UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : International Panel on Inequality (IPI), Founding Committee first meeting

Domestic issues are bounded by global policies and institute, whether it's finance, whether it's the cost of capital.

And as the report points out is inequality is not inevitable, it's not natural.

It is the outcomes of policy choices that we make at domestic levels, but it's bounded also by what happens in the international community.

So it is our hope that this panel would be one of the instruments that allows domestic at the domestic level for us to get the right policies, but to have a coordination of policies at the global level that makes it easier and enables what we do at the domestic level.

So I'm going to end there.

And just to thank again, you know, the engagements today was was incredibly enriching.

You know, we today we spent some time looking at how do we position and locate the, the, the IPI, what is going to be required to ensure that it's an institution that can make a difference.

And so I'd like to thank the academics, the, that joined us in the afternoon, the, the heads of the multilateral institutions that gave us advice, but also to thank Brazil, Norway and Spain for their partnership, not only today, but throughout our G20 presidency because their collaboration made all the difference.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much, and thank you very much for the leadership of South Africa in the G20 that build on the previous leadership of Brazil.

So now I'm glad to give the floor to Ambassador Mauricio Lidio, Secretary of Climate, Energy and Environment at the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Brazil's G20 Sherpa.

Mr Liu, you have the floor.

Thank you very much, Professor Maddalena.

Dear Professor Stiglitz, dear colleagues, from the founding committee and the Consultative Committee.

[Other language spoken]

Well, Brazil strongly supports the proposal to create an international panel on inequality.

Let me begin by recalling that fighting inequality is a core priority of President Lula's administration.

It was also the central subject of the G20 during Brazil's presidency.

And my dear colleague Zane has reminded that there was some beginning in Italy, the fact that inequality was put inside the working Group on development, some advance on that.

But President Lula himself and I remember well because we were in New Delhi for the summit of G20 in September 23 and I would say within sessions he came to us, the group.

I was Sherpa of G20, the foreign minister, Ambassador Celso Maria, former foreign minister in Brazil, and he said please, I want to put inequality at the centre of the whole G20.

These should be the main topic and we should start from the point of view that there we there is one basic inequality in the world, which is the difference of people who have access to food and people who do not have have access to food.

This is one of the basic inequality.

700 million people in the world face hunger.

Among these 150 million kids below 5 years old, five years, it's almost Brazil because Brazil has 205 million people.

So it's a whole nation.

It would be the 9th nation in the United Nations if it were a country, a country of children who do not have access to regular food, not to speak about the 2.3 billion who need to skip meals because they have also irregular access to food.

And so this was a call that we had.

Of course it was not that easy because we had to put these at the centre.

And in the G20 Rio de Janeiro Leaders Declaration, we recognised that inequality within and among countries lies at the root of many of the global challenge we face today and that these challenge in turn further aggravate inequality.

With these in mind, we adopted the first Ministerial Declaration on reducing inequalities in the 20.

It was one of the deliveries of the Working Group on development.

We were very proud about these.

You you can imagine the trend most important economies in the world agreeing on a declaration that we need to reduce inequalities.

Of course, most likely it would not be possible to do that today.

The experience of the South African presidency was brilliant in many respects, but in this you have a declaration with full consensus in the 20 would be unthinkable by the time.

But it was an important result, including issues that are more controversial, more difficult to to put in the agenda as race and gender, ethnicity in general.

And it was an important achievement.

And at the same time we managed to launch the Global Alliance against Hunger, which is going well, it's in FAO.

We have made many progress on that and this idea that this basic inequality should be at the centre also of the agenda and in that respect the support of South Africa, Spain, Norway, Norway was invited for the G20 in Brazil.

This was really crucial for those developments, the continuation of this Ambassador Tovanunis, who is here, our Permanent Representative, has, I would say, materialised in many ways.

One of these was the launching of the Global Coalition on for Social Justice that President Lula has launched it also with the DG of the ILO.

And so this is an effort that we were very proud to have, I would say further strengthen and of course, the work by the South African Presidency with the commissioning of the Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality to give rise to this proposal of the creation of the panel is fantastic.

And that's why we would like to acknowledge all the experts involved for their important contribution, especially Professor Stiglitz who led these work.

In all the very good friendship with President Lula, I think inspires us even more for that.

Looking ahead, we hope this panel will become a global reference capable of informing leaders, guiding policy debates and strengthening international cooperation.

We welcome it's focus on addressing income and wealth inequality, as the concentration of economic resources remains one of the most powerful drivers of democratic erosion.

However, we would like to emphasise that it's equally crucial to address inequalities based on race, gender and other structural dimensions.

From a Brazilian perspective, this is particularly evident.

Our society continues to face deep ratio and gender inequalities that shape access to jobs, income, education and opportunities.

And since you've made reference then to the gene index, we are happy for the first time to be very close to the 0, 5% in index, which is very high still as inequality.

But the progress that we made with, I would say the former mandates of President, President Lulu and current one were, were crucial for that.

At the same time, confronting these inequalities is essential to addressing the turbulent geopolitical landscape we now face because it is intrinsically related to the value attributed to human life.

Today we are witnessing the normalisation of the idea that some lives matter more than others, that a hierarchy exists among people, races and nations.

Economic inequality alone cannot explain the world we face today.

We must also confront the deeper structures that shape whose suffering is seen, whose lives are protected and whose tragedies are allowed to pass unnoticed.

