Humanitarian: Conflict and disasters

Each year, more than 35 million people flee their homes as a result of war, crime, riots, political unrest, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, typhoons, and other forms of conflict and so-called “natural” disasters. Through climate change and other causes, few of these disasters are really natural - and their number is increasing.

Millions of people are stuck in ‘half war/half peace’ situation. Peace deals are signed in places like southern Sudan or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the violence goes on almost as brutally as before. Each year, almost 200,000 people are killed in wars, but almost as many again may be killed in crime and other forms of armed violence. For many more people, their ability to make a living is destroyed by conflict, and their families are broken up.

Oxfam aims to reduce the number of people who die, fall sick or suffer deprivation as a result of conflict or natural disaster. We also aim to reduce the occurrence of conflict in the first place and reduce the number of people suffering, forced to leave their homes or become victims of violence as a result of conflict.

Responding to emergencies

Oxfam has a long track record of responding to the needs of people struck by natural or man made disasters across the world. We do thisthrough:

• providing clean water, sanitation facilities, food, health and nutrition advice etc, either directly or through national or international organisations
• Influencing the way in which the world responds to the devastation caused by conflicts and disasters. For example, pressing governments to protect their own civilians or, when necessary, for the international community to act as well; and pressing for humanitarian aid to be swifter, more generous, and more accountable to those who need it, and for people to be less vulnerable to conflict and disaster in the future
• Influencing governments to reduce the scale of conflicts and disasters, by better preparedness for climatic shocks like typhoons, and curbing the supply of arms that continue to fuel crime and violence

Oxfam strives to ensure that the systems and laws designed to protect people in times of conflict (such as the parts of the Geneva Convention which set out civilians' rights during wars) are upheld and functioning properly. Often this means putting pressure on governments to respect and act according to their obligations.

Oxfam is widely recognised as the expert in ‘public health’ in emergency situations. This includes water and sanitation (we design much of the equipment we and others use in emergencies), health promotion, food security and nutrition - in emergency situations. We usually concentrate our efforts on these areas of specialism, coordinating our efforts with other agencies, but may occasionally offer support in other areas (eg emergency shelter), if critical needs are not being met and we believe that we are best placed to help meet them.

In all our work, Oxfam needs to take into consideration how people are affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic and tailor our response appropriately. For example, people may be too weak to be involved in a programme where we provide wages for people to physically rebuild their houses.

We also recognise that women and men must have equal access to assistance and protection and that their needs may be different. We take into consideration the different social roles men and women play in the community when deciding how best to help them overcome the effects that the emergency has had on their lives.