African countries called upon to improve data collection
30/1/2025: The recent Forum on Statistical Development in Africa has highlighted the continent's lack of robust evidence-based data, essential to effective development policies. This comes at a time when many African governments are struggling to adequately fund their national statistical agencies, resulting in unreliable data in vital areas such as population.
Source: Inter Press Service
Oxfam International urges Spain to lead the global fight against inequality
27/1/2025: The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development will be held in Seville in June. Oxfam International is encouraging Spain to lead an international commitment to address the inequalities between the Global North and South.
Source: Oxfam International
Billionaire wealth surges by $2 trillion in 2024
20/1/2025: As business elites gather in Davos for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, Oxfam has released data showing that the wealth of the world’s ten richest men grew on average by almost $100 million a day during 2024. Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990.
Source: Oxfam International
What’s in the way of achieving the SDGs?
14/11/2024: Having passed the halfway point of implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, serious doubts linger regarding the attainability of these targets. Prominent figures in the global development community share thoughts on the biggest challenge to meeting the SDGs.
Source: Devex
Political narratives on poverty in India that mislead
1/6/2024: Demonstrating poverty reduction is a mainstay of political success in India and also relevant to global progress. A government agency reports that multidimensional poverty fell from 24.85 per cent to 14.96 per cent over the period 2015-2021. But the challenges of data collection, reliability and manipulation, mean that India's statistics on poverty must be treated with scrutiny.
Source: East Asia Forum
Ethiopia’s social safety net programme faces a funding gap
28/3/2024: Ethiopia’s flagship social protection programme has cut food and cash transfers to the country’s poorest households, due to rising prices and cutbacks from some international donors. The Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) was launched in 2005 as a resilience-building social safety net, now recognised as one of the most ambitious social protection programmes in Africa.
Source: The New Humanitarian
Human Development Report finds gridlock on global challenges
12/3/2024: The UN's 2023/24 Human Development Index reveals how uneven development progress is leaving the poorest behind, stoking political polarization on a global scale. The accompanying report warns that protectionist approaches cannot address the complex, interconnected challenges we face.
Source: UN Development Programme
How Africa data gaps fuel poor governance
2/2/2024: Lack of data in critical sectors in Africa is undermining public policy, according to a new study by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. In 14 African countries, the last population census was conducted before 2010, impeding plans to deliver the UN's Sustainable Development Goals such as the eradication of extreme poverty.
Source: The East African
India: Is poverty really decreasing?
23/1/2024: India claims that almost 250 million people have been lifted out of multidimensional poverty in the past nine years, according to a report by a government think tank.. However, experts have raised doubts about a lack of relevant data.
Source: DW
Wealth of five richest men doubles since 2020
15/1/2024: The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020, while nearly five billion people have been made poorer, reveals a new Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power. Oxfam urges a new era of public services, corporate regulation, breaking up monopolies and enacting taxes on permanent wealth and excess profit.
Source: Oxfam International