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	We need to do everything possible to save lives by Martin Griffiths, Joyce Msuya UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs   Dec. 2023   Launch of the Global Humanitarian Overview 2024. Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator (Extract):   As enter 2024, almost 300 million people around the world are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection – 300 million people.   And we know the causes. New and resurgent conflicts around the world with deep and long-lasting consequences, almost none of which are resolved and become what we call intractable.   This year, we have seen the eruption of yet more brutal conflicts. In Sudan in April and, in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in October, joining the myriad other unresolved conflicts that have kept millions of people in the state of prolonged need. A year ago Ukraine, Syria, Yemen to name only a few.   The global climate emergency has continued to spiral out of control. 2023 has been the hottest year on record. We have seen multiple concurrent climate disasters, from Tropical Cyclone Freddy in southern Africa to wildfires in Europe, and the other devastation wrought by storm Daniel in Libya. And we were lucky to escape famine in the Horn of Africa. More children are now are displaced by climate than by conflict.   Persistent unequal economic pressures, climate disasters, disease outbreaks and other factors are significant drivers of need. Across the world more people are displaced than at any time since the beginning of this century: One in every 73 people around the world, a ratio that has been doubled in more than 10 years.   Nearly one in five children around the world is either living in or fleeing from conflict. 258 million people are facing acute food insecurity or worse. Disease outbreaks continue to cause significant loss of life, with deadly cholera outbreaks in 29 countries. In Sudan, fueled by a overstretched health system, with shortages of vaccines and lack of access to clean water and sanitation.   In the face of such immense challenges, the humanitarian community, has continued to provide some form of assistance this year to 128 million people worldwide – a heroic effort thanks to the generosity of many people. These efforts save lives. They make a decisive difference in many crises.   Across the humanitarian community, we continued our efforts to make humanitarian action more efficient, more effective and accountable to those we serve. We are aim to empower more affected people and to devolve more direction and decision making to the local level. More than ever, it’s time to put those affected by crisis at the center of our decision making.   But these efforts have taken place against the backdrop of a severe and ominous funding crisis. In 2023, we have so far received just over one third of the $57 billion required, making this the worst funding shortfall in years.   The result is that many people, around 38 percent of those targeted through our emergency-specific plans in countries, did not get the humanitarian assistance we sought to provide. Throughout the year, humanitarian agencies had to make painful decisions, including cutting life-saving food, water and health programming.   The World Food Programme reports that for every one per cent cut in funding - 400,000 more people fall into serious food insecurity. And we would like to hope, to not continue this trend into next year.   In preparing the Global Humanitarian Overview for 2024, we have worked hard with robust, evidence-based appeals anchored in the most comprehensive analysis of needs, with an even more disciplined focus on the most urgent life-saving needs as the overwhelming priority.   On behalf of more than 1,900 humanitarian partners around the world we assess we require $46 billion to assist 181 million people in 72 countries in the most urgent humanitarian need in 2024.   We are also issuing a wider call to action. Humanitarian assistance cannot be the entire solution – everyone needs to be part of this process. It is time to redouble our efforts to look at the root causes of humanitarian need: Conflict, climate change and economic dynamics. It is time to look at ways to back durable solutions.   We are facing an increasingly multipolar, fragmented, competitive and unstable world. It’s a world in which we’re seeing the multiplication of State and non-State actors, with 175 million people, now believed to be living under the control of armed groups.   It’s a world that is increasingly globalized, increasingly interconnected, in which a crisis in one place affects millions of people in other places and provides challenges to multilateral action and stability.   In these challenging times, more vigorous diplomatic action is required in support of swift humanitarian response. We need to engage with all parts of international communities to reach the people in communities whose lives have been so quickly turned upside down.   Just look at Sudan. At how the humanitarian situation is so badly unravelling, in the context of so little diplomatic progress.   If we are to overcome increasingly complex challenges to humanitarian action, which we will see in 2024 – it’s all of us, who need to come together to play our part. The most important role the international community can play in crises is to do everything possible to save lives, to reconfirm that we are, at our core, one humanity.   