Our Executive Director, Magdalena Sepúlveda, together with a group of leading world-class economists such as Joseph Stiglitz, Jayati Ghosh and Thomas Piketty, among others, signed an open letter addressed to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres and the President of the World Bank, Ajay Banga, calling for redoubled efforts through their  leadership to address growing extreme inequality that is presenting its most significant global rise since World War II, as well as ensuring that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals support new targets and indicators vital strategies that allow measuring current inequality correctly.

In the letter, the signatories of 67 countries assert that “we are living through a time of extraordinarily high economic inequality. Extreme poverty and wealth have risen sharply and simultaneously for the first time in 25 years. The richest 10% of the global population currently takes 52% of global income, whereas the poorest half of the population earns 8.5% of it. Billions of people face the terrible hardship of high and rising food prices and hunger, whilst the number of billionaires has doubled in the last decade”.

The 2006 World Development Report and multiple other studies have shown that extreme inequality of the kind we observe today has a destructive effect on society. It corrodes our politics, destroys trust, hamstrings our collective economic prosperity and weakens multilateralism. We also know that without a sharp reduction in inequality, the twin goals of ending poverty and preventing climate breakdown will be in clear conflict. 

The signatories urge the United Nations and the World Bank representatives to strengthen the determination to reduce this deep gap and send a clear signal to people worldwide that the institutions designed to serve them take seriously the end of the extreme inequality crisis.

World experts end the letter by noting that “goals matter. Leadership matters. The Bank and UN SDGs are uniquely placed to offer the rallying call for a reduction in inequality that our divided world needs so urgently today”.

You can read the full letter here: