The Asia-Pacific region is characterised by high levels of income inequality. While there is greater
equality in Central Asia and the Pacific, the most unequal sub-regions are South Asia and East Asia.
Income inequality varies greatly between countries, ranging from a Gini coefficient of 19 in
Azerbaijan to 52 in India. Further, income inequality is likely underestimated across the region while
wealth inequality appears to be much greater than inequality in incomes.

A new report from DevelopmentPathways and UNDP

If the minimum wage had increased as much as Wall Street bonuses since 1985, it would be worth $61.75 today!

Read the article

This week, exactly 20 years ago, world leaders adopted the United Nation’s Monterrey Consensus. They committed to “Confronting the challenges of financing for development” with a global response and to creating a fully inclusive and equitable global economic system.

The Consensus included the critical recognition that in a globalizing interdependent world economy “National development efforts need to be supported by an enabling international economic environment”. This was the birth of the UN’s Financing for Development (FfD) process which now – 20 years down the line – is as important as ever.

The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated core problems that the Financing for Development process was created to solve, including skyrocketing inequalities both within and between countries and genders, and lack of public resources to combat poverty and finance sustainable development.

Read Eurodad’s opinion

A new World Social Forum is to be held in Mexico City from 1 to 6 May 2022.

After twenty years, we should ask ourselves what has been achieved? To be honest, not much, really.

Other initiatives as well seem to be stuck in a series of problems that cannot easily be solved.

Yet, with a climate crisis and war looming, social movements should get organised and act!

https://wsimag.com/economy-and-politics/68628-the-demise-of-the-alter-globalist-movement

also in French and Spanish:

L’échec du mouvement altermondialiste | Wall Street International Magazine (wsimag.com)

https://wsimag.com/es/economia-y-politica/68887-el-fracaso-del-movimiento-alterglobalizacion

This briefing paper gives an overview of the current challenges in different development finance action areas. In the second part, we give an overview of the UN’s FfD process and of the international agreements on Financing for Development. Based on our analysis, we identify 10 key levers for financing sustainable development. With these, Eu­rope can make a substantial contribution to financ­ing for development and thereby to the successful implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development worldwide.

Read GPF’s Paper

Read ITUC’s article

New evidence of violations of workers’ rights in Bangladesh in three major economic sectors – the ready-made garment, shipbreaking, and leather sectors – reveals the impact of government inaction on the lives of working people.

The Litmus test for International cooperation

Read Global Policy Watch Paper:

  As part of sanctions against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States, United Kingdom, and other European Union nations are cracking down on Russian oligarchs, freezing assets and tracking the yachts, private jets, and luxury real estate holdings of oligarchs.

But the U.S. faces a major obstacle in this effort, which is our country has become a major destination tax haven for criminal and oligarch wealth from around the world, not just Russians. While other EU countries have been increasing transparency and cracking down on kleptocratic capital, the U.S. is a laggard.  As the Pandora Papers disclosed, the U.S. has become a weak link in the fight against global corruption.  

Read more, article by Chuck Collins

“Can anyone explain,” mused the always engaging Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price earlier this month, “why a billionaire who takes advantage of the system to exploit other people is called an ‘oligarch’ in Russia and a ‘job creator’ in America?”

A valid question to pose, given how our own economic arrangements so often encourage the same oligarchic behaviors we regularly denounce!

This week Chuck is down at the huge SXSW gathering in Austin, Texas, sharing new analysis that explores our domestic oligarchic connections. 
Working with the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, we’ve just published new research on how Russian oligarchs are funneling funds to U.S. charities. These oligarchs, including several kleptocrats suspected of interfering in the politics of other nations, have donated hundreds of millions. Some even serve on U.S. charity boards.

Investigations like this highlight the urgent need for changing how our charitable institutions oversee their donations — and how our government oversees our charitable institutions. For more info on how we could accomplish all this, check out our Charitable Giving Reform Initiative.

Chuck Collins and Rebekah Entralgo,
for the Institute for Policy Studies Inequality.org team