam's messages (like this and this).
After Oxfam and DFI’s Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index showed us that most countries were completely ill-equipped to deal with the pandemic, it is clear that the above findings on both institutions are urgent challenges that need addressing.
___
Report on how the Uganda-Netherlands Tax Agreement benefits oil companies and deprives Uganda of essential tax revenues
Ahead of the meeting of European Finance Ministers (ECOFIN) on October 6th, Oxfam published a report which reveals how the Double Tax Agreement between Uganda and the Netherlands is denying Uganda a fair share of future oil revenues to the benefit of French oil major TOTAL and the Chinese oil company CNOOC.
The investigation for ‘The Money Pipeline’ report was a joint project by Oxfam in Uganda, Oxfam France and Oxfam Novib. For several months Oxfam investigated the project led by the French energy giant TOTAL, alongside with its project partner Chinese CNOOC, which allows for the exploitation of 1.4 billion barrels of oil. According to estimations in the report, Uganda could lose up to 287 million dollars in taxes for this project due to the detrimental conditions of the Double Tax Agreement (DTA) between Uganda and the Netherlands. The agreement is currently being renegotiated by both countries, as the current DTA presents Uganda-based companies with the possibility to not pay any taxes on dividends paid to companies based in the Netherlands.
Oxfam reminds European Union Member States that there are tax havens located in the heart of Europe, such as the Netherlands. Several specific requests are made to the governments of the Netherlands, Uganda and to oil companies.
Read more about why the funds that Uganda is missing out on are so essential, why the DTA between Uganda and the Netherlands needs to be renegotiated on fair terms and what recommendations Oxfam offers in the report. TOTAL has also issued a response to the study, which you can find here. For more info, get in touch with Joseph Olwenyi, Caroline Avan, or Henrique Alencar.
___
Campaigning for health services in the Solomon Islands
Oxfam in Solomon Islands, together with its partners in the SISAC coalition (Solomon Islands Social Accountability Coalition), launched their health campaign in June 2020. The quality of health services on the Islands has been degrading and health facilities struggle to access medical equipment and medicines. The stocktaking and planning to ship medicines to the different islands – a responsibility of the national government – has to be improved. There is a need for increased budget allocation by the government to health services and to prioritize health clinics in need of funding in national fiscal policies and the next fiscal year’s budget.
The campaign calls for hospitals and rural health facilities to release data about their equipment and drug supplies and how long they will last. This type of information supports better planning by the government to provide medicines and medical equipment. The campaign also asks the government to report on planned and actual expenditure for equipment and medicines and aims to support access to public health services for at least 23,000 citizens.
This access is not always there. In their ‘Uncovering the Untold’ story series, the SISAC coalition shared the experiences of citizens and health clinics around this issue. A video about the Tubi clinic on the island Simbo shows how two years ago, the clinic was dismantled and moved into the old nurses’ house, which is not up to the standards a health facility should have. The video also illustrates a lack of drugs and equipment. All throughout the campaign, the coalition has been working closely with local governments and the national government. The provincial government of the western province, where Simbo is located, was informed about the story gathering and that the story was shared on social media.
Social media has been a key component of the campaign. Decision-makers can be reached directly on the different social media platforms and the stories shared on social media received a lot of support from online audiences. The national government took action after the video about the Tubi clinic on the Simbo island was shared in June. When the coalition visited the island again in September, the clinic had been restored through a joint effort by the national government, the provincial government and the community.
The campaign is still running until February 2021. A study on the quality and effectiveness of the services of the National Referral Hospital – the country’s main referral hospital – is in the pipeline. Read more stories that the coalition shared here and here. Prefer watching videos? Find them here and here. For more information about the campaign, get in touch with Nerol Vaekesa.
___
Some excerpts/updates on wins from ECPI
There is a lot of exciting work happening across Oxfam on education & inequality, and we wanted to pull out a few especially exciting recent pieces to share here. You can read more in the latest Education Community of Practice for Influencing newsletter.
Win for education in Brasil!
Oxfam Brasil teamed up with partner Ação Educativa to influence domestic policies to assure funding to public education. The pledge to turn Fundeb into a permanent education funding mechanism through a Constitutional Amendment has been debated since 2015. On August 25th 2020, the team had a historical win as the education funding mechanism Fundeb was approved by the National Congress. As a result Fundeb is now a permanent fund to finance public Basic Education in the country; learn more here on why this is so important.
The win came after intense lobby work from the side of Ação Educativa and Oxfam Brasil, that included handing in a petition (over 26,000 signatures) to a senator in an online session before the vote took place. The next steps for the Brazilian education spike include influencing the regulations of Fundeb. One of the gains is that this budget mechanism has been made permanent! You can also read more here.
It is a way to do participatory budgeting for quality public education so it could provide learning for other contexts. If you want to learn more about CAQ (Custo Aluno Qualidade/Cost of Initial Quality Education per Learner), please see here (English) or here (Portuguese, updated). For further information, contact Maitê Gauto, Head of Programs, Advocacy & Campaigns, Oxfam Brasil.
Advocacy win on the World Bank-funded Project STARS in India
The World Bank approved the loan for STARS project in June. Oxfam India mobilised around 1400 civil society members to raise collective voice against the loan. The mobilisation also created a buzz in the media, social media and among the key stakeholders like World Bank board and India’s Minister of State for Education. As a result of the mobilisation, the clause regarding spending 20 per cent of the loan amount on non-state actors was dropped in revised Project Information Document, along with a commitment to an Oxfam-convened roundtable for greater consultation on the loan.
___
Newsletter stories: we want YOU!
Do you want to share about your work in the next edition of the FAIR-EIU newsletter? Please get in touch with Judith or Rebecca. We’d love to hear from you!
Credits:
photos: Oxfam & credited individuals with Oxfam