The charity said these new challenges had accumulated in the financial crises created by Covid and called for urgent international action, including the cancellation of debt repayments for the poorest countries. “Without immediate radical action, we can witness the deepest collapse of humanity into extreme poverty and pain of memory,” said Gabriela Bucher, Oxfam’s international executive director. The Oxfam news release, released Tuesday ahead of next week’s World Bank and IMF spring meetings, said indebted governments could be forced to cut public spending to meet rising fuel and food import costs. Oxfam said canceling its debt repayment for this year and next could free up $ 30 billion (23 23 billion) for dozens of countries with the highest debt. The World Bank had already estimated that 198 million people could be plunged into extreme poverty this year as a result of the pandemic. But Oxfam estimates that 65 million more people are at risk if the invasion of Ukraine and rising energy prices are taken into account. It also estimates that 28 million more people will be malnourished as a result. Oxfam has demanded more taxes on the rich and also on companies benefiting from crises such as the pandemic or the war in Ukraine. It also called on the G20 to allocate $ 100 billion from an existing austerity fund to poor countries to help exploit and protect the poorest from inflation through subsidies and tax cuts on goods and services. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said last week that the war in Ukraine had made food more expensive than ever, costing more than a third more in March than in the same period last year. The Middle East and parts of Africa are expected to be particularly affected by the cessation of grain imports from the Black Sea region, which has exacerbated existing economic and climate crises. Oxfam said rising costs could see food accounting for 40% of sub-Saharan Africa. Bucher said governments’ lack of action to tackle growing poverty was “unforgivable”. He said: “We reject any idea that governments do not have the money or the means to lift all people out of poverty and hunger and to ensure their health and well-being. “We only see the lack of economic imagination and political will to do so.”
