Climate, conflict, and COVID-19 crisis in Horn of Africa

A man with dark skin and brown eyes stands in the centre of a large herd of thin, ailing camels whose hip bones are protruding. The man, who is very thin himself, is looking at us directly and wears a plaid shirt, dark pants and prayer beads and carries a walking stick.

A combination of factors is spreading suffering across the region. Oxfam is working with partners to alleviate hunger and push for solutions. Countries in the Horn of Africa are enduring severe hunger, with near-famine conditions in some areas, due to conflict, climate-induced weather shocks (flooding in some countries, drought in others) and COVID-19. Oxfam is…

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Inequality Kills

Green background with a drawing of an old weigh scale and the left scale is higher than the right. Written overtop in white is quality kills.

Inequality contributes to the death of at least one person every four seconds. Ahead of the Davos Agenda — the World Economic Forum’s virtual State of the World sessions — Oxfam released our annual inequality report, Inequality Kills, which found that inequality is contributing to the death of at least 21,000 people each day, or…

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Omicron, the variant we all saw coming

An open flat of COVID-19 vaccines that read "VACCINE: Coronavirus SARS-COV-2

A new heavily mutated COVID-19 variant, Omicron, is causing global alarm − triggering travel bans and putting scientists on alert. This latest variant is now radically different from the original strand that emerged in China, raising questions about whether vaccines will be as effective. It was entirely predictable that mutations would arise in Africa, the…

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