I hope that this panel will help us build a world where all human life is recognised as having equal value.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Thank you very much and also for reminding us of the need of consistent application of international law and bringing progressive ideas, and in that regard, I think that the Government of Spain is a good example.

So I am pleased to give the floor to Mr Jose Domingo Rossello Rossello, Head of the Macroeconomic and Labour Policies Unit, Bureau of Economic Affairs and G20 Office of the Prime Minister of Spain.

Miss Mr Rossello, you have the floor.

Thank you very much, Excellencies, Professors, distinguished colleagues.

Inequality is not a peripheral concern but a structural challenge affecting economic performance, democratic resilience and our collective capacity to address global risks.

Inequality today's operates across multiple dimensions, income, wealth, opportunity and access to essential goods, and across multiple levels from local labour markets to the global economical system.

While some gaps between countries have narrowed over time, disparities within countries remain high and the concentration of wealth at the top continues to outpace the gains of the rest of the society.

This is not merely A distributional issue, it's a question on how our our economies function and for whom they function.

Spain own recent experience suggests that policy choices matter, as extraordinary independent committee members were so kind to point out in the recent report.

Since the beginning of this government in 2018, Spain has pursued a broad economic strategy grounded in the principle that labour market regulation to aim at improving working conditions through higher wages wages stronger employment stability and enhance worker representation, rather than adjusting to socks through the deterioration of job quality.

This approach has informed minimum wages increases and labour market reforms alongside policies that view immigration as a positive and integrative driver of economic growth.

Following the successive the successive shocks of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

This strategy was complemented by target measures to protect households from volatility in essential prices, including the Iberian mechanisms to like to limit electricity price pass through to and other interventional finance through windfall profits section.

Taken together, these policies have contributed to a measurable reduction in income inequality in Spain, with the Gini coefficient reaching its lowest comparable level since 2008.

Importantly, resin improvements has been driven by sustained real real wage growth among lower income workers.

Evidence suggests that the bottom third of the weight distribution has has experienced gains in purchasing power during this.

Even amidst successive crisis.

This point to a broader lesson.

Addressing inequality requires acting not only through the distribution but also through prayer distribution by shaping how income is generated in the first place.

However, inequality is not only a national challenge.

As highlighted in the analysis presented, the international economic architecture from global taxation frameworks to financial flows and trade rules, has distributive consequences both within and between countries.

In a deep level interconnection economy, national efforts to reduce inequality cannot accept initial isolation.

For this reason, it's been since today's discussion as the beginning of a new phase of collective action.

We are strongly support the proposal to establish an International Panel of Inequality, a permanent, independent body capable of synthesising global evidence, monitoring trends and assessing the distributive impact of policy choices across countries and over time.

Spain stands ready to work with the initial group of champion countries to advance the design and establishment and establishment of this panel.

Because inequality is neither inevitable nor immutable.

It is safely by the rules we create, and it can be reduced by redressing them together.

Thank you very much.

And this group of champion countries will not be completed without Norway.

So I have the pleasure to give the floor to Mr Enrique Arvoy, Norway's G20 Sharpa.

Mr Arvoy, you have the floor.

Thank you very much for giving me the floor and also for those nice introductory words.

And I would like to thank this this audience to coming to this important debate.

First of all, Norway's participation in this process is an expression of our support to South Africa for initiating the process and commissioning the report during the G20 presidency, but building on Brazil's G20 presidency the year before.

And also the priority, as, as Mauricio explained, which goes back a couple of years.

But I think Brazil and, and, and South Africa really deserve the, the, the, the merit for this.

And also, I would like to use the opportunity to thank Professor Stiglitz and his group for the excellent work and for your leadership and your energy.

I'm quite impressed with how you have inspired us during the day today.

So looking forward to continue this work.

It is indeed a very ambitious project to establish this international panel on inequality, to address the inequality urgency.

We think that we're strong supporters.

All that, in order to do this effectively we need a combination of excellent academic work, we need a good organisation and governance of this panel to be able to translate science and knowledge into policy.

But then we also need political support and political priority in our countries and there civil society can play a role to to put pressure on on politicians so that we have this high on the agenda.

Then as Professor Stiglitz said in his introduction, we are very much inspired by, and he is very much inspired by IPCC where you, you have a history with the IPCC.

So we need to learn from that, that exercise.

And we had very good discussions today, learning from the experience of the IPCC, but also other panels and, and, and relevant processes.

And in addition to that, we've heard from academics, researchers and also multilateral organisations and all that has inspired us in in trying to design an an efficient and effective panel.

Then we want to continue that discussion this afternoon.

So we have an excellent panel.

I'm looking forward to hearing them, but also the audience.

I hope that you can inspire us with with good questions and don't be afraid to challenge us in this process.

Thank you very much.

Now we're going to proceed with our panel discussion.

I'm going to introduce the panellists right now.

And before introducing the panellists, I need to pass a little bit of an advertising.

So at Unrest, the United Nation Research Institute for Social Development, we have been for 60 years researching on topics that are very relevant in today's world.

It's also for us, we were one of the first entities that has been doing research on inequality since the early 2000s.

And that's why for us, it's really an honour, as I said before, to be hosting this panel today.

Now, as we move forward to our panellists, I'm going to introduce them 1 by 1, and I will be asking some questions.

So we're going to start with Professor Yayati Ghosh, the University of Massachusetts Amras and member of the IP Founding Committee, and also the Extraordinary committee of the G20.

So Professor Ghosh, the skip it the question, go ahead.

[Other language spoken]

And we're we're actually behind the schedule.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

You know, it has been such a privilege to be on this committee and with these very exceptional colleagues.

And of course, as you all know, Professor Stiglitz absolutely leads from the front, and we're all, you know, really running to keep up with him because he's tremendous.

But I also want to acknowledge the exceptional, extraordinary work of the secretariat because this is a report that was completed in two months.

And I personally did not think it was possible, but it happened and it only happened because of the really tremendous work, I think 24 hour a day work of our Secretariat.

So thank you all very much.

So I think my letter, you wanted me to talk about the drivers of inequality because because I'm always going on about I guess.

But it is it, it's there in the report.

But for those of you who haven't had time to look at it, we have tried to summarise what we feel are some of the most important things that actually have created the inequality emergency that we all recognise.

And of course, there are the most structural features.

There's demography, there's technological change, there are the systemic features that were mentioned, cast race, ethnicity, etcetera.

And there are shocks like the pandemic, like, you know, wars and and so on.

But we identified a bunch of other drivers that we think are very important.

There is, of course, the historical legacy of, you know, the pattern of colonialism that created differences across countries, but also the industrial revolution that was also financed by the colonialism, but also meant a dramatic change in relative per capita incomes across countries.

But it also left a legacy of very high inequality in low and middle income countries.

But in a sense, what we have focused on are.

The economic drivers that we feel are the policies that created inequality.

And that's why we have said throughout that it's a policy choice and a political choice.

And I think it was also mentioned by our esteemed country supporters.

You know, I have to say this is just completely, please forgive me for saying this.

You know, in a world where we're all so depressed by most of our leaders, it has been an absolute inspiration to come across leaders who are so not just progressive, but really thinking forward and really on the side of the good.

It's very rare and I I deeply appreciate it.

So among the economic or policy drivers that we identified, there is of course the fact of the deregulation of markets, particularly the deregulation of capital finance capital.

That has enabled a lot of instability in the system.

And the instability typically worsens the conditions of those who are less fortunate and enriches somewhere others.

There's been the labour market deregulation and the kinds of patterns of trade openness that have dramatically reduced the bargaining power of labour.

We have had very regressive and outdated tax systems that do not allow us to tax the rich even if we want to and don't allow us to tax multinational corporations even at the same rate as domestic companies.

So that regressive pattern then once again means that the prior inequalities that come, the market inequalities are reinforced by the distributive inequalities that come about because of fiscal policy.

We've had the power of deregulated finance.

I want to emphasise because it is so clear in the world of currency hierarchies that it has dramatically accentuated the impacts of all kinds of things that go on in the world.

Whether it is a shock, whether it is macroeconomic policies of advanced economies.

All of those are much, much worse and exaggerated for lower and middle income countries because of the currency hierarchies, because of investor perceptions that sort of amplify the problems that already exist.

But it's also the case that deregulated finance, as I mentioned, has resulted in periodic crises.

And through these crises, states have supported and protected and subsidised large finance and that has added to inequality as well.

The privatisation of state owned enterprises, of energy, utilities, transport, water, education, health, you name it, everything is privatised.

That too adds to inequality.

It makes these commercial, it makes it reduces the access of those who cannot afford it and it dramatically in creates different dimensions of inequality which perhaps did not exist as much earlier.

So all of this is associated with a broader transfer of wealth from public to private.

We have a chart in our report which I believe is really quite telling.

A dramatic increase in private wealth and a stagnation and even slowed down, I mean even a reduction in public wealth.

And that has implications that gives less resources to the public to provide public goods and services, to enable to achieve the social and economic rights of citizens and so on.

Then of course, the issue of sovereign debt, another aspect of the financial deregulation.

But that in turn results in austerity measures and stabilisation policies, especially for those who are coping with the indebtedness, often for no shock of their, for no reason of their own, but because there are global shocks like pandemics or rising food prices and so on.

There are the spillover effects of macroeconomic policies of the rich countries.

If they raise interest rates, not only do our interest rates go up by that same amount, they go up much more because of the higher risk premium that is inevitably attached even when we're not so risky.

And I think, you know, the, the G20 in Africa had a very good discussion on the cost of capital.

There are intellectual property rights which have commercialised knowledge to a degree that has enabled very large corporations to take control over knowledge that they haven't actually even created themselves.

Most of the large multinationals buy up the smaller companies that have created the knowledge and then hold on to it, use that, use patent rights, use licencing, etcetera, to create monopolies and to reduce access, particularly of the poor.

And of course, all of this is related to a larger and broader issue, which is it's not that, I mean, inequality is of course bad because of what it does to the lives of ordinary people and, and we all recognise that, but it's particularly bad now because it's self reinforcing.

Wealth creates power and power means that you have elite capture of laws, institutions, regulations, policies, all the things that then keep worsening inequality, which is why ever since, you know, people started talking about inequality, it got worse and worse and worse because of that very forward push of inequality that comes from wealth.

I know that one guy is going to be talking about intersectional implications of all this.

I'm not going to go into that, but I also just want to bring it up a little bit currently, you know, because of that whole structure.

Any shock to the system dramatically and disproportionately affects the poor and it affects lower and middle income countries more so whether it is the war today or the closure of the hormone Strait.

