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Byanyima gets another 5-year term at Oxfam, speaks out on vying for Uganda’s presidency
Oxfam Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima
What you need to know:
- Ms Byanyima added noted in the next five years she was eager to expand and deepen Oxfam’s work in advancing women’s rights and “tilt the balance” of Oxfam’s humanitarian work toward prevention, such as building up people’s resilience to the ever increasing and more intense crises.
- Oxfam Chair Juan Alberto Fuentes said: “We are thrilled. Winnie is a visionary leader in the fight against inequality and poverty, and an inspiration to our teams and partners around the world. We look forward to continue to work with her to help create lasting solutions to the injustice of poverty."
Oxfam executive director, Winnie Byanyima has spoken out for the first time on reports that she could be prompted to take up Uganda’s most coveted office.
Ms Byanyima who happens to be wife to former presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye told Steven Sucker in an interview on the BBC’s Hard Talk on Monday that she is focusing on her job at Oxfam when he asked her to respond to reports that some people view her as presidential material come 2021.
“It would be an honor to be asked to lead my country but right now, I have an even bigger honour serving Oxfam. I am happy, I have just signed an extension to my contract for the next five years,” Ms Byanyima said.
Ms Byanyima, a former lawmaker in the Ugandan parliament also spoke about the controversial move by government to scrap the presidential age limit.
“It is not a partisan issue but a citizen’s issue. It is an Oxfam issue so it’s important that I speak so that Ugandans can rise up and challenge it,” Ms Byanyima said.
She also spoke about the charity organisation’s plans to move the Oxfam International Secretariat from Oxford, where it was founded, to Nairobi, Kenya.
The aid organisation will begin its move in 2017, with it expected to take two years to complete the move, it was announced mid this year.
It will begin the move by first relocating senior directs and other key Secretariat staff. It will then recruit locally. As is the case now, its Secretariat will remain a multi-locational organisation, with advocacy offices in DC, NY, Brussels and Addis Ababa, a Global Humanitarian Team, and other staff accommodated in our affiliate HQs and country teams, too.
Ms Byanyima joined Oxfam in 2013 from the United Nations having previously served in the Ugandan Parliament for 11 years and in the African Union Commission.
Oxfam Chair Juan Alberto Fuentes said: “We are thrilled. Winnie is a visionary leader in the fight against inequality and poverty, and an inspiration to our teams and partners around the world. We look forward to continue to work with her to help create lasting solutions to the injustice of poverty."
Winnie said she was honored and humbled by the Board’s confidence in her continuing an “exciting, roller-coaster journey” and felt a sense of duty to “carry on fighting, particularly for the women and girls in the South facing poverty and injustice” with whom Oxfam works.
“I have never enjoyed a role as much as I have at Oxfam,” adding that its staff, partners and volunteers make it a “tough and pragmatic organization… impatient with poverty and injustice and willing to tackle root causes” all of which “fit my values and life experience.”
“I am so proud of our heritage and all we have built upon it in five years.” She said Oxfam had “woken up the world to the dangers of rising extreme inequality” and was confident that the coalitions it was helping to lead and convene would grow even more powerful and able to turn the inequality tide against ordinary people. She highlighted successes in Oxfam’s work on extractives, land rights and climate adaptation, and most of all on championing women’s rights and responding to humanitarian emergencies.
In her first term, Ms Byanyima initiated the “One Oxfam” restructure that enables Oxfam to be a more globally balanced organization with a stronger voice in the South, and transforms decision-making so it is happening more directly from Oxfam’s country teams. Oxfam has welcomed new affiliates in Brazil and South Africa and a new observer member in Turkey. She recently moved the Oxfam International HQ to Kenya.
“This is vital to our mission as we must influence change from a position of integrity,” she said.
Ms Byanyima added noted in the next five years she was eager to expand and deepen Oxfam’s work in advancing women’s rights and “tilt the balance” of Oxfam’s humanitarian work toward prevention, such as building up people’s resilience to the ever increasing and more intense crises.
She said she would push Oxfam to become much more ambitious in its understanding and use of the vast knowledge base of its staff, partners and volunteers around the world, saying “our knowledge is our power to change the world.”
