Word: oxfam
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...private chat that he regrets signing the lavish 2002 bill. But it's never wise to bet against the farm lobby, which spent $135 million on lobbying and donations last year and brilliantly portrays opponents as enemies of the heartland of America. "The game is always the same," says Oxfam America's Jim Lyons, a former U.S. Agriculture Under Secretary. "The big commodity groups have a stranglehold on policy. And there's not a lot of stomach for new ideas...
Another unintended consequence: we don't make West African cotton farmers poor, but our subsidies encourage overproduction that slightly reduces world cotton prices, making millions of them slightly poorer. An Oxfam study found that eliminating our subsidies could boost their average income as much as 5.7%, enough to feed two of their kids for a year. We spent $3.3 billion on cotton subsidies in 2005, more than half of Mali's gross domestic product. "We're not judging you--if we could subsidize our farmers, we'd do it!" says Abdoulaye Diop, Mali's ambassador...
Pisco Mayor Juan Mendoza told the state news agency, Andina, that approximately 20% of the city's buildings were damaged. But Sergio Alvarez, emergency response coordinator for Oxfam International, said up to 60% of Pisco's homes sustained serious damage. "Many of the houses are made of adobe bricks and are fragile," Alvarez said over the phone from Pisco. "We are only conducting a rapid inventory now, but things do not look good. We need to start finding emergency shelters that not only provide a place to rest, but where people can cook and begin to organize their lives...
...They argue that food aid should come, when possible, from the closest producer to the needy area. E.U. policy reflects this sentiment; less than 10% of its food-aid budget is now reserved for European-grown food. (Led by the British-based international charity Oxfam, many NGOs go further, arguing that cash injections into local economies is the best way to fight hunger...
...Oxfam report says more money should go to emergency relief efforts in Iraq, where much of the international aid is earmarked for rebuilding and development. Khateeb agrees. But she suspects many would-be aid givers, chiefly the United States and its allies, will be slow to ramp up humanitarian intervention, because doing so would be a sign that Iraq has become a failed state...