OUR ORGANIZATION

We work with activists and partner groups to fight inequality to overcome poverty and injustice. We campaign for economic, gender, climate justice and accountable governance, striving for sustainable growth and transformation. We fight for a future that is equal, just and fair – one in which people have more equal opportunities and rights, and one in which we can all flourish, not just survive.

Oxfam began life as a non-profit organization (the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief in Oxford in the UK) in 1942. We are now a worldwide movement to fight poverty and injustice through humanitarian and development work and through advocacy, campaigns and influencing.

We work in accordance with constitutional aims to relieve poverty and suffering and combat distress in any part of the world regardless of race, gender, creed or political beliefs. We protect lives and livelihoods when disaster strikes. We work to tackle not just the symptoms but the systems of inequality. 

Oxfam is a global confederation (groups united in an alliance) that includes 21 Oxfam member organizations, or ‘affiliates’ in different countries. The affiliates have their own governance, fundraising operations and areas of work; they are independent entities in service of the same mission within the global strategy framework. The affiliates host their own websites and produce their own Annual Reports. 

‘Prospective affiliates’ are organizations on the journey to full affiliation with Oxfam. As part of our commitment to global balance and to developing Oxfam as a diversified network, we are working to increase the number of Oxfam affiliates in the Global South. 

A list of affiliates and prospective affiliates can be found here. 

The Oxfam confederation as a whole employs 8,279 people.

This includes staff in the Oxfam International Secretariat (OIS) offices, headquartered in Nairobi (with an office in Oxford, public engagement and advocacy offices); staff employed by our affiliates; staff in our country, cluster and regional offices; and the Global Humanitarian Team (GHT) – a team providing technical support and capacity strengthening for humanitarian responses that includes rapidly deployable humanitarian support personnel.

 The breakdown is shown below.

A confederation-wide Safeguarding Network supports this commitment through the review and strengthening of our strategy, policies and procedures, and the provision of safeguarding measures, including a case management system. The safeguarding function is managed with oversight from the Safeguarding and Culture Forum. 

While we continue to mature and strengthen the safeguarding function at confederation level, we aim to ensure that our safeguarding activities are contextualized to the places where we work. In-country and regional safeguarding staff are key to our safeguarding practices. 

In 2023–24 we undertook a range of capacity-building initiatives to ensure that everyone who represents the organization is aware of their safeguarding responsibilities, appropriate behavior, and how to report when someone has a concern. Partner organizations and communities, along with vendors and suppliers, also received training on safeguarding concepts and practice. 

We developed the One Oxfam Safeguarding Strategy for 2024–28, to incorporate the growing maturity in our practice, to respond to changes in stakeholder requirements, to meet our organizational commitments and to align our work both towards international best practice and our values. Our vision is for our work to mature and strengthen, creating safe environments for everyone connected to us.  

Safeguarding teams work with others in the sector to improve our understanding of safeguarding and of how to influence positively the workplace culture, with the goal of preventing safeguarding incidents.

Our vision is for our work to mature and strengthen, creating safe environments for everyone connected to us

Oxfam is committed to ensuring that its systems, procedures and practices reduce the risk of occurrences to a minimum. We implement contextualized approaches to tackle risk, in accordance with our Anti-Fraud and Corruption Strategy. 

We recognize that success in tackling fraud and corruption is contingent on more than one activity, at more than one level of the organization, and we are committed to the use of a holistic anti-fraud and corruption strategy, supported and embedded at every level, in projects, departments, countries, regions and affiliates.  

Our strategy is to improve our fraud resilience, while embracing the Oxfam values of equality, empowerment, solidarity, inclusiveness, accountability and courage, and keeping aligned with our Code of Conduct. 

In 2023–24 we conducted a review of the Control Self-Assessment (CSA) process in countries and regions. The CSA provides a framework for helping organizations manage risks in achieving their business objectives. It involves a structured approach to documenting business objectives, risks and controls. We conducted interviews with over 42 colleagues in our countries and regions. We then launched a working group to address the findings and propose recommendations for improvements.   

We are exploring with our affiliates the launch of a working group to improve our internal audits, with the goal of making them more effective in managing our risks and to ensure they are fully in line with Oxfam values.   

The Oxfam International Secretariat continues to be responsible for the global case management system (GCM) for misconduct and the sanctions screening system. The latter screens for terrorism financing when engaging new staff, suppliers and partner organizations, and checks names against sanctions lists made by governments and international organizations such as the UN.  As part of our continuous improvement efforts for case management, in 2023–24, we launched five working groups to improve the GCM.  

We have started updating our Policy and Standard Operating Procedures for Prevention of Anti-Terrorism Financing and Aid Diversion, with the goal of finalizing it in the financial year 2024–25.

Our strategy is to improve our fraud resilience, while embracing the Oxfam values of equality, empowerment, solidarity, inclusiveness, accountability and courage, and keeping aligned with our Code of Conduct

Acting on global warming and reducing the impact of climate crisis has become ever more urgent, particularly for those most affected, many of whom are in the communities that Oxfam works with and serves.

Oxfam has pledged to reach Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. In 2021 we signed the Climate and Environment Charter for Humanitarian Organizations, which affirms our commitments to improve the environmental sustainability of our work, rapidly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and monitor and report on our progress each year.  

 Having established Oxfam’s base year emissions in 2022–23, Oxfam is using this data both to identify priority actions to reduce these emissions and to set interim 2030 reduction targets. Staff have worked to improve the quality of the reporting and to expand its scope, to include both the supply chain emissions from the goods and services that Oxfam buys, and from commuting by staff – two significant sources of emissions. Flights by Oxfam staff for work are a necessary component of our operations, as an international organization working across 81 countries, and their reduction is also a target for improvement. We have had an Oxfam Responsible Flying Policy in place since 2022, we are committed to reducing our emissions in this area.