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	Over the last decade, the richest 1 percent captured half of all new wealth by Oxfam, Amnesty, Fight Inequality, agencies   The richest 1 percent grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth worth $42 trillion created since 2020, almost twice as much money as the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population, reveals a new Oxfam report today. During the past decade, the richest 1 percent had captured around half of all new wealth.   “Survival of the Richest” is published on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Elites are gathering in the Swiss ski resort as extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years.   “While ordinary people are making daily sacrifices on essentials like food, the super-rich have outdone even their wildest dreams. Just two years in, this decade is shaping up to be the best yet for billionaires —a roaring ‘20s boom for the world’s richest,” said Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International.   “Taxing the super-rich and big corporations is the door out of today’s overlapping crises. It’s time we demolish the convenient myth that tax cuts for the richest result in their wealth somehow ‘trickling down’ to everyone else. Forty years of tax cuts for the super-rich have shown that a rising tide doesn’t lift all ships —just the superyachts.”   Billionaires have seen extraordinary increases in their wealth. During the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis years since 2020, $26 trillion (63 percent) of all new wealth was captured by the richest 1 percent, while $16 trillion (37 percent) went to the rest of the world put together.   A billionaire gained roughly $1.7 million for every $1 of new global wealth earned by a person in the bottom 90 percent. Billionaire fortunes have increased by $2.7 billion a day. This comes on top of a decade of historic gains —the number and wealth of billionaires having doubled over the last ten years.   Billionaire wealth surged in 2022 with rapidly rising food and energy profits. The report shows that 95 food and energy corporations have more than doubled their profits in 2022. They made $306 billion in windfall profits, and paid out $257 billion (84 percent) of that to rich shareholders.   The Walton dynasty, which owns half of Walmart, received $8.5 billion over the last year. Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, owner of major energy corporations, has seen this wealth soar by $42 billion (46 percent) in 2022 alone.   Excess corporate profits have driven at least half of inflation in Australia, the US and the UK. At the same time, at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, and over 820 million people —roughly one in ten people on Earth— are going hungry.   Women and girls often eat least and last, and make up nearly 60 percent of the world’s hungry population. The World Bank says we are likely seeing the biggest increase in global inequality and poverty since WW2.   Entire countries are facing bankruptcy, with the poorest countries now spending four times more repaying debts to rich creditors than on healthcare. Three-quarters of the world’s governments are planning austerity-driven public sector spending cuts —including on healthcare and education— by $7.8 trillion over the next five years.   Oxfam is calling for a systemic and wide-ranging increase in taxation of the super-rich to claw back crisis gains driven by public money and profiteering. Decades of tax cuts for the richest and corporations have fueled inequality, with the poorest people in many countries paying higher tax rates than billionaires.   Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest men, paid a “true tax rate” of about 3 percent between 2014 and 2018. Aber Christine, a flour vendor in Uganda, makes $80 a month and pays a tax rate of 40 percent.   Worldwide, only four cents in every tax dollar now comes from taxes on wealth. Half of the world’s billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax for direct descendants. They will pass on a $5 trillion tax-free treasure chest to their heirs, more than the GDP of Africa, which will drive a future generation of aristocratic elites.   Rich people’s income is mostly unearned, derived from returns on their assets, yet it is taxed on average at 18 percent, just over half as much as the average top tax rate on wages and salaries.   The report shows that taxes on the wealthiest used to be much higher. Over the last forty years, governments across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas have slashed the income tax rates on the richest. At the same time, they have upped taxes on goods and services, which fall disproportionately on the poorest people and exacerbate gender inequality. In the years after WW2, the top US federal income tax rate remained above 90 percent and averaged 81 percent between 1944 and 1981.   Similar levels of tax in other rich countries existed during some of the most successful years of their economic development and played a key role in expanding access to public services like education and healthcare.   “Taxing the super-rich is the strategic precondition to reducing inequality and resuscitating democracy. We need to do this for innovation. For stronger public services. For happier and healthier societies. And to tackle the climate crisis, by investing in the solutions that counter the insane emissions of the very richest,” said Bucher.   