South Africa puts a stern test to G20 leaders this year to confront the scourge of global inequality

G20 billionaires’ fortunes rise by $2.2 trillion in just one year, more than enough to lift everyone above the global poverty line

The amount of wealth that the G20’s own billionaires made just last year – $2.2 trillion – would have been more than enough to lift 3.8 billion people out of poverty, says Oxfam.

Billionaires in G20 countries saw their wealth grow 16.5% in just one year, from $13.4 trillion to $15.6 trillion dollars. The annual cost to lift up the 3.8 billion people who currently live below the poverty line is $1.65 trillion.

Oxfam reveals these new figures ahead of the G20 Summit in Johannesburg (November 22 - 23), where the South African presidency has made tackling inequality a core theme.

South Africa has commissioned the first ever G20 analysis of inequality to advise leaders. The “G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality”, led by Professor Joseph Stiglitz, identifies an “inequality emergency”.

The committee says that since the year 2000 the richest 1% have captured 41 cents of every new dollar of wealth created by the global economy, while the bottom half of humanity got just a single cent in the dollar. 

The committee points to the many harms this high inequality is wreaking on humanity and the planet, driving huge economic hardship for the majority, while fueling political polarization and the erosion of democracies. 

Oxfam welcomes the committee’s recommendation to establish a new International Panel on Inequality to play a similar role as the IPCC does on the climate crisis. Such a panel would bring the same kind of scientific rigor and purpose in driving urgent action to address this great divide. 

South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa has signaled support for such a panel. South Africa is calling on other G20 nations to get behind the Stiglitz report and its recommendations.

Oxfam calls the $15.6 trillion sitting at the summit leaders’ own table – this being the tremendous amount of wealth that the G20’s own billionaires now hold between them – an “open secret” that must be fairly taxed in order to help end poverty and fight the climate breakdown. 

“Inequality is a deliberate policy choice. Despite record wealth at the top, public wealth is stagnating, even declining, and debt distress is growing,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.

“Inequality rips away life opportunities and rights from the majority of citizens, sparking poverty, hunger, resentment, distrust and instability. If the South African G20 establishes a new International Panel on Inequality it will be a tremendous step in addressing the inequality emergency. We urge all G20 nations and others to get behind South Africa and make it happen,” Behar said.

The G20 comes at a moment of great geopolitical upheaval. While the U.S. is notably absent from this week’s meetings, its government has championed destructive policies - from reckless tariffs to regressive tax breaks and cuts to life-saving aid - that inflame inequality both within the U.S. and internationally. Other G20 countries have a real opportunity to make lasting commitments in the opposite direction - toward reducing inequality - first by choosing international rules and cooperation that serves ordinary people over global oligarchs.

Since the beginning of the new Trump administration, the U.S. has withdrawn from international tax cooperation and sought to strong-arm countries into abandoning much needed tax reforms. That includes pushing G7 nations to back a deal that would exempt U.S. multinational companies from a landmark global corporate minimum tax. This spiraling race to the bottom is a choice that countries can and should reject. 

Oxfam calls for G20 leaders to renew their commitment to a global agenda for the effective taxation of super-rich individuals, agreed at the Brazilian G20 last year, and turn it into action. Only eight cents of every tax dollar collected in G20 countries actually come from wealth. 

Oxfam also calls for the G20 to act urgently on debt. More than half of all low-income countries are in, or at high risk of, debt distress according to the IMF. This is taking away funds for schools, hospitals and infrastructure, which is deepening inequality. 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on interest repayments than on education or health.

“These countries may not have defaulted on their debt, but they are defaulting on development,” Behar said. “A world that cannot help countries invest in health, education and sustainability cannot expect stability, prosperity or climate progress.”

The G20’s plan to help countries out of debt has failed. It’s original promise to support countries in restructuring their debt has been too slow and too late. As a result, only four out of 69 eligible countries have so far applied to the scheme, Oxfam says.

These countries are now locked into a vicious cycle. As private lenders withdraw their capital because of increasing risk of default, governments are being forced to borrow from multilateral lenders, like the IMF and World Bank, whose loans often come with stricter conditions like no debt relief and pressure to cut public spending.