South Africa itself is among the most unequal countries in the world.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has commissioned a report on global wealth inequality in time to present at the G20 summit in November.
The G20 Presidency launched the new “Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts” on Thursday, as commissioned by Ramaphosa.
Experts
South Africa, which holds the rotating G20 Presidency, has announced the appointment of American Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz to lead a group of six experts tasked with compiling the first-ever report on global inequality and presenting it to world leaders.
The other experts include Dr Adriana E. Abdenur (Brazil); Winnie Byanyima (Uganda); Professor Jayati Ghosh (India); Professor Imraan Valodia (South Africa); and Dr Wanga Zembe-Mkabile (South Africa).
Global inequality
In June, Kenya-based nonprofit Oxfam, which releases annual wealth inequality reports, said that the wealth of the richest 1% had surged by $33.9 trillion since 2015, enough to eliminate annual global poverty 22 times over.
Oxfam said 3.7 billion people, nearly half the world’s population, live in poverty.
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South Africa itself is among the most unequal countries in the world.
Global wealth
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, said the Extraordinary Committee was launched amid macroeconomic fears that global wealth and income inequality, which was already very high, is set to sharply accelerate.
“Recent analysis shows that the world’s richest 1 per cent have increased their wealth by more than US$33.9 trillion in real terms since 2015 – more than enough to eliminate annual global poverty 22 times over.”
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“Inequality of this scale poses a serious systemic risk to global economic, social and political progress,” Magwenya said.
‘Brutal unfairness’
Ramaphosa said that people worldwide recognise the detrimental impact of extreme inequality on their dignity and prospects for a better future.
“They saw the brutal unfairness of vaccine apartheid, where millions in the Global South were denied the vaccines to save them.
“They see the impacts of rising food and energy prices, of debt, of trade wars, all driving this growing gap between the rich and the rest of the world, undermining progress and economic dynamism. A new oligarchy in our global economy is becoming apparent,” Ramaphosa said.
G20 power
Stiglitz said inequality has widened to extremes that threaten democracy itself and should be a cause for concern.
“The profound rise in the discontents of mismanaged globalisation, which in many places has contributed to this growth of inequality, is also evident.
“Inequality was always a choice – and G20 nations have the power to choose a different path, on a range of economic and social policies,” Stiglitz said.
Stiglitz said he is “grateful to Ramaphosa for placing inequality as central to the G20 agenda.”
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