There's more complaints about it in Europe and the US, but the real damage is coming to developing countries, whether in terms of oil prices or fertiliser prices or absolute lack of supply for very basic things.

And this is repeated over and over again in all kinds of global shocks.

So yes, those are the drivers.

And I think it's kind of obvious that then to control it, you have to control those drivers and those can be controlled is really our message.

[Other language spoken]

Of inequality studies and director of International Inequalities Institute of the London School of Economic You have the floor.

Thank you very much Magdalena.

[Other language spoken]

Well, thanks very much for the invitation to to be here today as part of the consultative group that's trying to to help the mission of the founding council that you've heard from.

And Jayati spoke about the drivers of inequality primarily.

And so let me talk about two other ways in which I think the IPI could make a fundamental contribution to to the debate, which are the other two parts of the mandate.

So my my understanding of the mandate is it's about nature of inequality causes and consequences right.

So we've heard about the drivers to some extent.

Let me say something about the ways in which I think the panel could contribute to to the public understanding of the of the nature and the consequences of inequality on the nature.

It's a little bit around what I in the meeting that we had earlier this afternoon called organising the diversity.

If you go out there and you look at numbers on inequality right now, you can find a wide range of numbers right and we have really serious institutions that have put.

Out numbers of various kinds, income shares, Gini coefficients, what have you.

And they're often quite different.

And that surprises people and baffles them.

And policy makers say, well is is it this number that I found here in Helsinki, or is it this other number that I found in Luxembourg or you know what, what is it?

Different agencies do different things, but there are good reasons why they do them.

They're often trying to measure different concepts.

In some cases, they come from different data sets and some of these data sets are better than others.

And individual academics are trying to do the best with what they've got with their data.

They have and publish that and say that that's the truth.

And, and sometimes a broader group like the IPI could play a really good role in sort of making an assessment, understanding what is being measured where this is the best measure for this concept.

This is the best measure for the other concept to try and, and, and, and, you know, identify the trends that are robust.

And this is a role that at the moment in academia, we, we don't really have a mechanism to do.

And something like, you know, Professor Stiglitz and others have referred to the example and inspiration of the IPCCI understand that this is something the IPCC did do it it, you know, it, it sort of covered the ground of existing studies across the various different areas of, of climate change and was able to compile the evidence and assess what was most effect, what was most clear, what was not, what was highly, you know, we could be really confident of this or less confident of that.

So there's a real role for an organisation like the IPI for that purpose in, in understanding the nature of inequality.

And I mentioned these numbers in terms of income and wealth, but each of these are also, you know, not only across all individuals, but between groups.

So when we talk about income or wealth inequality between races or genders or whatever else, that's also part of that that debate very much, right?

So that's one thing.

Now, moving briefly to consequences, I think he is also a huge role for an organisation like the IPI, because people in this room are probably all convinced that there is an inequality emergency.

But that is not true of many world leaders, not even just the obvious ones.

Even some less obvious ones are not completely convinced.

Many people out there are not convinced that inequality matters that much.

You'll often hear people say poverty is the real problem and of course poverty is a huge problem and it's related to inequality.

But you'll hear that I've been for my sins involved in fundraising recently, you know, and you go on this fundraising things for LSC and you speak and, and there are these philanthropists and they applaud you.

And then you come down to the dinner table said that was great professor forever.

But, you know, some people just really don't like working that hard, you know, so people are not convinced there is an inequality emergency necessarily.

But there is, there's lots of evidence, huge amounts of studies that that inequality is detrimental intrinsically to people's well-being.

We know this from surveys and from experiments.

People dislike unfairness and are prepared to pay not to have unfair outcomes and games.

[Other language spoken]

We know there's very good evidence that inequality can be bad for health.

In highly stressful environments and highly and equal environments, people's health deteriorates.

We know that inequality and wealth inequality in particular, is very bad for an efficient allocation of investments, right.

My, my favourite example of this is kids in my own country in, in Brazil, you know, there are a wide range of different qualities of schooling.

OK, now you'd like the people to go to the best schools where you'd go.

You'd like initially all the bad schools to be better.

But if the distribution of schools is like that and you'd like to assign people to them, you'd like to assign them on the basis of how much they can benefit from having a good school.

A really bright kid from a slum should go to a really good school.

And, you know, that girl can become an engineer or a scientist or, you know, some some, but they're not, they're often allocated on the basis of wealth.

Can their parents pay for that private school or not?

And that's an it's unfair.

On the one hand, it's also inefficient.

It's just a misallocation of, of resources.

Joe's worked on on this, you know, decades ago.

And many other people have, the evidence is out there.

There is evidence.

This is another big consequence of something Professor Gauche already touched on as well, which is the consequences of inequality through the political economy and the quality of institutions that are developed, right.

So there's elite capture can happen at the local level, it can happen at the at the national level.

And there are lots of studies, including, you know, some really interesting studies comparing the development of Latin America and the South of the United States vis A vis the north of the United States and the long lasting consequences and impacts of slavery, as well as other extractive institutions on the development of the franchise.

The expansion of the franchise, the expansion of education and the development of different kinds of rules and, and and and law and order.

They can separately, each of these things is interesting for a little bit for some reader of the of the of the taken together, they configure an emergency, they configure a crisis, they characterise the enormous loss that inequality can create for societies as a whole.