Remarks by Joyce Msuya, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator:   The world is in the midst of one of the largest humanitarian crises of the modern era, with the devastation wrought by conflict, climate change and economic hardship fuelling unprecedented levels of suffering.   Nearly one out of every five children is either living in conflict or fleeing from it. The number of people suffering acute food shortages caused mainly by climate-related disasters has doubled in the space of a year. The displacement crisis is now worse than any we have seen this century.   And today’s conflicts are more intense than ever. In just two months, 17,000 civilians have reportedly been killed in Gaza, the majority of them women and children.   In the face of all of this, humanitarians around the world have continued to display astonishing levels of sacrifice, resolve and courage as they strive to reach people in their darkest hour.   This year, thanks to the generous contributions of donors, the humanitarian community helped 128 million people with some form of assistance. This is a sign that efforts to strengthen humanitarian action are working.   We are now more efficient, effective and accountable. We have devolved more power to frontline responders. And we’re getting better at anticipating threats so that people can prepare for disaster before it strikes. Yet despite these herculean efforts, millions were not reached.   Donor funding this year fell far short of needs. Indeed, 2023 will be the first year since the global recession that finance for humanitarian emergencies is lower than the previous year.   As a result, humanitarian agencies have had to make increasingly painful decisions, cutting life-saving food, water and health programming, with devastating results for so many.   In Afghanistan, a country in the grips of famine, we have had to cut food deliveries to 10 million people. In places like Myanmar and Haiti, we have had to stop the construction of emergency shelters, which left almost a million people without a place to live, exposed to extreme weather and natural disasters.   In Nigeria, we could only reach 2 per cent of women in urgent need of sexual and reproductive health services and gender-based violence prevention.   We cannot allow this trend to continue into next year. That’s why today – on behalf of more than 1,900 humanitarian partners, the majority of them local and national NGOs – we are urging donors to fully fund our appeal for US$46.4 billion.   This money will provide a lifeline to 181 million people in 72 countries – men, women and children whose lives have been shattered by war, climate change, economic hardship and other disasters.   Although the amount we’re asking for is less than last year, this does not mean the global humanitarian situation has improved. It means we have had to focus our efforts on the people who face the greatest threat to their lives.   Faced with cuts, we have had to get creative, working tirelessly to prepare robust, evidence-based appeals, anchored in in-depth analyses. Thanks to this work, we know exactly what needs to be done.   First, more support than ever will need to be channelled through local and national partners to ensure that humanitarian action is truly grounded in people’s priorities. In Mozambique, I met women going door to door to speak with survivors of the world’s most powerful cyclone. These women understood the needs on the ground and were able to respond with speed and flexibility to ever shifting priorities. We must do even more to empower groups like this.   Second, we need to step up efforts to prepare communities for disaster. Anticipatory action not only protects lives; it reduces the financial cost of humanitarian action, allowing us to do more with less.   Third, we must prioritize humanitarian diplomacy if we want to get life-saving aid into countries where armed groups and bureaucratic barriers have cut off tens of millions of people.   Having just returned from COP28, and before that from some of the countries worst hit by climate shocks in East and Southern Africa, I want to end with a word about the climate crisis.   As humanitarians working on the frontlines of the world’s disaster zones, we know the future that scientists warned us about has arrived. Our planet is now hotter than it has been for at least 12,000 years. Human activity has pushed the planet into a new age – an age of fire, heat, flood and drought unlike any humanity has faced.   This year we saw record-breaking heat supercharge natural disasters and extreme weather planet wide.   In Libya, flash floods killed at least 4,000 people, with thousands still missing, and displaced more than 40,000 people. In Canada, wildfires burned an area of forest roughly the size of Syria.   So far this year climate and weather-related disasters affected more than 44 million people, causing more than 18,000 deaths.   The climate crisis is also turbocharging the world’s existing humanitarian crises, plunging people already reeling from disaster into even greater depths of misery.   The humanitarian community is doing everything it can to respond. We are providing immediate, on-the-ground support to the world’s most marginalized and affected. We’re finding ways to support longer term resilience even as we provide life-saving assistance. And we’re delivering fast, effective assistance through our pooled funds to local organizations operating in the most fragile places.   But the pace and scale of change is rapidly outstripping our ability to respond, stretching an overburdened system to breaking point.   