SA launches G20 taskforce to examine global wealth inequality

By Amy Musgrave

President Cyril Ramaphosa has launched a G20 experts taskforce to examine global wealth inequality and its impact on growth, poverty and multilateralism. It is the first initiative of its kind for the G20.

The six-member taskforce, chaired by Nobel Economics Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz, will present its findings to G20 leaders in Johannesburg in November.

The Presidency said on Thursday that the extraordinary committee was being launched amid macroeconomic fears that global wealth and income inequality, which was already very high, was set to sharply accelerate. 

It said recent analysis showed that the world’s richest 1% have increased their wealth by more than US$33.9 trillion in real terms since 2015, which was more than enough to eliminate annual global poverty 22 times over. 

“People across the world know how extreme inequality undermines their dignity and chance for a better future. They saw the brutal unfairness of vaccine