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Luc Lamprière, spokesperson for Oxfam said:

Food security in southern Africa relies upon small-scale agriculture, a sector in which women take the lead. However, smallholder farmers are among the most vulnerable people to food insecurity, often lacking the resources and access needed to produce or procure adequate food.

The European Union, which holds eight seats out of twenty four on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) board, has made an offer to rotate some of their IMF board seats with middle-income countries

Income inequality is high or increasing in 60 percent (64 out of 106) of low- and middle-income countries receiving grants or loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, reveals new Oxfam analysis ahead of the 2024 Spring Meetings in Washington D.C. Countries with high levels of income inequality have Gini coefficients above 0.4, the warning level set by the United Nations.

At the meeting of the European Council in Tallinn today France, Germany, Italy and Spain called for an agreement on new measures to tax tech giants, like Google and Amazon. Currently, disparate tax laws allow large companies to pay disproportionately low effective tax rates in the EU.

Europe’s General Court ruled that Amazon did not profit from illegal state aid in Luxembourg. This ruling dates back to a 2017 European Commission decision which stated that Amazon benefited from an illegal tax deal with Luxembourg and had to repay €250 million in unpaid taxes to the Grand Duchy. Amazon and Luxembourg have appealed this decision. The verdict follows last year’s defeat for the Commission in its high-profile case against Apple and Ireland.  

What is the IMF doing in practice to tackle inequality? Its main initiative has been a series of pilots that integrate inequality analysis into its economic surveillance of countries. This paper outlines Oxfam’s evaluation of these pilots and finds that they are not promoting policies that reduce inequality.

The international tax system is broken and unfair.  July’s Finance for Development Conference in Addis is the perfect time to ensure all parties agree to tackle this problem.

Following Oxfam’s January report revealing that just 85 people owned the same wealth as the bottom half the world’s population, Forbes has updated its “billionaires' list”, showing that extreme inequality has worsened– just 67 people at the top now own half the wealth.

Following the abuses revealed in the Panama Papers, world leaders attending the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund this week must seize the moment to take decisive action and help end the era of tax havens, said Oxfam today.