JOHANNESBURG: Billionaires across the world’s major economies accumulated a staggering $2.2 trillion last year — an amount sufficient to lift all 3.8 billion people living below the poverty line — global charity Oxfam revealed on Thursday. The wealth of billionaires in the 19 G20 countries rose to $15.6 trillion, according to figures based on the Forbes list.
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Ahead of this weekend’s G20 summit in South Africa, Oxfam urged world leaders to support initiatives aimed at reducing global inequality and tackling the crushing debt burden faced by developing nations. The group stressed that the annual cost required to eradicate global poverty stands at $1.65 trillion, well below the wealth billionaires accumulated in a single year.
Oxfam is backing South Africa’s proposal to establish an International Panel on Inequality — similar to the UN’s IPCC on climate change — to address what it calls an “inequality emergency.” Executive director Amitabh Behar said such a panel would mark a “tremendous step” in understanding and mitigating global disparities.
The charity also called for fair taxation of the world’s wealthy to help fund poverty reduction and climate action. It criticised the United States for pushing what it described as “destructive policies,” including regressive tax breaks and cuts to vital aid programmes.
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Highlighting the dire global debt crisis, Oxfam noted that 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on interest payments than on essential services like health and education. South Africa, hosting the first-ever G20 summit on the African continent, hopes the meeting will advance the priorities of developing nations before the presidency shifts to the United States in 2026.