Influencing to tackle poverty and injustice: learning from the past, looking to the future

There have been many development advances in recent decades. But our world is also undergoing major transformations and facing profound development challenges. These include extreme inequality, climate breakdown, gender injustice and the curtailment of civic freedoms. Civil society has an influential role to play, as part of broader alliances, in determining to what extent and how our societies will address these challenges. Influencing is one of the three strands of Oxfam’s work alongside long-term development and humanitarian material assistance. This discussion paper uses Oxfam as a case study to share learning about how influencing can contribute to the creation of fairer, more inclusive and sustainable societies in the turbulent times in which we live.