According to new analysis by the Fight Inequality Alliance, Institute for Policy Studies, Oxfam and the Patriotic Millionaires, an annual wealth tax of up to 5 percent on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, fully fund the shortfalls on existing humanitarian appeals, deliver a 10-year plan to end hunger, support poorer countries being ravaged by climate impacts, and deliver universal healthcare and social protection for everyone living in low- and lower middle-income countries.   Oxfam is calling on governments to:   Introduce one-off solidarity wealth taxes and windfall taxes to end crisis profiteering. Permanently increase taxes on the richest 1 percent, for example to at least 60 percent of their income from labor and capital, with higher rates for multi-millionaires and billionaires. Governments must especially raise taxes on capital gains, which are subject to lower tax rates than other forms of income.   Tax the wealth of the richest 1 percent at rates high enough to significantly reduce the numbers and wealth of the richest people, and redistribute these resources. This includes implementing inheritance, property and land taxes, as well as net wealth taxes.   http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-bag-nearly-twice-much-wealth-rest-world-put-together-over-past-two-years http://www.oxfam.org/en/research/survival-richest http://www.icrict.com/icrict-in-thenews/2023/1/22/the-world-will-plunge-into-chaos-if-we-dont-tax-windfall-profits   Jan. 2023   Davos World Economic Forum: “The stakes are too high for more empty gestures”, says Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard:   “In the last few years, it’s as if Pandora’s box has been pried open unleashing untold crises on the world. We find ourselves facing challenges that often overlap and intertwine – the climate crisis; a global pandemic; armed conflicts; the latest of the industrial revolutions – tech – ripe for exploitation; widespread food insecurity; a global economy delivering unimaginable wealth to a bare few while low wages or unemployment leave millions on their knees.   “Regrettably, many of the globally staged gatherings set up to solve these problems have merely become forums for virtual signalling with few or no concrete outcomes.   “In order to ensure this year’s event in Davos isn’t relegated to the same fate, the highly influential elites attending must reflect on why they are there. Their focus should be to push forward tangible solutions that we already know work, rather than opting to protect the existing global economic system at any cost.   Side events and panels should be filled with conversations on new taxes for fossil fuel companies, on incentivising human rights consistent green energy provision.   They should be addressing endemic corruption, ending tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance, tackling inequalities – including racism and sexism – at their very root, starting with their own board rooms and cabinet offices. The stakes are too high for more empty gestures.”   http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/01/davos-world-economic-forum-the-stakes-are-too-high-for-more-empty-gestures/ http://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/economy-and-ecology/davos-man-must-pay-6444/ http://www.fightinequality.org/news/governments-davos-under-pressure http://bit.ly/3kqmSvj http://ips-dc.org/report-extreme-wealth-the-growing-number-of-people-with-extreme-wealth-and-what-an-annual-wealth-tax-could-raise/ http://www.ipsnews.net/2023/01/austerity-2023-will-fuel-protests/ http://ny.fes.de/article/food-energy-cost-of-living-protests-2022 http://www.socialeurope.eu/corporate-power-arbitrage-in-a-fractured-world http://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2023-01-18/secretary-generals-remarks-the-world-economic-forum   Jan. 2023   Young climate activists demand immediate stop to opening any new oil, gas, or coal extraction sites. (AP, agencies)   To Fossil Fuel CEOs:   This Cease and Desist Notice is to demand that you immediately stop opening any new oil, gas, or coal extraction sites, and stop blocking the clean energy transition we all so urgently need.   We know that Big Oil:   KNEW for decades that fossil fuels cause catastrophic climate change. MISLED the public about climate science and risks. DECEIVED politicians with disinformation sowing doubt and causing delay.   You must end these activities as they are in direct violation of our human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, your duties of care, as well as the rights of Indigenous people.   If you fail to act immediately, be advised that citizens around the world will consider taking any and all legal action to hold you accountable. And we will keep protesting in the streets in huge numbers.   Vanessa Nakate from Uganda, Greta Thunberg from Sweden, Helena Gualinga from Ecuador, Luisa Neubauer from Germany   * Avaaz Cease and Desist Notice: http://bit.ly/3XKd9hX   The youth climate campaigners presented the Cease and Desist Notice signed by over 930,000 people from around the world at the World Economic Forum taking place in Davos.   Greta Thunberg said it was “completely ridiculous” that Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), will preside over the next round of global climate talks (Cop28) in Dubai in November.   She said that lobbyists have been influencing these conferences “since, basically, forever”... “This just puts a very clear face to it,” she added. “It’s completely ridiculous.”   