Winnie Byanyima, executive director Oxfam International HARDtalk

that the UK -- VDU P said it would

not support a deal that gave

concessions to the Irish Republic.

Now, it's time for HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk A significant

shift is afoot in the world of

international development, more of

the decision-making power is being

located in the global South, closer

to the front line on the wall in

poverty. There is less talk of aid

and more of empowerment, self-help

and local solutions. And at the

forefront of this is my guest today,

Winnie Byanyima, the Ugandan boss of

Oxfam International, who is

overseeing the NGO's move from the

UK to can you. Is International

development currently and fit for

purpose? -- Kenya. -- and fit.

-- unfit.

Winnie Byanyima, Wellcome.

Thank

you, Stephen.

We have talked to

quite a number of top officials on

this programme, the bosses of

international NGO's, you are

different from most because of your

back story. Do you feel somewhat

different from your peers in this

world?

A little bit. Not completely.

I feel different because there are

few heads, maybe I am the first,

heads of a global organisation from

Africa, from the south and who is a

woman. Sometimes I feel a bit

different but generally feel the

same with my peers. We are all

passionate commerce share the same

values and we fight the same causes.

I am interested you pick that Word

fight, your life compare to most of

your peers has been defined by this

notion of struggle and fight.

Sometimes in the most liberal sense

because you did spend a couple of

years in the Ugandan bush fighting

against the dictatorship in Uganda.

So, for you, this idea of struggle

does seem to be very, very real.

It

is. I grew up in a crisis country

and are a brutal dictatorship, I

sought repression, I fled, I became

a refugee, I joined a struggle

against dictatorship, so yes, my

life is shaped by a struggle, by a

passion that I develop for human

rights, 40 quality, for women's

rights and this is my natural home.

Working in social justice movements.

-- fall equality.

Do you think you

are a radical almost to the point of

being a revolutionary?

Revolution is

something that had evolved during my

20s but I see myself as a practical,

pragmatic champion of human rights

and social justice and that is what

Oxfam International is, it is a

perfect home for me.

It is

interesting that you say that, too

many people here in the UK we

associate Oxfam with the word

charity, because they run charity

shops where you can donate clothing

and other things and they can be

sold on to give you funds for your

eight and humanitarian work. -- your

aid. But it isn't often associated

with struggle, is it an easy

marriage?

It is, because behind that

word charity is a very radical idea

that humanity is one and injustices

must be challenged and fought. We

trace our roots to radicals who

challenged Winston Churchill on the

war that was going on and wanted to

take food aid to people who are

starving and they challenged and we

have been challenging since.

Challenge power. Interesting,

because in recent times you have

appeared to rail against the notion

of charity given by the rich to the

poor, you said that we don't think

charity is the way to solve these

problems, you are not going to lift

everybody out of poverty through the

kindness of wealthy people. Is

charity outmoded to a certain

extent?

No, it is that outmoded.

This era of solidarity, kindness and

sharing is what drives what we do.

But what I was saying is that Oxfam

tackles the root causes of poverty

and that lies in powerlessness. So

we challenge political leaders,

economical leaders, business leaders

to do justice for the poor, but to

give them handouts but to do

justice.

Your version of Justice

sometimes trades into controversial

political territorial. If I look at

some of the campaigns that you and

Oxfam have run, you have run

campaigns for fair taxation, you

have run campaigns on the minimum

wage, you know, these in the British

political context had certain

political connotations which, it has

to be said, has got Oxfam into

trouble. For example, December 2014,

the Charity commission decided that

some of Oxfam's tweeting had carried

a political bias.

Yes, sometimes we

are drug, told by authorities that

we are crossing a line. But we are

political, with a small p, we tackle

where powerlessness starts and where

power is abused. We tackle

governments and we tackle companies.

Among the examples that you gave,

you should have mentioned that we

faced off pharmaceutical companies

to bring down the price of

antiretrovirals to save the lives of

millions of people dying. This needs

a challenge and we challenge.

