Where We Work

Laos

Country Profile

Oxfam Aotearoa supported a programme in Lao PDR from 16 June 2022 – 31 October 2023 that focused on vulnerable communities, especially women, affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in Vientiane Capital, Vientiane, Oudomxay, Xayaburi and Bokeo Provinces ensuring they were able to cope with the worst economic impacts of the pandemic and enhance their livelihoods resilience. Support included cash transfers and livelihoods support such as poultry and livestock. The extended and expanded programme, supported with $2 million from New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, will include a component delivering cash transfers for inclusive and participatory community projects. that will provide small-scale business capacity building and strengthening livelihoods support, especially to vulnerable communities.

KEY PROJECTS

Essential Cash and Livelihoods Project

This support programme provides crucial assistance to communities facing severe economic challenges exacerbated by various factors, including impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic and climate-related disasters.

By supporting Oxfam you will:

Support local efforts to improve land rights in Timor-Leste to ensure more women own and control the land they farm
Contribute to local legal aid for women seeking to navigate land registration processes
Help educate farmers about their rights and how to protect them
Improve women’s access to climate finance
Ensure that there is greater transparency around how climate finance is used, especially in how it addresses the needs of women

Tuvalu

Country profile:

One of the smallest and most remote countries on Earth, Tuvalu is comprised of nine coral atolls in the South Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and Australia. The islands are extremely low-lying and sea level rise is a direct threat to lives, assets, livelihoods and ecosystems. Other climate-induced threats include rising atmospheric and surface ocean temperatures, prolonged droughts, coral bleaching, tropical cyclones, storm surges, and salt spray.

Tuvalu is primarily a patriarchal and patrilineal society, and men dominate both traditional and formal political power structures. Historically, major social institutions have been family-based under the leadership of the matai (head of clan), and deep-seated social norms discourage women from contributing to public decision-making processes.

FACT SHEET

Capital: Funafuti
Population: 11, 639 with over half of the population residing on the atoll of Funafuti (2023)
Covers 26 sq km of land area
Tuvalu gained independence from the UK in 1978
66% of the population live in urban areas
26.3% of the population live below the poverty line
91% of the population have access to improved sanitation and clean drinking water (2023)
20% of the youth population (between ages 15-24) are unemployed (2023)
Tuvaluans spend an average of 10.5 years in school (2020)
46% of women (over age 15) participate in the workforce (2021)

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands is an archipelago of more than 900 islands in the South Pacific. The people in this country face significant challenges across the areas of climate resilience, gender equity and inclusive governance.

Recent research shows climate finance flows are increasing, but that does not necessarily mean that climate finance is adequate or that finance is translating into concrete benefits on the ground.

Women in Solomon Islands face a number of systemic and deep-rooted barriers to full participation, including heavily male-dominated decision-making systems and practices, reinforced by gender stereotypes that portray women as less able than men to lead or make decisions.

Women are often prevented from gaining leadership positions because of low levels of education, a high burden of family care responsibility, high levels of violence, and underlying discriminatory social norms. As a result, women’s voices and priorities are often absent or secondary in decision-making within the household, the community, provincial government plans and national policies.

Quick facts from the World Bank, UN Human Development Report, and UNICEF:

Capital of Solomon Islands: Honiara
Population: 800,005 (2023)
GDP per capita (USD): $2,041.6 (2023)
Human Development Index: 0.606, rank 141 (2021)
Language: English is the official language, but Solomon Islands pijin is the lingua franca. There are over 80 different local languages plus dialects.
Adult Literacy: 76.6 (2024)
Life expectancy: 71 years (2022)
Access to safe water: 67% (2021)
People living below the national poverty line: 26.6% (2012)

By supporting Oxfam You will:

Improve women’s access to climate finance
Ensure that there is greater transparency around how climate finance is used, especially in how it addresses the needs of women

Key Project

Climate Finance and Empowerment Project

This project seeks to ensure that climate finance decision-makers factor in the needs of women in Solomon Islands.

Decision making around climate finance must be inclusive, equitable, and transparent, so that all people have the power to influence the decisions that impact them.

Bangladesh

COUNTRY PROFILE

Bangladesh is facing one of its worst flooding crises in recent history. Relentless rainfall, overflowing rivers, and water releases from India have triggered flash floods across 12 districts, including Feni, Cumilla, Chittagong, and Sylhet. Over 5.7 million people have been affected, with at least 23 lives lost. Homes, infrastructure, and vast areas of farmland are destroyed, leaving millions without access to necessities like food, clean water, and medical care. The situation is particularly dire in remote areas, where blocked roads have severely hampered rescue and relief efforts.

Oxfam has swiftly mobilized to provide life-saving assistance to the most vulnerable communities. Our teams deliver essential supplies, conduct needs assessments and coordinate with local partners to ensure an effective and inclusive response. On the ground, Oxfam distributes essential supplies like water, ORS, dry food, and mobile charging points to those in need.