Our message is clear: there is no humanitarian solution to the climate crisis. Unless we address the root causes of this crisis by taking aggressive steps to mitigate climate change and build resilience, the humanitarian system will be overwhelmed.   We have been warned about what awaits us should we fail to act:   Within a little more than 20 years, more than 1.6 billion people could be exposed to severe and extreme drought. That’s four times today’s number. And the number of people living in ‘very high’ crisis risk countries will roughly triple.   Given this nightmare scenario, it is imperative that donors support resilience and climate adaptation alongside humanitarian relief. The money for the transition is clearly there. Last year G20 governments spent a record $1.4 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies.   This is 30 times more than what we need to fund this year’s humanitarian appeal. That fact alone should give us pause.   This year’s global humanitarian overview paints a picture of a world plagued by multiple, escalating, and interconnected crises. Among them a spiralling climate emergency that is adding more fuel to the fire.   Yet it also paints a picture of a humanitarian community that has grown more skilled, more efficient and faster at reaching people in their time of greatest need.   And so I would ask you for a moment to imagine what might be possible if this community received the funds it needed. Imagine how many more millions of people we could reach, how many more we could help to rebuild and repair lives upended by the world’s disasters. This is the world I want to see us build together. And I know you do too.   http://humanitarianaction.info/document/global-humanitarian-overview-2024/ http://www.wfp.org/stories/2023-pictures-ration-cuts-threaten-catastrophe-millions-facing-hunger http://www.wfp.org/publications/wfp-global-operational-response-plan-update-9-november-2023 http://www.savethechildren.net/news/2023-review-nearly-16000-children-day-plunged-hunger-top-10-worsening-food-crises http://www.unicef.org/emergencies/13-emergencies-need-more-attention-support-2024 http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/2024-looms-increasingly-bleak-children-affected-armed-conflicts-and-disasters-unicef http://www.unicef.org/emergencies/launch-2024-humanitarian-appeal Visit the related web page
	Extreme Inequality is a Human Rights Issue by Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, agencies   Feb. 2024   Less than eight cents in every dollar raised in tax revenue in G20 countries now comes from taxes on wealth, reveals new analysis by Oxfam ahead of the first meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Sao Paulo, Brazil.   By comparison, more than 32 cents in every dollar (over four times as much) is collected from taxes on goods and services. Taxes on food and other necessities, for example, shift more of the tax burden onto lower-income families.   Oxfam’s research also found that the share of national income going to the top 1 percent of earners in G20 countries has increased by 45 percent over the last four decades. During the same period, the top tax rates on their incomes has fallen by roughly a third (from around 60 percent in 1980 to 40 percent in 2022).   The top 1 percent of earners in G20 countries made more than $18 trillion in income 2022, a figure higher than the GDP of China.   In countries including Brazil, France, Italy, the UK and US, the super-rich pay an effective tax rate lower than the average worker. G20 countries are home to nearly four out of five of the world’s billionaires.   "In country after country, a war on fair taxation has coincided with a war on democracy, putting more money and power into the hands of a tiny, inequality-fueling elite. As the finance ministers of the world's largest economies gather this week, this contest takes center stage: will they reclaim their democracies by taxing the super-rich?" said Katia Maia, Executive Director of Oxfam Brazil.   Brazil, at the helm of the G20, has plans to forge the first global agreement on taxing the super-rich to reduce global inequality. A recent poll has revealed that nearly three-quarters of millionaires in G20 countries support higher taxes on wealth, and over half think extreme wealth is a “threat to democracy.”   Higher taxes on the wealth and income of the richest could raise the trillions of dollars needed to tackle both inequality and climate breakdown. For example, Oxfam estimates that a wealth tax of up to 5 percent on the G20’s multimillionaires and billionaires could raise nearly $1.5 trillion a year.   This would be enough to end global hunger, help low- and middle-income countries adapt to climate change, and bring the world back on track to meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) —and still leave more than $546 billion to invest in inequality-busting public services and climate action in G20 countries.   “A fair tax system can curb inequality and foster healthier, more inclusive societies,” said Maia. “Higher taxes for the super-rich means being able to invest in working families, protecting the climate, and making important public services like education and healthcare available to all. It also means being able to repair holes in social safety nets, to soften the blow of future crises.”   