Luisa Neubauer, a German climate activist, also called the move “ridiculous”, but not a new development, as over 600 lobbyists had flocked to the last Cop meeting in Egypt.   Helena Gualinga, from an Indigenous community in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador, said UAE’s move sent the message that the climate issue was not being taken seriously.   “I just think it sends a message of where we’re headed right now, if we’re putting the heads of fossil fuel companies to lead climate negotiations,” Gualinga said.   In November, ADNOC’s board decided to bring forward its goal to expand its oil production to 5m barrels a day to 2027 from 2030 to meet rising global energy demand.   Thunberg demanded fossil fuel bosses immediately stop opening any new fossil fuel extraction sites. The people who are mostly fueling the destruction of the planet, who are at the very core of the climate crisis, investing in fossil fuels, are in Davos, Thunberg said.   “And yet somehow these are the people that we seem to rely on solving our problems, where they have proven time and time again, that they are not prioritising that,” she said. “They are prioritising self greed, corporate greed and short term economic profits above people and above the planet.”   Thunberg said it was “absurd” to be listening to these people, rather than to those on the frontline in the climate crisis.   Vanessa Nakate said people in parts of the world most affected by climate change are “clinging to their lives and just trying to make it for another day, to make it for another week”.   Nakate added that current levels of warming, which have reached up to 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 F), means it is “already a living hell for many communities across the African continent, across the Global South” who are facing extreme drought, heat and flooding.   In the areas that are most affected, such as the Horn of Africa, millions of children are suffering from severe, acute malnutrition.   The young climate activists were joined by Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency. In 2021, the IEA said that exploitation and development of new oil and gas fields had to stop that year, if the world was to have any chance of meeting the goal of net zero emissions by 2050. Birol said he was “very happy” that the activists were pushing the climate agenda forward.   http://climatenetwork.org/2023/01/26/pressure-mounts-to-remove-polluters-not-just-oil-exec-from-un-climate-talks/ http://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/past-eight-years-confirmed-be-eight-warmest-record http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/16/return-of-el-nino-will-cause-off-the-chart-temperature-rise-climate-crisis Visit the related web page
	Equality: Turning words into actions to leave no one behind by GCAP, CONCORD, InterAction   International Women’s Day 2023: Embrace Equity. Global Call to Action against Poverty. (GCAP)   Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs and Gender Equality)   The SDG report 2022 paints a grim picture of the progress made on the SDG 5: Gender Equality and Empowering All women and Girls. The social and economic fallout from the pandemic has made worse the already fragile situation on the progress on gender equality. In several areas like in unpaid care and domestic work, decision-making regarding sexual and reproductive health, and gender-responsive budgeting, we are falling behind. Violence against women continues unabated.   Inequality and Poverty   While in the past decade, the richest 1 percent had captured around half of all new wealth, during the pandemic, it has bagged twice as much wealth as the rest – increases in levels of inequality has been unprecedented.   More and more people have been pushed to extreme poverty conditions increasing the hunger of the world. As many as 198 million have been added, taking the extreme poor category to 860 million. Roughly one in ten people in the World live in hunger, suggest research findings. While the general condition of people has worsened, the condition of women has been the worst. The food insecurity level of women is much higher than men across the world.   On the front of employment, the OXFAM report, “Survival of the Richest” suggests that globally women lost 64 million jobs due to the pandemic. And twice as many young women lost their jobs during the pandemic as young men. It’s well known that the character of women’s employment is marked by much greater levels of informality, particularly in the global south, making them vulnerable to job dismissal. Domestic workers were the worst hit during the pandemic.   Women from the most discriminated and excluded sections like elderly women, indigenous communities, women and girls with disabilities, communities facing discrimination by Work and Descent (CDWD) are the most affected. They faced higher risk of Covid transmission, fatalities, loss of livelihood, and increased violence.   In Latin America and the Caribbean there are serious issues of femicide, gender inequality and above all obstacles for the women to access their rights. Barriers to women’s right to land and housing remain and inequalities persist in the form of gender segregation in the workforce and lower wages for work.   Access to vaccine and health:   During the process of vaccination and access to health services, women faced issues of limited mobility to reach health facilities and vaccination sites exacerbated by limited control over resources for accessing them including lack of information about vaccines and vaccine safety. The Dalit women across South Asia faced discrimination on access to the vaccines.   