“The world understands that we have a climate emergency; it’s time we recognise that we face an inequality emergency too. It isn’t just unfair; it’s a problem for our economy and our politics.”
Professor Joseph Stiglitz (2025(
Wealth inequality is not a new problem; scholars and policymakers have been grappling with it for decades. However, in recent years, wealth inequality has become much more extreme, affecting not only countries’ economies but also their politics.
According to the 2026 World Inequality Report, roughly 56,000 multimillionaires have three times more wealth than that of half the world’s population. To put it in more relative terms, between 1995 and 2025, the share of wealth of the top 0.001% of people increased from 4% to 6%, while the wealth of the bottom 50% of people has remained at 2% since the 2000s (barring some slight fluctuations over the 30-year period). The difference in wealth share has also become more apparent within regions. For example, data on inequality across sub-Saharan Africa shows that the bottom 50% of earners have less than 5% of personal wealth, while the top 10% have 75%.
While these figures alone point to a global crisis, inequality researchers and experts have shown that wealth inequality does not exist in a bubble and, as such, has far-reaching implications beyond the economy. For example, research led by Nobel Laureate Professor Stiglitz breaks down some of the key consequences of wealth inequality. Namely, corrosion of democracy and human rights, undermining economic activity and growth, backtracking on social progress, creating a more polarised and fragile society, and emphasising the reality that inequality is not just an economic issue but also challenges the very foundations of democracy and the rule of law worldwide. The global nature of inequality has led many to question how the international community is responding to this global crisis.
Since 2022, the G20 has been led by countries from the Global South, allowing the platform to prioritise issues they face, including global inequality. This four-year historical period of G20 presidencies, including Indonesia, India, Brazil, and, most recently, South Africa, allowed the Global South to voice its concerns and contribute to addressing wealth inequality, bringing attention to ways in which different international forums can be leveraged to respond to such global challenges. With this “run” of back-to-back Global South G20 presidencies at an end, two questions remain: what have these countries done during their G20 presidencies to drive and coordinate efforts to address wealth inequality, and how successful have these efforts been?
The G20 is often seen as a key forum for the international community since it brings together the world’s largest economies. Initially, the forum was created in 1999 in response to the Asian financial crisis to improve coordination among ministers and central banks. As such, over the years, it has been seen as a global economic crisis mechanism with a reputation for its effectiveness in coordinating international responses to economic and financial challenges. However, its focus has expanded beyond financial crises to include other social and political issues such as climate change, conflict, and inequality.
Continuity is important to the G20 process; thus, the incumbent presidency works with both the previous and upcoming presidencies to set the agenda and priorities for the current year. This is not a hard-and-fast rule, but it typically applies. For example, wealth inequality became a more prominent feature of the G20 agenda in 2022, during the Indonesian presidency. Since then, each presidency has built on its predecessor and thus placed greater emphasis on different aspects of the efforts to address.
The Indonesian (2022) and Indian (2023) presidencies focused on issues around banking and digital public infrastructure (DPI). The former presidency emphasised the need for greater financial inclusion through commitments to stronger social protections, support for SMMEs, and accelerated efforts to address youth unemployment. While these were not directly focused towards addressing wealth inequality, they paved the way for inequality to become a more prominent part of the agenda. In particular, a major “win” for this presidency was laying the groundwork for advancing financial inclusion strategies. India used these commitments to focus on DPI systems as a mechanism for addressing systemic issues of wealth inequality. The Indian presidency was able to advocate for greater access to digital financial systems and help mobilise support for countries that may not be able to implement such mechanisms on their own.
Brazil and South Africa built on these advances to advocate for greater attention to wealth inequality. Under the Brazilian presidency, one of the key proposals to address wealth inequality was a globalised wealth tax to ensure that billionaires are adequately taxed and that the tax is used to address related issues such as poverty and hunger. South Africa supported this tax policy by framing wealth inequality as a crisis and, in so doing, advocating for an independent body, the International Panel on Inequality (IPI). This panel would operate like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), providing research and policy recommendations on inequality.
Through coordinated efforts and aligned interests, the past four presidents have made gradual but crucial steps towards addressing inequality. However, whether this has translated into action is another issue entirely, as critics of the G20 have suggested.
One of the core criticisms of the G20’s ability to address wealth inequality is that the forum lacks the institutional and political will to serve as the driving and coordinating force behind addressing this issue. Some scholars argue that, as a crisis mechanism, the G20 is very effective, citing both the Asian and 2008 financial crises. Yet, outside the economic sphere, there is limited political will to address this issue. Members are influenced by a wide range of factors, including national interests, geopolitical competition, and the polarisation of the global system, all of which can weigh on leaders’ political will.
Furthermore, some have argued that the G20 is not the best platform to address wealth inequality because, as with previous crises, there is a specific, focused issue that needs to be addressed. Over the years, the agenda has grown, and, especially during the Global South presidency, many of these issues require subnational, national, and international efforts. Combined with several other dynamics, this means the intended outcomes and solutions get watered down to statements or vague promises of support.
Lastly, implementation is a key concern. A big criticism of the G20 is that it’s an expensive forum to host with very little material outcome. Every year, the forum aims to issue a leaders’ declaration, the result of 12 months of discussions and negotiations. However, the support and commitments made in these declarations are not binding, and, as such, it is up to each nation to fund and implement commitments at the national level, some of which may not always be viable or a priority for the national government. The South African G20 somewhat recognised this as a limitation and why the IPI is so fundamental to the G20’s success in addressing inequality. Having an independent panel can alleviate some of the pressure on the G20 forum and provide a broader range of support to countries.
The four-year Global South G20 track has, in many respects, been historic for the world and Global South interests. By moving away from focusing solely on financial stability and market growth to wider social issues, it has allowed some smaller countries to have a say in which challenges are deemed the biggest and to bring them to the forefront of convenings of the world’s biggest economies.
However, with the United States taking the G20 in a different direction, the outcome of this work is most likely to remain just talking points in a dynamic, increasingly polarised world. Strategies like the billionaire’s wealth tax and IPI provide a valuable roadmap for countries to address wealth inequality, but without institutionalisation, they will remain footnotes within the broader realm of geopolitics.
Stuart Morrison is a Data Analyst with the Governance Insights and Analytics team at GGA. His research and expertise mainly focuses on the nexus between local governance, urbanisation and elections. He has a MA in E-science (Data Science) at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, with a background in Political Science, International Relations and Development studies. His multi-disciplinary approach incorporating data science and quantitative methods allows him to provide a nuanced and data-driven approach towards his research and policy work.