The Rohingya Crisis in Bangladesh is a protracted humanitarian and refugee crisis that emerged from the long-standing tensions between the Rohingya Muslim minority and the Myanmar government. In 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled their homes, embarking on treacherous journeys to seek safety in neighbouring countries, particularly Bangladesh.

Bangladesh, already grappling with its own economic and social challenges, found itself burdened with hosting a massive influx of Rohingya refugees. Since 2017, the country has provided shelter to over a million Rohingya refugees, making it the world’s largest refugee settlement.

To date, the Rohingya Crisis remains one of the largest and most complex humanitarian crises in the region. The 2023 Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis Joint Response Plan [JRP] identifies more than 1.7 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, including the refugees sheltered in Cox’s Bazar and Bashan Char, as well as in host communities in Ukhiya and Teknaf.

Key projects

Oxfam is working to enhance the safe drinking water supply and sanitation facilities in the villages in the northeastern Haor region which are resilient to flooding, and thereby improving the public health, dignity of the community, particularly women, adolescent girls and children. This will involve:

Enhancing Safe Water Supply: Based on the proven success and effectiveness of the system, Oxfam is installing solar-powered mini water supply networks and developing more reliable and sustainable water sources to ensure year-round access to safe drinking water. Water is then supplied to household premises for drinking, cooking, and personal hygiene purposes.
Improving Sanitation: Constructing hygienic and durable household-attached latrines that are easily accessible and ensure privacy and safety, especially for women and girls. This will include the use of semi-centralised septic tanks or raised sealed pit latrines in areas where the location and topography are challenging.
Promoting Hygiene Practices: Promoting better hygiene practices through community engagement, hygiene promotion sessions will be conducted through women’s platforms, as women are primarily responsible for water collection, cleaning children, and food preparation. The OXFAM approach of “Mom’s Magic Hand” will be incorporated into these sessions.
Building Community Resilience: During hygiene sessions, disaster-related information will be disseminated through women WASH platforms. Awareness messaging will emphasise various disaster risk reduction techniques, available facilities, and general awareness.

By supporting Oxfam you will

Help to provide water and sanitation and adapting to better deal with the crowded conditions.
Install sewage facilities that will eventually service over 100,000 people.
Drill wells and install water points, toilets and showers.
Help local communities cope with water shortages through deliveries of chlorinated water.
Help people stay healthy and hygienic with soap and other essentials.
Support and train community-based volunteers to emphasize the importance of clean water and good hygiene.

Papua New Guinea

Amongst the country’s towering mountains, deep valleys and tropical forests lie a multitude of communities all with their own languages, cultures and histories. Rural Papua New Guinea is home to 80% of the population, yet these families have seen few benefits from the country’s thriving gas and oil industry due to corruption across political, legal and state institutions.

These barriers combined with challenging physical geography and poor infrastructure, such as roads, have stunted economic development in these rural areas. This makes it hard for locals to sustainably engage in anything more than subsistence farming as often transporting their crops to the larger, lucrative markets in the cities is unaffordable. Unsurprisingly, income inequality in PNG is the highest in the Asia Pacific region. Growth-fuelled inflation is causing further imbalances, meaning basic items are often too expensive for rural farmers.

Statistics from the UNDP Human Development Report and The World Factbook:

Capital: Port Moresby
Population: 7,027,332 (2018)
The largest island in the Pacific
80% of the population live in rural areas
39.9% of the population lives below the basic needs poverty line (2021)
69.2% of the population have no access to limited-standard drinking water (2021)
79.8% have no access to limited-standard sanitation (2021)
82.6% have no access to electricity (2021)
93.7% of employed women are engaged in informal employment like subsistence agriculture and local trading. (2019)
70% of women experience a form of physical and sexual assault in their lifetime, and are five times more likely to be victimised at home than on the street. (2017)

BY SUPPORTING OXFAM YOU WILL

Improve health through improved education and increased access to clean water, new toilets and showers, in rural schools and health facilities.
Construct new water points, tanks, pipes and pumps in villages, schools, and healthcare centres.
Reduce stigmas and improve girls’ attendance at school by providing sanitation and menstrual hygiene education for teachers and students.
Build awareness among government stakeholders about the importance of funding and maintaining water and hygiene infrastructure in schools, health centres and other public spaces.

FLOW Programme

Oxfam’s FLOW programme works with local partners to improve access to basic sanitation and safe water, and promote hygiene practices in rural schools and health facilities in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

About half of Papua New Guinea’s population live in the Highlands (approximately 3 million people) but many of these people have limited or no access to clean water or sanitation services.

By building water tanks, latrines, showers and by promoting good hygiene, we’re helping over 32,000 people stay healthy. In addition, installing private toilets in schools means that teenage girls can continue their education, rather than staying home on days they have their periods.