Women also constitute 70 per cent of health workers and first responders are women who are more vulnerable to the virus, but hardly have they been at par with their male counterparts in terms of payment and priorities.   Despite the improved global vaccination situation, Africa remains poorly vaccinated even now which is the direct fall out of the vaccine nationalism and Pharma greed backed by the rich countries. While the percentage of people who got at least one dose of vaccine is 71.8 percent, Africa has the lowest vaccination rate of any continent with just 35.2 percent of the population receiving one dose of a vaccine. There is evidence that women in the poorest countries of Africa are missing out on vaccines.   Recommendations:   Far more radical and transformative steps are required to achieve the SDGs by 2030. Accelerate pandemic response and extend it to the most vulnerable communities – including the remote areas in provinces where access to vaccines remains difficult, especially for women with disabilities & other marginalised communities.   Adequate measures are taken by governments to better cope with any future pandemic. A complete TRIPS waiver of the Covid vaccine, test and treatment is necessary to enable the global community to fight the virus.   Governments should put in place policies of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) through public funding that goes beyond the insurance model. The UHC ought to be seen from an angle of right to health, i.e., right of each person to health regardless of their ability to pay, where they are, and their socio-political identity. Women must be at the centre of such a model. Government investment in the health sector should be at least 5% of GDP at the national level.   We demand a long-term, operational and sustainable financial commitment to social protection including the Global Fund for Social Protection to achieve social protection by all in 2030. This must include all women and be based on social justice, equity and rights based-approaches for community resilience.   Urge governments to be more accountable towards their constituents for gender-based mistreatment – no to violence against women!   Create awareness among both women and men about the importance of empathy towards each other will be instrumental in preventing violence against women and girls.   All states, with no exemption, must comply with their human rights commitments by adopting and implementing policies, laws, programs, and budgets that align with international conventions, such as the Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and ILO conventions, protocols, and social security guarantees related to migrant workers, indigenous peoples, wage protection, domestic workers, workers’ health, and the social protection floor.   On International Women’s Day, GCAP urges governments and communities to work together to end violence, exclusion, and discrimination against all women and girls and achieve gender equality and inclusion.   http://gcap.global/news/gcap-march-2023-newsletter-statement-on-international-womens-day-2023-embraceequity/   Mar. 2023   Equality: Turning words into actions to leave no one behind, by Tanya Cox - Director at CONCORD.   CONCORD hosted our first ever Equality Day this month, at which many practitioners, EU officials and CONCORD members came together see what more we could do. Two messages came out loud and clear throughout the day. Firstly, that we need to adopt a sense of urgency. While a lot is said about the need to improve equality, and many key international institutions have made a variety of statements and commitments to this effect, in reality, we’re slow to turn words into meaningful, sustainable actions with lasting results for the world’s furthest behind.   And, unless we’re very careful, the hallowed principle of Leave No One Behind, enshrined in the 2030 Agenda, will become a hollow slogan.   Secondly, in a globalised world, we’re only as strong as the weakest link. So the weakest link matters and we were forcefully reminded of that during the covid pandemic. Our globalised world has reinforced the systemic, interconnected nature of everything and everyone. Many issues we see – like migration, social unrest, climate change – have their roots in – and/or are causes of – inequalities.   But we are all struggling both to challenge the system (the power, the privilege, the patriarchy, the deeply entrenched economic and political models) and even to take a systemic approach. It’s important to recognise that inequalities are not accidents of fate. They’re the result of deliberate choices made by people in positions of power.   The upside of that, of course, is that those policies and actions can be changed and the results can be reversed, which gives reason for hope. On a similarly positive note, all the participants in our panels and in our breakout groups highlighted ways in which we and the EU can do more, and better.   But it depends on political will: as they say, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. Because the solutions aren’t easy and do need us all to reimagine how our systems operate and how we can do more than tinker around the edges of the issues.   CONCORD used the occasion of our Equality Day to launch the results of some research we conducted in three countries: Paraguay, Bangladesh and South Africa. We interviewed local communities involved in EU projects to find out what is making a difference.   