http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/less-8-cents-every-dollar-tax-revenue-collected-g20-countries-comes-taxes-wealth http://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/feb/29/taxation-worlds-billionaires-super-rich-g20-brazil   Jan. 2024   The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020 —at a rate of $14 million per hour— while nearly five billion people have been made poorer, reveals a new Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power. If current trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade but poverty won’t be eradicated for another 229 years.   “Inequality Inc.”, published today as business elites gather in the Swiss resort town of Davos, reveals that seven out of ten of the world’s biggest corporations have a billionaire as CEO or principal shareholder. These corporations are worth $10.2 trillion, equivalent to more than the combined GDPs of all countries in Africa and Latin America.   “We’re witnessing the beginnings of a decade of division, with billions of people shouldering the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation and war, while billionaires’ fortunes boom. This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else,” said Oxfam International interim Executive Director Amitabh Behar.   “Runaway corporate and monopoly power is an inequality-generating machine: through squeezing workers, dodging tax, privatizing the state, and spurring climate breakdown, corporations are funneling endless wealth to their ultra-rich owners. But they’re also funneling power, undermining our democracies and our rights. No corporation or individual should have this much power over our economies and our lives —to be clear, nobody should have a billion dollars”.   The past three years’ supercharged surge in extreme wealth has solidified while global poverty remains mired at pre-pandemic levels. Billionaires are $3.3 trillion richer than in 2020, and their wealth has grown three times faster than the rate of inflation.   Despite representing just 21 percent of the global population, rich countries in the Global North own 69 percent of global wealth and are home to 74 percent of the world’s billionaire wealth.   Share ownership overwhelmingly benefits the richest. The top 1 percent own 43 percent of all global financial assets. They hold 48 percent of financial wealth in the Middle East, 50 percent in Asia and 47 percent in Europe.   Mirroring the fortunes of the super-rich, large firms are set to smash their annual profit records in 2023. 148 of the world’s biggest corporations together raked in $1.8 trillion in total net profits in the year to June 2023, a 52 percent jump compared to average net profits in 2018-2021. Their windfall profits surged to nearly $700 billion. The report finds that for every $100 of profit made by 96 major corporations between July 2022 and June 2023, $82 was paid out to rich shareholders.   Bernard Arnault is the world’s second richest man who presides over luxury goods empire LVMH, which has been fined by France‘s anti-trust body. He also owns France’s biggest media outlet, Les Echos, as well as Le Parisien.   Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person, holds a “near-monopoly” on cement in Nigeria. His empire’s expansion into oil has raised concerns about a new private monopoly.   Jeff Bezos’s fortune of $167.4 billion increased by $32.7 billion since the beginning of the decade. The US government has sued Amazon, the source of Bezos’ fortune, for wielding its “monopoly power” to hike prices, degrade service for shoppers and stifle competition.   “Monopolies harm innovation and crush workers and smaller businesses. The world hasn’t forgotten how pharma monopolies deprived millions of people of COVID-19 vaccines, creating a racist vaccine apartheid, while minting a new club of billionaires,” said Behar.   People worldwide are working harder and longer hours, often for poverty wages in precarious and unsafe jobs. The wages of nearly 800 million workers have failed to keep up with inflation and they have lost $1.5 trillion over the last two years, equivalent to nearly a month (25 days) of lost wages for each worker.   New Oxfam analysis of World Benchmarking Alliance data on more than 1,600 of the largest corporations worldwide shows that 0.4 percent of them are publicly committed to paying workers a living wage and support a living wage in their value chains. It would take 1,200 years for a woman working in the health and social sector to earn what the average CEO in the biggest 100 Fortune companies earns in a year.   Oxfam's report also shows how a "war on taxation" by corporations has seen the effective corporate tax rate fall by roughly a third in recent decades, while corporations have relentlessly privatized the public sector and segregated services like education and water.   “We have the evidence. We know the history. Public power can rein in runaway corporate power and inequality —shaping the market to be fairer and free from billionaire control.   Governments must intervene to break up monopolies, empower workers, tax these massive corporate profits and, crucially, invest in a new era of public goods and services,” said Behar.   “Every corporation has a responsibility to act but very few are. Governments must step up. There is action that lawmakers can learn from, from US anti-monopoly government enforcers suing Amazon in a landmark case, to the European Commission wanting Google to break up its online advertising business, and Africa’s historic fight to reshape international tax rules.”   