As world leaders meet in New York at a special summit on poverty - the High-Level Event on the Millennium Development Goals – aid agency Oxfam has slammed the lack of urgency by the international community in tackling the ongoing food crisis now affecting close to one billion people.
As a part of a global campaign led by Oxfam called in my name, celebrities and dignitaries have recorded video clips to pressure governments to work harder to meet the MDGs that aim to halve global poverty by 2015.
Kevin Rudd’s attendance at Thursday’s UN meeting on aid and development in New York is vital to help ensure that the needs of poor people in our region - struggling with the crippling impacts of rising food and fuel prices and climate change - are well represented at the international forum.
Thousands of Australians are calling on the Rudd Government to reinstate anti-racist legislation suspended by the Howard Government last year in order to push through the controversial Northern Territory Intervention.
Poor countries around the world are feeling the impact of climate change, but the answers are in the industrialised world, writes Oxfam Australia’s Media Coordinator Laurelle Keough.
If the Rudd Government accepts Professor Ross Garnaut’s climate change advice Australia will fall behind much of the developed world in greenhouse gas reduction, the Make Poverty History coalition said today.
International aid agency Oxfam said it was working as quickly as possible to deliver help to people hit hard by the devastating floods in Bihar, India but said much more was required to meet the needs of the more than 2.7 million people affected.
Today’s high level international meeting on aid effectiveness is an important opportunity to make aid work better for poor people, International aid agency Oxfam said today.
Learn how climate change is affecting communities in Africa and find out how to contribute to the solution at a Make Poverty History Climate Change Forum – An African Story on Climate Change, on Thursday 11 September.
Oxfam Australia welcomed the Rudd Government’s announcement of $14.8 million to help vulnerable Pacific countries adapt to the effects of climate change, but warned that the government’s contribution would need to increase to at least $300 million annually to tackle the rapidly escalating problem around the world.