I am

tempted to ask you if that is the

perception that you bring to your

work, why not actually be a

politician? Occurs in the end,

sitting as you do at the end of

Oxfam International, you can have a

powerful lobbying voice but you

cannot will the levers of power,

whereas if you chose a political

career and this knows, back home in

Uganda, there are many who would

think that you have a very strong

chance of political success, if you

did then you could pull the levers

of power yourself.

Let me tell you

something. Political leaders can

only be as good as the people of the

citizens are active. It is so

important that we raise the voice of

citizens, that we support citizens

to hold their leaders accountable

and hold this is accountable for

good practice. So what I am doing

now, today is leading a global

organisation that fuels, that power

was movements on the grounds of

citizens to push their governments

to be just and to deliver to them.

With focus on what you have said

about your role, which is very much

about political messages, about

campaigning, about activism. But

what you didn't say is that it is

also about delivering very real and

urgent humanitarian assistance on

the ground. I wonder whether you

sometimes worry that the money used

and has Oxfam on the campaigning,

the lobbying, the powerful political

messages, that money is being taken,

in essence, from the humanitarian

funds that you have two help people

in Yemen, Bangladesh, all sorts of

different urgent pressing crises

today, that is a hugely difficult

moral decision to take, is it?

Not

really. It is not a difficult

decision. As I said, take the case

of conflict. Conflict happens and we

rush there and we save lives because

we want to save lives. What we know

that the solution to a conflict is

to find a peaceful solution to the

issues that are driving the

conflict, so we must tackle the root

cause is as well. If you take the

example of Yemen, it is the worst

humanitarian disaster in the world

today, 7 million people on the verge

of starvation. Berwick is a cholera

outbreak. We are there with water

sanitation and food and everything

that we can. -- there is. But we

also must speak up, we must campaign

and push those governance to fight

for a political solution of peace in

the Yemen. We challenge the British

government that is on the one hand

giving aid, the second-biggest

donor, but which is also selling

arms to Saudi Arabia which arms are

being used to kill them. So we speak

forcefully and challenging the

British government on that. Stopped

selling arms.

There are many others

delivering that message on arms

sales to Saudi Arabia, Westminster

Parliament and many other political

lobbying groups, my question is that

why does Oxfam need to do that?

Given that you have the facility and

the manpower and the know-how to

actually use every pound that is

given to you to help people on the

ground, is it right that you spend

some of that money on political

campaigning that others would do in

your place?

Absolutely, firstly

because we come with the credibility

to speak on those issues. We are on

the ground. Before I came here I was

having a meeting with some of the

people who are on the ground in

Bangladesh, inside the country and I

know the picture, I know what is

going on. In many spaces Oxfam is

invited there to speak because we

bring the voice, and authentic voice

from where the problems are. So if I

can share with you, this year I went

to a roundtable at the United

Nations with the Secretary General,

with prime ministers, I was coming

right out of Nigeria where there is

famine in that rich countries. And I

could talk about the creeping

famines across South Sudan, Nigeria,

Somalia and Yemen because I have

been to those countries.

That is

because Oxfam is one of the very

biggest and most respected of the

International aid, humanitarian

organisations. I wonder if there is

time for a rethink...

What we spend

on our campaigning is 10% of our

total budget, what we spend on

humanitarian crisis is almost half

of our budget.

You, in the end, are

one of the big fish, one of the big

multinationals, maybe it is time for

a rethink, maybe it is time for you

to accept, that your day, if not

done, is perhaps not the future?

Because it your own reporting on

this, for example a report from

2015, turning the humanitarian

system on its head, emphasised the

need to get much more local. That

local as was the best way of

delivering real support to

communities on the ground.

Absolutely. In fact, we are

committed. Oxfam has committed that

by 2020 we will be channelling 30%

of the money that we get for

humanitarian crisis through local

actors because they are the first

responders, they know that context,

they can deliver better. So will we

are out there, training our local

partners to take more and more

responsibility for preparedness and

a full response when it is needed.

