Oxfam International Director to Speak at Holy Cross on Economic Inequality



Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of Oxfam International, will visit the College of the Holy Cross to deliver a lecture titled “Building a Better World: A More Human Economy” on Friday, April 8 at 4:30 p.m. in Rehm Library. The event is free and open to the public.

In January, Oxfam International, which works to eradicate poverty around the world, released a report showing that the world's 62 richest billionaires have as much wealth as 3.6 billion people around the world. In 2015, the wealth of the world’s richest one percent grew to more than that of the other 99 percent. Meanwhile, over the last quarter century, the average annual income of the poorest 10 percent has risen by just $3 a year, less than a penny a day.

“World leaders’ concern about the escalating inequality crisis has so far not translated into concrete action – the world has become a much more unequal place and the trend is accelerating,” Byanyima said. “We cannot continue to allow hundreds of millions of people to go hungry while resources that could be used to help them are sucked up by those at the top. Their extreme wealth in fact shows an ailing global economy.”

Byanyima is a leader on women’s rights, democratic governance and peace building. A native of Uganda, she served 11 years in the Ugandan Parliament, and has served at the African Union Commission and as director of Gender and Development at the United Nations Development Programme. She co-founded the 60-member Global Gender and Climate Alliance and chaired a U.N. task force on gender aspects of the Millennium Development Goals, and on climate change. In February, she was appointed to the U.N.’s first-ever High-Level Panel on Women's Economic Empowerment.

She is serving a five-year term leading Oxfam International through April 2018.

Her visit to Holy Cross is sponsored by the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture. View the schedule of upcoming events and watch lectures online.