An expert panel is calling on G20 leaders to establish an International Panel on Inequality — mirroring the UN's climate body — when they convene in Johannesburg this weekend.
The proposal comes together with a report revealing that 90 percent of the world's population lives in countries with dangerously high inequality, threatening democratic stability and economic progress.
The report was set up by an committee of independent experts appointed by South African president Cyril Ramaphosa. South Africa currently holds the presidency of the G20.
The G20 economic forum, comprising 19 countries plus the EU and African Union, holds its annual leaders' summit 22-23 November in Johannesburg, South Africa.
According to the report, 83 percent of countries, home to 90 percent of the world’s population, fit the World Bank’s criteria for high inequality. It finds that nations with such deep divides are seven times more likely to face democratic backsliding than their more equal counterparts.
The report argues that concentrated wealth grants the ultra-rich disproportionate power over economic and political systems. Economic inequalities translate into political inequalities, limiting citizens' access to justice and voice in policymaking.
In many countries, billionaire-controlled media outlets enable the wealthy to shape public debate and political discourse.
Since 2000, the richest one percent has captured 41 percent of new global wealth, with their fortunes growing by an average of €1.13 million per person. Meanwhile, the poorest half of humanity has seen wealth increase by just one percent — that is, €507 per person.
A series of shocks since 2020, from the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine to a new wave of tariffs and trade disputes emerging in 2025, has led to a deepening of global poverty and inequality.
Today, one in four people regularly go without meals, even as billionaire fortunes reach record highs, according to the report.
Ramaphosa identified inequality as a pressing global economic and financial issue and called on the G20 leaders to “significantly and urgently reduce inequality”.
The committee consists of six economists and inequality experts from all around the world and is chaired by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
The committee’s main proposal is to establish of a new international and independent panel, modelled after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an International Panel on Inequality (IPI).
The body would track global trends, analyse their underlying causes and impacts, and review potential policy responses to guide governments, decision-makers, and the wider international community.
“I think there are a lot of western interests that really benefit hugely from this inequality. The people who derive their incomes from monopoly operations, people who generate huge amounts of wealth from intellectual property in important vaccines, etc, which stop others from using it,” Imraan Valodia from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and a member of the committee, told EUobserver.
She added: “The point that we make is that it's very important that globally we start to take action to address this inequality problem, because if we don't, it's going to become worse and it's going to undermine our economies, it's going to undermine our political system.
"We're hopeful that a panel of this sort would provide the impetus for action.”
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Hannah Kriwak is a junior reporter from Austria at EUobserver, covering European politics.
Hannah Kriwak is a junior reporter from Austria at EUobserver, covering European politics.