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The Covid-19 pandemic, compounded by locust infestations and climate crises, has brought East Africa’s worst economic crisis in decades. Yet, instead of taxing the wealthy, governments are planning to slash their public spending, which will worsen the crisis and deepen poverty and inequality in the region. But it is not too late to change direction.

Widening inequalities are tearing our world apart. This is not by chance, but choice: “economic violence” is perpetrated when structural policy choices are made for the richest and most powerful people. But we can radically redesign our economies to be centered on equality, in which nobody lives in poverty, nor with unimaginable billionaire wealth—in which inequality no longer kills.

Did you know that since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, billionaires have made unimaginable, record-breaking fortunes? Every year, the gap between rich and poor gets even wider – standing in the way of ending global poverty. It is time to bring an end to inequality and overcome poverty for good.

This report examines the failings of the global tax system that facilitate mass tax avoidance. It looks at one example of a multinational company (MNC) that Oxfam thinks is not paying its fair share. Moreover, it calls on governments and business to implement the reforms that are needed to stop MNCs from avoiding paying their fair share of tax in the future. 

The G7 have made a stuttering start on climate but have largely neglected the plight of people living in poverty, said Oxfam at the close of the annual leaders’ summit in Germany today.

The World Bank and the IMF must seize their early chance in what could be a watershed year to end extreme global poverty by putting the battle against inequality, climate change and tax dodging at the very top of its Spring Meetings’ agenda this week. 

A joint call from the leaders of ActionAid, AWID, Civicus, Greenpeace and Oxfam on the eve of the World Social Forum in Tunis.

G20 Leaders meeting in Brisbane, Australia this weekend (15 and 16 November) are being urged to tackle rising inequality head-on or risk leaving millions of people trapped in poverty, as new figures reveal the wealth disparity in a number of G20 countries.

Rising inequality could set the fight against poverty back by decades, Oxfam warned today as it published a new report showing that the number of billionaires worldwide has more than doubled since the financial crisis. 

Extreme inequality is hurting us all. Its damages economic growth, threatens decades of progress toward ending poverty and contributes to the death of one person every four seconds. Such stark inequality is not inevitable – it is the consequence of political and economic choices. And it can be reversed.