What We Do: Long Term Development Work

Oxfam Ireland's overseas development programme aims to give long-term support to people in Africa in a way that avoids dependency. We help people to access their basic rights to a secure livelihood, shelter, clean water, education and healthcare. We empower people to seek their rights at a local and national level and to have a voice in how their lives are governed. Oxfam Ireland works through local non-governmental agencies and community groups and with other members of the Oxfam International confederation. These are our partners in finding long term solutions to poverty.

Find out more about the countries we work in

Focus of our Long Term Development Work

Building Livelihoods:

Focusing our work in east, central and southern Africa, we encourage communities to find sustainable ways to support themselves. This includes enabling people to adopt better agricultural techniques, improving their ability to market their produce, developing local small businesses, supporting Fair Trade initiatives and promoting the rights of pastoralists and other marginalized groups to have secure access to their land. In addition, we support people to lobby policy makers at national and international levels to establish fairer trade policies and to build adequate market structures.

Find out more about some of our livelihoods programmes in Malawi and Tanzania.

Overcoming HIV and AIDS:

HIV and AIDS have a huge impact on poverty because they affect millions of adult women and men whose work drives their countries' economies and services, and who care for the young and the old.

Somebody is infected with the HIV virus every eight seconds. Some 4.3 million people across the globe became infected with HIV in 2006, with a heavy concentration among young people, bringing the total number to an estimated 39.5 million. Sub-Saharan Africa, which recorded 2.8 million new infections, still bears the brunt of the Aids epidemic, with 24.7 million people living with HIV. Of the 2.9 million global deaths from Aids last year, the highest number recorded, 2.1 million, occurred in Africa.

Oxfam Ireland supports partner organizations in east, central and southern Africa working in the prevention of HIV and AIDS and caring for those who are ill. We also support local groups to lobby for the rights of those infected and affected by the disease.

At an international level, we continue to challenge trade organisations, governments, drug companies, and others to make decisions that will help to improve the health of millions of poor people by providing access to affordable generic medicines.

Find out more about our HIV and AIDS partners in South Africa and Tanzania.

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