And I think again, an IPI will be extremely well placed to synthesise, collect and present a lot of that information.

It may do new research, but there's already a lot out there that simply needs to be gathered and organised in, in, in some way.

You know, I, I could go on, but I'm afraid of the time, so I'll leave.

I had, I had some comments on different systems of inequality reproduction, but I'll save that if there's a second round.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

Now I I have the pleasure to give the floor to Professor Wanga Sembe, Chief Specialist scientist in the Health System Research Unit of the South African Medical Research Council.

Wanga, you have the floor.

[Other language spoken]

What an honour to be to be here.

I'm of course part of the founding committee of the IPI and was one of the extraordinary members of the G20 committee last year.

I'm from South Africa and the brief I was given for for today was to speak to, you know, so Jayati, you know, gave the sort of macroeconomic explanation of why we have inequality.

So the drivers, but my brief and which links to what I do everyday, my research, my work is at looking at how what's happening at that macroeconomic levels, how the policy decisions that get made, how do those affect people on the ground in a real way.

And so particularly my brief was to speak about how these impacts can be seen at the individual, household and community level.

So the manifestations of inequality at those 3 levels.

And what I can certainly say, which we you would also find in the report, but certainly from my work, is that inequality and extreme inequality as what we're experiencing now in this area that we're in has a very immediate and devastating impact and manifestations on the ordinary lives of people across the world, Our country.

As our DG already stated, I've been somewhat nervous about sort of talking about South Africa constantly in light of having my government in the room.

But I'm very grateful that he did start off by, you know, essentially pointing out that we are, you know, in the top two, top three between Brazil and Namibia and South Africa in, in terms of having their highest levels of inequality.

And what we're able to see there is that it results in these disparities that are so large and so extreme that those who are on the opposite end of that spectrum.

So those who are low income, you know, experience it in a way that has very immediate effects on how much they're able to eat, very basic needs, where they live, under what conditions they live, how they are able to access opportunities for themselves.

And what's definitely come through in the research that looks at that, including my own, is that what makes it particularly unacceptable and difficult is that now in this era particularly, it's very much in your face people who are on the opposite end of that spectrum are experiencing the the negative impacts of inequality.

They don't only have to experience that impact.

They don't only have to experience hunger, but they have to watch others have far too much to eat.

And whether, you know, that happens in different ways, whether through social media, whether in the context of of many global S countries, including my own, whether through participation in in the labour market, you know, So some of the studies that I've done with domestic workers in South Africa who talk about what it feels like to wake up at 4:00 AM and leave your house and your children sleeping children who should have someone to take care of them to prepare them for school.

But having to leave them at 4:00 AM in your leaking shack, not a proper house to go and clean and look after the children of your, your Madam, as I call them, your Madam in in the mansion.

And how what it feels like to so painting that journey from the informal settlement, early hours of the morning, the harassment of public transport, which costs 40% of the salary that you're going to get from this job.

And then getting there to this beautiful house with every amenity that you can think of, including what you don't, what is not even needed.

And then having to stand in that kitchen and prepare luxurious food for children, for the children of of your employer, even as you know that your children might not have had anything to eat that morning.

So that's the very real way in which people at the individual level experience that kind of inequality and and the injustice of it having to traverse in the South African context daily these two lives where you are living in a way that's very dehumanised.

But not only are you dehumanising, not only are you having to live in that way, but you have to see that other people are living very differently and that this is occurring in a context in a world where this seems to be perfectly acceptable.

So those are some of the impacts that we see at the, at the, at the individual level.

And then of course at the household level, it's parents, often women.

So women bear the brunt.

We've seen it, you know, that they bear the brunt of the manifestation of inequality.

And it's in a very real and present way.

It's in trying to provide for those basic necessities and recent studies that we've just completed, in fact, one that was called the mother lode, showed in a way that I've never seen the mental daily toll, not daily moment by moment toll of trying to figure out what you're going to feed your children.

The trade-offs that people have to make between needs that are all equally important.

Do you pay for electricity or do you pay rent?

Do you buy food or do you pay for school transport?

If you don't pay for school transport, that means your child is already disadvantaged, won't be able to get the education that you're hoping will get them out of the situation.

But if you're sending them to school without food, do you see?

So it's having to make those decisions on a daily basis and even on a moment by moment basis.

And for women, the brunt of that is taking a huge toll.

What we're finding in the research now is that the level of poor mental health outcomes for low income people, but particularly women, is grossly underestimated.

We don't understand there's a mental health crisis for low income and it's squarely located in that in having to spend so much mental and physical energy trying to figure out a situation that is entirely impossible.

And then lastly, at the community level, of course, we're seeing less cohesion and we're even seeing the erosion of what we've taken for granted as Africans.

For instance, for centuries the concept of Ubuntu, which has always defined Africans and Ubuntu which loosely translates to I am because you are.

And when scholars, and particularly Western scholars, when they conceptualise and and sort of think about Ubuntu, as soon as this thing of altruism and I'll help you and you'll always have someone there for you.

But actually Ubuntu is very much premised on reciprocity.

You have to be able to give.

That's why I am, because you are, because I help you and you help me.

And what the extreme levels of inequality that we're seeing now and how it then manifests in terms of poverty, what it's doing now is eroding that sense.

During COVID, we had we did research in South Africa where people say said, say in this course aband Basong is so it literally abandu sanda, which means they withdraw the hand, they're not able to help one another.

