JUST ECONOMIES

Human Rights Day Gathering Pic Ilan Godfrey Oxfam

A just economy is inclusive. It promotes equality, protects the planet, and ends poverty. It builds social cohesion and promotes the economic em­powerment of women and marginalized groups. It supports the rights of all workers, offers social protection and ensures that livelihoods and development finance resources can be sustained. As a result, it minimizes the risk of conflict and crisis and contributes to meaningful economic participation.

Building just economies requires new narratives that expose the policies that lead to poverty, injustice, and exclusion. Governments and the private sector, including financial institutions, must be held to account for implementing sus­tainable, fair and responsible business policies and practices, and whenever they contribute to environmental destruction.

OZA supports the transition to a just economy that is redistributive and inclusive, promotes equality, and contributes to the fight to end poverty and inequality.

We will:

1. Work to reframe economic models to prevent exploitation and unsustainable extraction and which facilitate equitable access and opportunity for all people, especially women.
2. Work to ensure sustainable trade that is fair and where women’s economic participation is fostered through gender transformative economic policies and trade and value-chain regimes.
3. Work to support small-scale food producers to earn a decent living and know that their rights to land and other natural resources are protected.
4. Work to ensure that governments uphold people’s right to universal essential services such as quality healthcare, water, education, and social protection, ensuring they are gender transformative.
5. Support early recovery and resilience after crises and shocks, particularly to challenge international finance institutions in unlocking meaningful opportunities for financing development.
6. Work to ensure that governments and employers recognize and protect the rights of formal and informal workers, including in the care economy; that workers earn living wages, feel safe and supported, and can influence workplace decisions that affect them.