A

powerful sentence from that report,

simply put, it said, we are not

saving as many lives as we could. Is

that still true today?

Of course we

would like to save all lies. We

always struggle at Oxfam and are

striving for higher and higher

impact. When you say that, that

talks to our DNA. We are impatient

for a world where there is no

poverty or suffering.

The

implication was that your systems

all your approach wasn't quite

right?

Of course, we are looking for

improvements and in the last five

years I have headed Oxfam, after we

formed our humanitarian system to

make it more effective and efficient

at the truth is, the humanitarian

crisis around the world of the speed

at which and the frequency and

intensity of disasters, the

protracted miss of conflicts, we

cannot meet the need. We really must

find solutions to prevent, we must

do more preventative work.

Is one

way that you can be more quicker on

the ground and more flexible, moving

the international headquarters to

Nairobi to place it in the global

South?

Yes, that is part of the change

that is making us more rooted

in the work that we do.

It just cannot be right

that we save lives and we solve

problems of poverty from 4000

miles away, Stephen...

Is there something neocolonialists

about the attitude that you see

in some of the Western-based

international aid organisations?

Well, I can say that there

is a danger of becoming less

and less relevant if organisations

that were born in the north

and became global continue to make

the decisions to do their work

from the north.

We are moving our headquarters

to the south so that we are rooted

there, so that we speak

with the legitimacy from where

the struggles are.

Have you been stung by the degree

to which certain African leaders,

and I am thinking of Paul Kagame,

the president of Rwanda,

but also, actually interestingly,

your host now, the president

of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta,

they have expressed openly said

-- their doubts that international

aid is doing an effective job

helping the poorer African nations.

Just quote Uhuru Kenyatta,

he tweeted this, he said,

"Dependence on giving which only

appears to be charitable must end.

Foreign aid, which heard so often

carries terms and conditions that

preclude progress, is not

an acceptable basis

for a prosperity and freedom.

It is time to give it up."

There are two things there -

one, the big picture.

Developing financing,

aid is only a small part of it.

Today, the developing countries,

the domestic investments,

together with government revenues,

is a 7.5 times more than the total

sum of flows which include aid,

foreign direct investment,

remittances, loans, all that

so domestic revenues are very

important and they are growing

and it is important though

to understand that aid,

even though it is one part,

has a very important part to play.

Take the 47 fragile countries,

47 of them, fragile,

poor countries, for those,

aid is the largest aid flow

externally. They need that aid

but increasingly...

But what about those who say that

giving aid to the very poorest

countries, often props up

governments whose record

on governance and striving

for economic efficiency

and delivering real economic

benefits to their people is horrible

and that aid sustains them.

There is a point in what you say

because aid should be used

for purposes of strengthening

the institutions of government

and strengthening the capacity

of citizens to hold government

accountable.

So the purpose of aid is important

that it is channelled to the poorest

who are not reached by markets,

who are not reached by private

capital, that it is used

to strengthen tax collections

so that countries get on their feet

and raise enough resources,

that it is used to support

the strengthening of civil society

voices to hold

government accountable.

We have to use aids aid for those

purposes, for it to deliver the

autonomy, the financial autonomy

that governments want.

There is one specific thing that

I want to put to you and it has come

out in recent days as a result,

bizarrely, the scandal

in the United States

concerning Harvey Weinstein

and allegations of very

serious sexual abuse.

It has since transpired that a lot

of female workers in the aid

and development business have,

it seems, experienced abuse

themselves from other members,

male members of staff,

over the years and,

including staff at Oxfam.

It seems you have had,

in the last year, a very significant

rise in the number of allegations

made against your own male staff.

I'm tempted to ask,

with a degree of surprise,

what on earth is going on that seems

to make this sort of abuse systemic

even in the humanitarian

aid business?