Our partners were clear: the EU has an important role to play in putting topics on the table that their government is reluctant to deal with. However, there is also a lingering concern that – because their country may appear to be doing quite well from a GDP perspective – the EU may withdraw. However, those rosy GDP figures mask a whole host of inequalities which are actually growing (even if some income inequality is falling).   For example, lack of access to basic services, discrimination, violence and so on remain really huge problems. And a sense of well-being is actually still a far-off dream for many, which once again proves that GDP and well-being don’t go hand-in-hand and we need to measure well-being.   Our partners shared with us ideas of what more the EU – and others – need to do, based on their experience. They told us that taking a multidimensional and intersectional approach is not an option: it’s a requirement for effective change! They told us that it’s crucial to make inequalities a specific priority, not an afterthought, and not only mainstreamed.   So, for example addressing inequalities should be a criterion for every funding decision going forward, including those under the Global Gateway banner, which currently has a €300bn price tag attached to it.   Engaging with communities is key to address their experiences of inequalities since the ways inequalities are lived and experienced by people varies a lot across regions and countries, and within countries and communities. And finally, our partners strongly advised the EU to focus on long-term change – systemic change takes time, so investing in the sustainability of projects and initiatives is very important.   All of these points seem obvious, but actually pose quite some challenges for the EU and its ways of working (and for the EU’s partners). Indeed, just to take the last point, policy-makers may think they are taking a long-term perspective in the proposals they make, but often it feels more as though they are reacting to the uncertainty and insecurity that are all around us these days.   And uncertainty breeds short-termism. Taking a “cathedral thinking” approach has to go beyond election and funding cycles. It is key to solve the problems of inequalities.   We’ve got seven years left to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. And as far as inequalities are concerned – they’ve been made all the worse by the recent crises. So we need to pull out all the stops – collectively – to make sure we contribute to achieving equal, fair and inclusive societies in a sustainable world.   * CONCORD is the European Confederation of NGOs working on sustainable development and international cooperation. Made up of 58 member organisations representing more than 2600 NGOs and are supported by millions of citizens across Europe.   http://concordeurope.org/2023/03/27/equality-day-turning-words-into-actions-to-leave-no-one-behind/   Mar. 2023   The 2023 G7 and G20 summits come at a time of immense global challenges. (InterAction)   The world is at a tipping point for addressing climate change, a crisis that has far-reaching impacts that worsen global inequality, poverty, and humanitarian crises. Many countries face rising and unsustainable debt. Meanwhile, Russia’s war in Ukraine has resulted in thousands of deaths and continues to destabilize the region, creating knock-on effects for food and energy security around the globe.   These challenges and others are immense yet addressable, and the G7 and G20 are well placed to do so.   First, the G7 and G20 provide platforms for countries to coordinate their efforts and collaborate toward common goals. The scale and complexity of the challenges we face mean no single country can tackle them on its own.   Second, as multilateral fora, the G7 and G20 promote international cooperation and dialogue. Global challenges such as climate change, debt distress, and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals require multilateral cooperation. The G7 and G20 provide critical space for countries to engage in constructive dialogue.   Third, the G7 and G20 have significant power and influence. For example, G20 countries account for more than 80% of global gross domestic product (GDP), three-quarters of global trade, and two-thirds of the world’s population. G7 countries, a group comprised of the world’s richest democracies, account for 27% of global GDP. The collective economic power of these countries gives them a unique ability to leverage their resources and influence to address global challenges and achieve common goals.   For these reasons, the G7 and G20 are critical for tackling global challenges, and maintaining focus on achieving common goals wherever possible is more important than ever.   InterAction’s G7/G20 Advocacy Alliance, a group of more than 40 U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations, developed sets of recommendations to consider in advance of upcoming ministerial and preparatory meetings of the 2023 G7 and G20. These recommendations provide a civil society perspective on the issues, including climate; democracy and human rights; development finance; food security and nutrition; health; humanitarian assistance; gender equality; and urbanization.   http://www.interaction.org/blog/2023-g7-and-g20-summit-policy-papers-and-recommendations http://reliefweb.int/report/world/listening-not-enough-people-demand-transformational-change-humanitarian-assistance-global-analysis-report-november-2022
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