PAST PROGRAMMES

Oxfam’s HARVEST project worked with local partners to improve the income and lives of over 2,000 families so they could send their kids to school, access decent healthcare and reliably put nutritious food on the table.

This programme helped farming families boost the quality and quantity of their vegetable yields by improving planting and pest-control techniques. This means they can shift from subsistence to market-oriented farming.

With more knowledge, these farmers can then access larger, more profitable markets. We also partnered with two local honey businesses to train and support beekeepers. This doubled the incomes of many families.

As their incomes grew, we helped women and men develop financial management skills to jointly plan, budget, and save for their financial goals. To improve the security of their savings, we also linked them with community-savings providers.

Vanuatu

Country profile

Vanuatu is a lush archipelago of more than 80 scattered volcanic islands. Agriculture, fishing, offshore financial services and tourism are the main drivers of Vanuatu’s economy, yet border closures brought on by Covid-19 have had a devastating impact on the tourism sector, dramatically reducing the number of jobs available to young people.

Vanuatu is highly at-risk for natural hazards. Because Vanuatu is so vulnerable to natural disasters, it has been critically important to improve how we can deliver aid in the wake of a destructive cyclone, flood or storm. For example, in March 2023, two Category 4 tropical cyclones (TC Judy and TC Kevin) hit Vanuatu with two days. These massive storms affected 66% of the total population causing significant damage to homes, businesses, and infrastructure with storm surges, flooding, and heavy winds.

In addition to vulnerability to weather disasters, young people in Vanuatu must navigate an economy of high unemployment, low wages and expensive housing. Ni-Vanuatu youth have limited access to secondary education, with only 11.9% of young people staying on through Grade 13 (the final year of secondary school). Many must leave school early because they cannot afford the tuition and fees, and must instead earn money to help support their families. This has left Ni-Vanuatu youth in the precarious position of being unable to afford advanced education but with only limited low-wage opportunities elsewhere.

Key statistics

Capital: Port Vila
Population: 319,000 (2021)
Population below the basic needs poverty line: 15.9% (2021)
Infant mortality rate: 21.07 deaths/1,000 live births (2021)
Life expectancy at birth: 65.31 (2020)
Population affected by natural disasters: 64% (2021)
Vanuatu ranks 140/189 countries on the UNDP’s Human Development Index (2020)
The average annual income per person in Vanuatu is US$5,593. By comparison, in New Zealand it is US$39,583 (Sources: World Inequality Database, 2021 and Statz NZ, 2021)
Children go to school for an average of just 6.8 years (2017)
There are currently zero seats held by women in Vanuatu’s Parliament

PAST PROJECTS

Oxfam’s Enhancing Youth Employment and Leadership programme (EYEL) partners with Youth Challenge Vanuatu (YCV) to help bridge the gap between young people eager to learn and work and the jobs that they could succeed in. Through training programmes in leadership, business and computer skills, as well as internship placements, YCV supports young people to build the skills that will make them competitive in the job market and even offer start-up grants for young entrepreneurs.

This project was officially started in April 2018 and is set to finish around June 2023. The overall objective is to increase the number of young men and women, including marginalised youth, that are leading economic and social development in Vanuatu.

Oxfam Aotearoa’s partnership with Youth Challenge Vanuatu has improved young people’s access to education and work experience. After completing YCV’s programmes, Ni-Vanuatu youth have more experience, confidence, and the skills necessary to secure jobs that pay a living wage.

Oxfam’s UnBlocked Cash Project
The massive number of people requiring humanitarian assistance has been growing in recent years due to climate-caused disasters. Vanautu is particularly prone to climate-caused disasters and has suffered extensive damage from Category 5 cyclones (TC Pam and TC Harold) in recent years.

Oxfam’s UnBlocked Cash project is set to tackle this challenge. It offers an opportunity to improve how aid is delivered without compromising the dignity of beneficiaries. Using blockchain technology, beneficiaries receive “tap-and-pay” cards which they can use to purchase the goods or services they need. Local vendors can process payments using smartphones with a pre-installed app. This system saves costs and reduces delivery time for distributing aid, brings more transparency and accountability to the process, and ensures that people in need are able to get the things they need, rather than make do with whatever supplies are being made available.

The project originated in 2019 in areas of Vanuatu where the severity of Tropical Cyclone Harold and COVID-19 restrictions had significantly reduced income and livelihoods, particularly amongst households with pre-existing vulnerabilities. Oxfam’s UnBlocked Cash project won the European Union 2020 Horizon Prize for Blockchain for Social Good in Aid category, supporting further scaling of the project beyond the Pacific region. It has also been selected as the winner of the 2020 World Summit Awards in the Inclusion & Empowerment category.

Drawing from what we learned in Vanuatu, this project has been scaled out to Papua New Guinea, where heavy rains in April 2020 caused floods and landslides in several provinces, and will be deployed to Solomon Islands next year.