Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent non-governmental organizations (NGOs), focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International. It began as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief in Oxford, UK, in 1942, to alleviate World War Two related hunger and continued in the aftermath of the war. Oxfam has an international presence with operations in 79 countries and 21 members in the Oxfam Confederation in Australia, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Since 2005, Oxfam International has been involved in a series of controversies as it expanded, especially concerning its operations in Haiti and Chad. There have been criticisms of its management of operations in the UK as well.

Founded at 17 Broad Street, Oxford, as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief by a group of Quakers, social activists, and Oxford academics in 1942 and registered in accordance with UK law in 1943, the original committee was a group of concerned citizens, including Henry Gillett (a prominent local Quaker), Theodore Richard Milford, Gilbert Murray and his wife Mary, Cecil Jackson-Cole, and Alan Pim. The committee met in the Old Library of University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, for the first time in 1942, and its aim was to help starving citizens of occupied Greece, a famine caused by the Axis occupation of Greece and Allied naval blockades and to persuade the British government to allow food relief through the blockade. The Oxford committee was one of several local committees formed in support of the National Famine Relief Committee.

The first permanent Oxfam gift shop was on Broad Street, Oxford; it opened in 1947. Oxfam's first paid employee was Joe Mitty, who began working at the Oxfam shop on Broad Street, Oxford, on 9 November 1949. Engaged to manage the accounts and distribute donated clothing, he originated the policy of selling anything people were willing to donate, and developed the shop into a national chain.

Fundraising innovations led by advertising adviser Harold Sumption, including rigorous testing of advertising campaigns, direct mail, the trading catalogue, and the first multimedia fundraising campaign the "Hunger £ Million", helped Oxfam become, for a time, the largest charity in the UK. By 1960, it was an international nongovernmental aid organization.^{[citation needed]} The first overseas committee was founded in Canada in 1963, and in 1965, the organization changed its name to its telegraphic address, OXFAM. The Oxford committee became known as Oxfam GB.^{[citation needed]} In 1995 Oxfam International was formed by a group of independent non-governmental organizations. Stichting Oxfam International was registered as a non-profit foundation at The Hague, Netherlands, in 1996.

Winnie Byanyima was the executive director of Oxfam International from 2013 to 2019.

Oxfam has provided relief services during various global crises, including the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, North Korean famine, 2011 East Africa drought, 2012 Sahel drought, Nepal earthquake, and Yemeni crisis. The Bosfam NGO was also founded in May 1995 by women participating in an Oxfam GB psychosocial 'radionice' project to support internally displaced women during the Bosnian war. Oxfam has become a globally recognized leader in providing water sanitation to impoverished and war-torn areas the world over. In 2012, Oxfam became one of the humanitarian groups that comprise the UK's Rapid Response Facility to ensure clean water in the wake of humanitarian disasters.

A January 2014 Oxfam report stated that the 85 wealthiest individuals in the world have a combined wealth equal to that of the bottom 50% of the world's population, or about 3.5 billion people. In January 2015, Oxfam reported that the wealthiest 1 percent will own more than half of the global wealth by 2016. An Oxfam report released in 2017 stated that eight billionaires possess the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of humanity.