PRETORIA, November 20. /TASS/. The fortunes of billionaires from G20 countries rose by 16.5% in a year, reaching $15.6 trillion, according to the international charity and humanitarian organization Oxfam.
"The amount of wealth that the G20’s own billionaires made just last year - $2.2 trillion - would have been more than enough to lift 3.8 billion people out of poverty," the organization says in a press release.
The document specifies that it would actually take less - $1.65 trillion annually - to pull that amount of people out of poverty.
The organization noted that the government of South Africa, which holds the G20 presidency this year, has made inequality a key topic at the upcoming summit on November 22-23. South Africa has commissioned a group of experts led by Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz to prepare a report on the issue. The economist believes the world is facing an "inequality emergency," Oxfam writes.
"Inequality is a deliberate policy choice. Despite record wealth at the top, public wealth is stagnating, even declining, and debt distress is growing. <…> If the South African G20 establishes a new International Panel on Inequality it will be a tremendous step in addressing the inequality emergency. We urge all G20 nations and others to get behind South Africa and make it happen," said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.
The organization also calls on G20 countries to reaffirm their commitment to the goal of effective taxation of super-rich individuals, which the group's leaders agreed to at the 2024 summit in Rio de Janeiro.
"Only eight cents of every tax dollar collected in G20 countries actually come from wealth," Oxfam notes.