And so where states have often devolved that responsibility or there's been that assumption that their kinship networks are communities that will take over where the state fails, that's also broken down now.

And so at a community level, you can see the impact on cohesion, the impact of, you know, the erosion of Ubuntu, as I say, which leads to to greater vulnerability.

And then more importantly, it results in apathy, which is as a result of disillusionment.

[Other language spoken]

And so you, you think it is of oh, why are they not going out to vote?

Why are they not?

It's because they've lost the hope that that vote means anything.

So they stop, they stop organising even amongst themselves.

It's difficult to get them to come to community meetings to because they've lost faith.

And so that lack of trust, the erosion of that trust in institutions, in in, in government and even in the process of democracy itself becomes visible at at that level.

And of course, how we then see it, as I said, is we, you see it in less participation and, and what it shows is that where, especially in the context of my country, I was 8 years old when South Africa won its democracy.

You'll now know how old I am, but I was 8 years old and I lived, I grew up in a small little village in the Eastern Cape.

And I will never forget the, I didn't fully understand what was going on, but the absolute excitement, the, the expectations that Zeno was talking about.

I'll tell you where I come from.

People literally thought their lives would change, people who'd been oppressed for centuries, if we're talking about people of colour in South Africa through colonialism and apartheid.

So there was this real expectation that something, so people turned out in their numbers.

I'm not going to say how many are turning out now, but there's certainly not, not nowhere enough.

And So what that shows is what, you know, the British sociologist Richard Titmuss showed in his work that political rights and civil rights are important, but if they're not followed by social rights, they become meaningless.

That's how they become meaningless.

You know, so democracy is important for providing the framework for people to participate in governance and to participate in, you know, decisions about who's going to, you know, govern them, who's going to lead the country.

But human rights, the human rights framework is supposed to then provide an expression and a meaningful way in which to translate that participation.

And so if the human rights of people are eroded, as it happens with inequality, then of course the inevitable impact is that democracy is going to be weakened.

So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it becomes pointless if people are not able to see that living in a democratic state leads to material practical change in their day-to-day lives.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much, Professor Samba.

Now I, I will give the floor to another IPI founder member, Professor Imran Baloria, Director of the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies of the University of Wheat.

Professor, how do you have the, I'll kind of, I'll kind of, I'll keep my thoughts really short and kind of, I just sort of really wanted to share 2 points that I think that I think are quite crucial in our report.

And I think it's worth highlighting those points again.

The 1st is that you?

Kind of in this kind of in the kind of in the, in the discussion about inequality, you often hear, hear, kind of hear the view, and I think Chico articulated this, that that there's a trade off, that there's a trade off between inequality and economic growth.

And you can often hear a view that we should we should really focus our attention on economic growth come in dealing with poverty and the inequality problems will solve themselves through that process.

I think what our report does is make is make quite clear that can inequality is really can is really poor economics.

It's that, that, that this argument that there's a trade off between economic growth and inequality is, can, isn't true.

And we provide a substantial amount of evidence to support that and, and, and make the convincing argument that actually if we we want our economies to perform much more strongly and we have to have much more equitable societies.

So that's the first point.

The the second point is the relationship between, between this emergency of inequality and a number of other emergencies that we face.

And I think here the two most important ones would be issues of climate change and issues of, of of kind of, of the undermining of our democratic systems.

And I think on both of those scores, we make the point strongly in the report that that actually that the the can be extremely high levels of inequality and the the the massive concentrations of wealth in a few hands is really undermining our ability to deal with climate change.

And it's also.

Done really undermining our democratic systems.

And I think both of these these points are really important, important to emphasise.

So kind of I'll stop there and pass it back to the chair.

Thank you very much and now I will give the floor to our last speaker that represent an organisation that has been built on issues of social justice and not only that, he lead to get LED together with President Lula, the establishment of the Global Coalition for Social Justice.

Mr Gilbert Umbu, Director General of the International Labour Organisation, you have the floor.

[Other language spoken]

I think a lot has been said here so I will also follow me.

So be very quite short and and and crispy.

Of course, we heard a lot about the the wealth inequalities and I want to read it bring back as well as strong as possible the income dimension of the inequality, particularly as we are concerned the the labour income dimension which we know is quite critical, which is the major part of the income related inequalities.

And when we hear the example of the workers that woke up in the morning at the four and not being able, it just make the good example on on that.

And we have also heard, of course, several so strong economic professors.

We have a lot of numbers, so I don't want to add the too much metrics.

However, we need to also keep in mind that our research demonstrate that we have more than 700 million women that are of the labour market and 3/4 of the and paid jobs are carried out by women.

So you could also see those are the major contributor to the, to the inequalities and needless to also touch on the, the, the, the dimension of the youth as as as well.

So when we we look at that, obviously this is one of the major work that we are focusing on in terms of the coalition for, for, for social Injustice, which has LED to this decision, ongoing process of creating and together with Oxford University and the SOAS and the network of Global South University, this Centre for work related inequalities.

So we believe not only we are a major supporter of the IPI, but that will complement very well the work that the IPI is is trying to to achieve.

The other point that for us is quite important and several of you mention it is the necessity to link the research, the data with the policy, with the policy making so that we could see at the end what is happening down there on, on, on, on that until the people's day-to-day lives.

This is what is going to be crucial as we move, we move forward.

