Anathi Ndevu
We are reporting this week from G20 meetings in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the immediate contrast here is striking.
It is no secret that South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world, and as the leaders of the world's most powerful economies gather here for the G20 meetings, inequality must be the central topic of discussion.
To truly grasp the scale of this crisis, one only has to look at the immediate environment surrounding the G20 venue.
Take Sandton, South Africa’s financial capital, a skyline dominated by gleaming towers, home to million-rand businesses, and surrounded by affluent residences that illustrate just how high some people can climb.
Yet, just a few kilometers away, in the township of Alexandra, life looks dramatically different, characterized by struggle with poverty and a lack of basic services.
I point out this obvious, painful disparity because when world leaders arrive in Johannesburg this week for the G20, they will see this profound inequality, and the view out their window as they travel to the summit will be an immediate lesson in why this issue demands global action.
Crucially, inequality is officially on the G20 agenda, following a powerful recommendation from a high-level panel for the G20 to establish a permanent International Panel on Inequality, or IPPI, to track, monitor, and inform global policy responses to the crisis.
To understand the gravity of this recommendation, we sat down with Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz, who chaired the panel, and he was unequivocal, stating that the world faces nothing less than an inequality emergency. Professor Stiglitz made it clear why the G20 is the appropriate body for this discussion:
“The reason why it was particularly important for this to come up at the G20 is that much of the inequality within countries and between countries arises from the global rules of the game. If you set them up wrongly, you'll benefit a few oligarchs at the expense of the rest of the economy. So that's why if, as I think is obvious, that we face an inequality crisis, high levels of inequality, then it's important for the leaders of all the countries of the world to begin to engage in the discussion of how can we make sure that the global rules are such as to promote equality both within countries and between countries.”
Professor Stiglitz then shared a truly shocking figure illustrating the severity of global inequality, driven, he explained, by financial systems few people fully understand.
“Just to give you one number that we bring out — 40 percent of all the wealth created in the last quarter of a century went to the top 1 percent. And the bottom 50 percent got only 1 percent. That’s an inequality of a magnitude we haven’t seen before — and it’s being driven by financialization that’s barely understood.”
The panel’s core message to the G20 leaders, therefore, is that they must act decisively by implementing National Inequality Reduction Plans, urgently reforming the global financial system, and ensuring that development banks work to reduce inequality rather than deepening it. Professor Stiglitz emphasized that this is a matter of political will.
“Inequality, we do know, is a choice. There are policies out there. Creating this independent panel on inequality could play the role the IPCC played on climate change — guiding the world to the right policy response.”
The crisis is further complicated by the rapid rise of Generative AI, which promises technological advancements but is also enriching a select few while offering no guarantee of solving poverty, potentially worsening the outlook for young workers. Professor Stiglitz voiced his concern for this next generation:
“Some of them are worried about AI. And there's no assurance that the government will be able to make sure that a few people who benefit won't take away their jobs. So I think for a young person, this is a particularly perilous moment. They see a few people going up that ladder — to the very top jobs — while everyone else is left behind.”
My hope is that when world leaders travel down the highway from Sandton to the Nasrec Conference Centre this week, they will indeed look out the window, observe the contrast between the gleaming towers and the nearby poverty, and recognize that they are meeting in a country that embodies the inequality emergency, seeing exactly why their policies matter.