You know, that is a matter that's

very close to my heart,

Stephen.

Throughout my career, I have been

working to defend women's rights.

It's true, Oxfam should be doing

more to protect them

-- women who work for Oxfam.

Your former director in Nigeria,

going back to the thousand and ten,

made allegations of abuse

against another senior member

of Oxfam staff.

She said those allegations

were never addressed and,

not long afterwards, she was fired.

It does seem there is a problem,

even in your own organisation.

Well, as I said, we

should be doing better.

We should be doing better

but let me be clear that,

one, a norm has changed

in the world - American women have

stood up and have raised

the question about safety for women

in the workplace.

We've been working

at it for a long time.

We're not where we should be

but we have something in place that

has been working and some

of this reporting, Stephen,

is a result of the transparency

that we put in place,

starting five years ago,

when we boosted our system

and started a system of reporting

transparently the cases.

I want to end by bringing

you back to Uganda,

which is where we begin,

where we talked about the roots

of your commitment to the struggle.

For 11 years, you were a Ugandan

parliamentarian working quite

closely with President Museveni.

He is now seeking constitutional

change which would allow him to run

for another presidential term,

even though, according

to the current constitution,

he would be too oldin 2021 to run

again, and you have chosen to speak

out against any change

in the Constitution.

Why?

Well, first of all, I must correct

you that wasn't working closely

with him as a parliamentarian.

I was a critical parliamentarian...

You were at the beginning.

Because if I may say so,

you've had a long personal

relationship with him...

Sure.

..you were close to him and indeed

so was your husband many years.

That is true.

We were in the revolution

against dictatorship together but,

increasingly, as I became

a Member of Parliament,

I disagreed and

eventually broke away.

Why I am racing my voice now on this

issue is that this issue of changing

the Constitution in order to extend

the possibility of a president

who has been in power 35

years, to stay longer...

And we should remind people

he would be 77 at the next election.

It is not a partisan issue.

This is a citizen issue.

This is where Oxon's voice

I think is important,

to energise the citizens to speak up

in defence of the Constitution.

We made this Constitution -

I was one of the Constitution

makers - it was the most

consultative, participatory way

and we put in these checks

in the Constitution so that

presidents do not use incumbency

to entrench themselves in power.

Now, he did remove one

constitutional check and now

he wants to remove the one in age

limits so it is important that

I speak so that Ugandans

also rise and speak

and defend their Constitution.

But you speak as the head

of Oxfam International but the truth

is, you have a major vested interest

in it because your husband happens

to be the leading political

opponent, who has long fought

President Museveni and has fought

to beat him in various presidential

elections so, for you,

this is deeply personal.

Are you so you should be mixing

the professional and personal

in the way that you have chosen?

Look, I am a citizen of my country.

I cannot be credible

in my own country when I do not

speak on an issue that is

so important for the future

of our young people,

for our economy.

I have to make my statement and then

leave it for Ugandans to go ahead

and fight it.

I do not express myself

on the side of the opposition

or the side of the

government as I said.

This is a strictly citizen issue

and people across both

sides are speaking...

There are members would like you

to go back and be the main

opposition candidate in the 2021

election. Are you considering doing

that?

Look, it would be an honour to

be asked to lead my country but,

right now, I am enjoying an even

bigger honour to support the voices

of citizens around the world,

to stand up for economic justice.

So 2021 is a little way away.

Are you telling me that

you are categorically ruling it out

or is it a possibility?

There are many people

in your country that

would like clear answer to this.

As I said, it would be an honour

to be asked to lead the country

but right now, I'm happy to tell

you that I have just

signed my second contract at Oxfam,

to serve my organisation for the

next five years so my plan,

I'm not looking at the Ugandan

context, I'm looking

at serving Oxfam right now.

We will have to end there.

Winnie Byanyima thank you very much

for being on HARDtalk.

Thank you so much.

Enjoyed it.