I also wanted to thank last year, last year in our international labour conference, one of the key discussion on the the digit, our report is about the, the next is about job, the job to guide and the economic growth.

And that so it was very good to hear from, from you making also that, that Nexus which definitely fit to the inequalities.

So from from the IO perspective, not only we really support this initiative, we welcome it more than that, we really want to make sure that the major part of the income inequality, IE the labour income inequality and we provide credible data to feed into the global work that we're trying to do.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

We have around 5 minute maximum for question from the floor.

So I'm going to take three question all of them together and come back to the panellists to respond.

So go ahead, introduce yourself, press the button and then press it back.

It was very encouraging to hear that the panel is thinking or the committee is thinking about various kinds of inequalities and one of them also brought brought up the inequality in the global knowledge architecture.

I represent the International Science Council, our members are the various national academies, research councils, but also the international disciplinary unions.

And I'd like to extend keen support to to help these discussions through bringing scholars from different disciplines, various backgrounds, different parts of the world.

And we'd like to understand how we can help bringing people whose research is directly important to these discussions, but who might not normally be around such tables.

[Other language spoken]

Any question, go ahead very much.

Eva Maria Eger from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the ministry itself is very interested in the proposal of the panel and we are following the discussions keenly and curiously.

And one big question I personally am asking myself and Chico Ferreira touched upon this is in the political sphere.

We know that inequality is a very polarising topic and how can the IPI contribute to a more moderate debate on, on, on the challenge and really speak to all or let's say to a more central area of the political discussion and not just immediately end up in one or the other corner?

Because that's one of the biggest challenges I see in the, in the bringing this IPI idea forward, not only, you know, in, in my own country, but also when, as a ministry for Economic Cooperation and development, when we talk to our partner countries, often depending on which ministry you're talking to, the reactions are very different.

When we touch up on the topic of inequality, it can be either very supportive or the contrary.

So what could be the role for the IPI to find that moderate ground?

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

I'm chair of the NGO Committee on Ageing.

And I wonder if ageing has been an issue that has been included in the report, as in if inequality grows as one grows old, are there any measures?

[Other language spoken]

You know, I didn't get your name from the International Science Council, but Meha.

So you know, really we would really welcome all kinds of support like this.

And so if you could give your name and your contacts and details and I would ask everyone here who thinks that they could help in this in terms of expertise and and taking this project forward to contact Nabil Max Katie Chakraborty, who's there hand up to to be in touch with us.

That would be great.

You know, I think in terms of the political polarisation, that's really what Chico, what Professor Ferreira was talking about, which is really either the problem when you, I'm, I'm, I don't even remember fully before the IPCC was founded, but there was complete confusion and lack of knowledge and disbelief about climate change and it was almost impossible to get governments to even recognise it as a problem.

It's only when you started getting these kind of very clear objective scientific examination based on very clear definitions and concepts and data that were accepted by those in the field that you got also governments to recognise it.

So that's what we're hoping.

We are hoping that creating a cohesive, coherent set of concepts, measurements, definitions and then going out there and trying to apply them systematically will in fact generate much greater trust in the system.

So there will be less to argue about across the different ministries.

And then in turn, hopefully there would be more pressure to do something about it that on the issue of ageing, you know, in fact we have met, I think it's there as a word, but we have not dealt with it in great detail.

But please bear in mind literally we had two months and it's a 30 page report.

So we recognise it as an issue.

And we also recognise that it once again, there are these huge intersectionalities in ageing.

I mean the problem of elderly widows in South Asia, the etcetera is, is, is massive.

So it is again one of those dimensions, but you know, there's a whole lot of work clearly that needs to be done.

So in a, in a sense, I think this kind of supports our position that that these are all things that a panel will really take up and that there will be enough of a buy in among scholars across the world to get more and more of these things on the agenda.

We're, we haven't obviously finalised anything yet.

We are still working on the next steps and we've had fantastic discussions, I believe, and very useful potful discussions from our government champions.

So it's early to say that, you know, this is exactly the shape it will take and this is what it will cover.

But I believe that we are hoping to get some kind of.

Well, certainly greater government buy in, but some kind of international support.

We, we have I think Professor Stiglitz mentioned that the UN and Secretary General is very positive.

We've had very positive responses from a number of UN agencies as well.

And so we are hoping to get much more buy in towards the creation of this.

And we would really like to do this as soon as possible for kind of obvious reasons, which I don't need to state in Aun building.

So, So the next steps really are to be thinking about how such a panel would be set up, where it would be, well, it would largely be virtual, but still where it would be sort of placed in a, in a sort of organisational sense.

And the kinds of the ways in which it would organise in terms of the, the, the board, the, the actual panel, the working groups and so on.

So these are things that have to be worked out.

And, you know, we have such thoughtful interventions from the governments who have much more experience also in dealing with these international issues than than we have as academics.

And we've had very interesting interventions from our academic and other multilateral institution friends.

So I think, I think this process is actually on its way.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

Now, I'm going to invite for the closure of this meeting to Winnie the Yangima, a director of UNAID and also member of the founding committee of the IPI.

But I'm going to ask her to move here so you can all see her well for this closing remarks.

[Other language spoken]

Good evening or good afternoon.

First, a word of thanks.

I want to start by thanking Magdalena, my colleague, the UNIS Director.

Thank you for moderating this panel and for hosting our meeting here in Geneva.

