Statement on Oxfam's Activities at the Summits

Oxfam tackles poverty and injustice from several angles:

• We support the work of grassroots organizations in some of the world’s poorest countries, so they can help people living in poverty improve their lives and livelihoods.
• We respond in emergency situations – natural disasters and conflicts – to protect women and girls, men and boys from death and disease, helping them on the road to recovery.
• We advocate for changes in the policies and practices that create poverty and inequality and put people at risk, making them less self-sufficient.

Our experience tells us that if we don’t take action to advocate for human rights and tackle the underlying causes of poverty, our efforts to help people help themselves will be hampered by those who put their own short-term interests before the needs of the majority.

For that reason, we have always worked to influence governments to make good decisions in the public interest. This work includes documenting the experience of people living in poverty, analyzing barriers to progress and presenting alternatives.

It also includes presenting our views to government, raising public awareness and mobilizing public support for action to end poverty.

We have been very successful over the years. We can point to examples where our efforts, alongside those of others, have contributed to important changes in policy and needed increases in funding.

For example:

• Ten times more people today have access to treatment and care for HIV/AIDS.
• Free health care in Tanzania has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of children who survive their first five years.
• Free education in Zambia has resulted in a huge spike in school enrollment among young girls.

When we invest more in better aid, we save lives, build economies and set in place the foundation for active citizens and effective states.

Right now one billion people go to bed hungry each night, a woman dies in childbirth every minute, more than 70 million children are not attending school, and climate change is putting an ever increasing number of lives and livelihoods in jeopardy.

G8 leaders can play a critical role in marshalling the will and the resources to tackle these urgent issues.

And so we are here in Toronto with our Oxfam colleagues from around the world, asking world leaders to keep their promises and to invest in the future.

One of the ways we do this is using stunts and props – including the world-famous Oxfam Big Heads – to support our media and mobilizing efforts. First unveiled at the Kananaskis G8 in 2002, the Big Heads are intended to be sassy but not disrespectful. We want to attract the attention of the media and to energize our supporters.

As the G8 meets in Canada, our overseas partners and many of our Canadian supporters are looking to us to play an active role in calling on G8 leaders to keep their promises and invest in the future. We take this responsibility very seriously and remain committed to doing so in a peaceable, effective manner.