Oxfam is calling on governments to rapidly and radically reduce the gap between the super-rich and the rest of society by:   Revitalizing the state. A dynamic and effective state is the best bulwark against extreme corporate power. Governments should ensure universal provision of healthcare and education, and explore publicly-delivered goods and public options in sectors from energy to transportation.   Reining in corporate power, including by breaking up monopolies and democratizing patent rules. This also means legislating for living wages, capping CEO pay, and new taxes on the super-rich and corporations, including permanent wealth and excess profit taxes. Oxfam estimates that a wealth tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires could generate $1.8 trillion a year.   Reinventing business. Competitive and profitable businesses don’t have to be shackled by shareholder greed. Democratically-owned businesses better equalize the proceeds of business. If just 10 percent of US businesses were employee-owned, this could double the wealth share of the poorest half of the US population, including doubling the average wealth of Black households.   http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/wealth-five-richest-men-doubles-2020-five-billion-people-made-poorer-decade-division http://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/inequality-inc-how-corporate-power-divides-our-world-and-the-need-for-a-new-era-621583/   Jan. 2024   Asked about the status of women in a world of rising economic inequalities, Rebecca Riddell, policy lead for economic and racial justice at Oxfam America, told IPS: “Women pay the highest price for a broken global economy”.   Globally, she pointed out, men own US$105 trillion more wealth than women—equivalent to more than four times the size of the US economy—and women earn just 51 cents for every $1 made by men.   “Women are also especially harmed by the policies that fuel our inequality crisis, like tax breaks for the rich and cuts to public services,” said Riddell, one of the authors of the Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power.   They carry out the vast majority of unpaid care work, which is vital to keeping our communities and economies afloat, and their labor is constantly undervalued in the workplace, she noted.   “We found it would take 1,200 years for women working in the health and social sector to earn what the average CEO at the biggest Fortune 100 companies makes in just one year,” declared Riddell.   http://www.ipsnews.net/2024/01/worlds-richest-men-leave-women-far-behind-amid-rising-economic-inequalities/   Jan. 2024   Extreme Inequality is a Human Rights Issue, by Andrew Stroehlein for Human Rights Watch   As the annual gathering of the extreme elite kicks off in Davos today, I’m reminded of an argument I often have with an old friend.   It always starts with some news item about the number of billionaires somewhere: “the US is doing great – look at the number of billionaires they have!” Or, “you can see China’s getting better by the increasing number of billionaires there.” Or, “Look at the number of billionaires in India now!”   The prospect of the world’s first trillionaire has him almost unbearably excited: “Who will it be?”   To these friendly provocations, I eventually crack and respond with something like: does humanity really need a trillionaire? In what way will the world be a better place when someone becomes the first trillionaire?   Then, I remind him that the number of super-rich people says nothing about the greatness of a country. Greatness, to me, has far more to do with the overall happiness of its population. Some say billionaires create wealth (and therefore happiness, in their eyes), but, practically by definition, it looks more like they’re hoarding it.   Vast riches have always sparked admiration among many folks like my friend, but they’ve also increased envy and resentment among others. A system perceived as unfairly benefitting a tiny few while the vast majority are essentially told to live on the scraps of what the rich leave behind doesn’t sound like a stable system to me. I don’t see any national benefit there.   What’s more, extreme inequality is a human rights issue. Among other things, it contributes to corruption and mismanagement of public resources, which further reduces access to the keys to a dignified life: affordable healthcare, quality education, adequate housing, a living wage, social protection, and safe drinking water.   Human Rights Watch research frequently exposes how people in poverty are often more vulnerable to having their rights violated. Extreme disparities in wealth mean extreme disparities in power, and thus a greater potential for human rights abuses, which, of course, tends to happen more to those without power than to those with it.   To coincide with the start of billionaires’ private jets arriving for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam has published a new report on global inequality. It reads: “Since 2020, the richest five men in the world have doubled their fortunes. During the same period, almost five billion people globally have become poorer. Hardship and hunger are a daily reality for many people worldwide. At current rates, it will take 230 years to end poverty, but we could have our first trillionaire in 10 years.” That doesn’t sound like greatness to me.   http://www.hrw.org/topic/economic-justice-and-rights/poverty-and-inequality http://wid.world/news-article/whats-new-about-wealth-inequality-in-the-world/
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