I had the privilege of collaborating with Unrist many years ago on research into the care economy.

Our work showed how gender inequality is wired in the global economy and how women's unpaid care work functions as a huge subsidy on the global economy.

And you've continued this work showing the structural barriers in the economy for many people.

I want to thank my brother, the ALO Director General, Jabel Bo, and Professor Francisco Ferreira for sharing your expertise.

Your contributions have been important then to the representatives of our founding governments represented here by Mr Zain Dangor for South Africa, Spain's Jose Domingo Rosello, Norway's Henry Cabo, and Brazil's Ambassador, Mauricio Mauricio Lirio, thank you so much for your guidance, your contributions in the meetings today.

And then to my colleagues, the co-authors, the extraordinary committee, as we were called, the co-authors of the G20 inequality report sitting here, Professor Jayati Ghosh, Professor Joe Stiglitz, Professor Imran Melodia, OK, OK.

And Professor Wanga Zembe and Dr Adriana Abdenur, who is not here with us.

My deepest thanks to you all and especially you who have come to share with us this this discussion.

Now we are here at the UN Palladenacion, this beautiful campus.

And in fact, I would advise if you're not from Geneva, don't go away without going to see the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations room.

It's said to be as beautiful as a Sistine Chapel.

But tragically, in recent years, this beautiful Palais may be best known for discussing the darkest chapters of humanity, the horrors of war and it's devastating consequences around the world, deadly pandemics and health crises, gross human rights abuses, and more recently, the brutal cuts in international aid.

In fact, they're all too frequent.

Failure of negotiations here in Geneva has LED some to question the value of multilateralism.

But yet here today, we are showing that even amid huge disruption, multilateralism can achieve results.

North and South can cooperate.

We can find new ways to meet the great challenges of our era.

That gives me hope.

Brazil led the way when it LED G20 two years ago on the question of tackling the inequality emergency and then followed by South Africa, South Africa's historic leadership of the G20 last year where Amaka was laid down on this question.

You've already heard the shocking evidence in our report about the extreme inequality that continues to widen.

I will not repeat what Joe has said very well and others round on the panel.

[Other language spoken]

Poverty, stigma, discrimination and criminalization push people away from life saving HIV services.

Inequality compromises girls and women's life chances.

In sub-Saharan Africa, girls and young women make up two out of every three new infections.

That's inequality 3300 new infections every week amongst women and girls.

The rules of the global economy structurally tilt the balance away from ending AIDS and other pandemics.

Take for example the international property rules.

They allow farmer monopolies to keep prices, medicine prices unaffordable in developing countries, both low income countries and even middle income countries.

[Other language spoken]

I switched on the TV to watch the news.

The first thing that came up was an ad by Gilead, a pharmaceutical company inviting people in the American market to come and get a prevention tool.

The latest 1 Lena Kapavir which if you take it twice a year through an injection, you have 100% protection from HIV infection.

It costs in that market $28,000 per person per year.

We're inviting people who have their insurance to come forward and take it.

It was repeated every few minutes.

I saw it so many times the week before I was in Kenya.

There there was also breaking news on the TV and very important people in government where in a Fort in a photo opportunity in a press conference also celebrating and clapping and announcing the launch of 20,000 doses of Lena Cup of here.

Kenya needs 2 million doses to start with, not 20,000.

But Kenya was celebrating just 20,000 doses of this magical medicine.

[Other language spoken]

Because Gilead will not licence more generic companies to produce at scale.

Reduce the price.

We know it can be sold at $25 per person per year, but they will not do that because the rules allow them.

This is not acceptable.

Over 80% of the highest HIV burdened countries have levels of debt rated as high risk or in debt distress and that is shocking out health spending with two in three countries in Africa spending more on debt servicing than on health of their people.

By the way, Brazil is challenging Gilead on this and we are following your lead on on, on the the lack of access to medicine.

So Africa also loses around $80 billion a year in illicit financial flows, mostly through tax avoidance by global companies and of course rich individuals.

So together these factors fuel an inequality pandemic cycle.

Inequality enables a disease outbreak to become a pandemic, and then it prolongs the pandemic, causing devastating consequences and deaths.

So and then in turn, with after a pandemic, you have deepening inequality and then more vulnerability to the next pandemic and so on.

Complacency is not an option.

For 80 years, these holes here and other places around the world have seen generation after generation find global solutions to global problems.

The Geneva Convention, the Refugee Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the pandemic agreement, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change unit aid, UN AIDS, our own organisation.

None where simple.

A simple case of mission accomplished.

Each had a struggle it struck each of it of these struggled to hold governments to their commitments.

But all of these global initiatives have served as a driving force behind change, setting the agenda, finding consensus, and spurring government efforts around the world, each time innovating, finding new ways to operate amid many geopolitical challenges.

It's always been the case.

So today we've begun writing a new chapter, a streamlined, networked, agile institution that brings together governments and experts North and South to provide rigorous scientific evidence and analysis on the inequality emergency.

You have heard today that it is possible.

We are putting in the hard miles of turning the possible into reality.

[Other language spoken]

And by the end of the year, I am confident we will officially launch an international panel on inequality.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

Now I would like to all of you to continue the discussion in a reception in the 8th floor salon.

Geneve, you go out left and then left and we will we expect to see you all there.

Thank you very much.

International Panel on Inequality (IPI), Founding Committee first meeting - 16 March 2026