President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday launched a G20 experts task force aimed at examining global wealth inequality and its impact on growth, poverty, and multilateralism. This marks the first initiative of its kind within the G20 framework.
The six-member task force, chaired by Nobel Economics Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz, will present its findings to G20 leaders when they meet in Johannesburg in November. Ramaphosa’s leadership of the G20 presidency this year has focused on issues affecting poorer nations, including rising inequality and mounting sovereign debt burdens.
“We are proud to launch an initiative targeting global wealth inequality, a first for the G20, which will offer a practical way forward,” Ramaphosa said in a statement, emphasizing that inequality undermines dignity and opportunity worldwide. He pointed to the unequal distribution of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic as a stark example of such disparities.
The president highlighted how rising food and energy prices, along with debt crises and trade wars, are deepening the gap between the wealthy and the rest of the world. “A new oligarchy in our global economy is becoming apparent,” Ramaphosa warned.
Stiglitz, speaking about the task force’s mission, emphasized that inequality was a policy choice and urged G20 nations to pursue alternative economic and social policies. “Inequality was always a choice, and G20 nations have the power to choose a different path,” Stiglitz said.
According to the World Inequality Report, the poorest half of the global population owned only 2% of global wealth in 2021, while the richest 10% controlled 76%.
The task force also includes UNAids executive director Winnie Byanyima and Jayati Ghosh, a development economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The United States is set to take over the rotating G20 presidency at the end of this year.
The G20, originally formed to coordinate financial policy after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, expanded to include state leaders following the global financial crisis in 2008.
