inequality

Very low spending on public healthcare, weak social safety nets and poor labor rights meant the majority of the world’s countries were woefully ill-equipped to deal with COVID-19, reveals new analysis from Oxfam and Development Finance International (DFI) today.

The World Bank’s report shows clearly that billions of people were more vulnerable to the economic impacts of COVID-19 because of decades of economic policies which have kept them living one paycheck away from poverty, while the richest in society accumulate ever more wealth.

The richest one percent of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity during a critical 25-year period of unprecedented emissions growth.

Thirty-two of the world’s largest companies stand to see their profits jump by $109 billion more in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic lays bare an economic model that delivers profits for the wealthiest on the back of the poorest, according to a new Oxfam report today.

Even before the coronavirus crisis struck, people in the Middle East and North Africa were protesting against the injustice and inequality wrought by a decade of austerity. The pandemic and the lockdown measures taken by governments have paralysed economies and threaten to tip millions of people into poverty. This paper argues that if another decade of pain is to be averted, governments need to take immediate action to reduce inequality.

The 21 billionaires in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), all of them men, saw their wealth increase by nearly $10 billion since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, almost double the estimated amount required to rebuild Lebanon's shattered capital, while 45 million more people in the region could be pushed to poverty as a result of the pandemic, a new Oxfam report revealed today.

The fortunes of Latin America’s 73 billionaires surged by $48.2 billion since the beginning of the pandemic even as the region buckles as one of the worst-hit regions in the world, said Oxfam today. 

The Covid-19 pandemic will not be defeated unless it’s defeated in all countries. In developing countries, where public health spending is often severely constrained, significant debt cancellation will be necessary to deal with the double whammy of health and economic crises.

COVID-19 is deepening the hunger crisis in the world’s hunger hotspots and creating new epicentres of hunger across the globe. While governments must act to contain the spread of this deadly disease, Oxfam is also calling for urgent action to end this hunger crisis and build fairer, more robust, and sustainable food systems.

A year and a half since Covid-19, deaths from hunger are outpacing the virus. Ongoing conflict, combined with the economic disruptions of the pandemic and an escalating climate crisis, have pushed millions people into extreme levels of food insecurity, some to the brink of starvation. Join us in helping communities overcome the #HungerVirus.