Former world leaders urge governments to back inequality panel
Thirty-seven former leaders, including ex-German chancellor Olaf Scholz and former French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, called for urgent policy action to tackle rising global inequality.
GENEVA: In a letter signed by 37 former world leaders on Wednesday, including Olaf Scholz and Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a global inequality crisis was highlighted as requiring urgent policy action. The leaders pointed out that while the bottom half of humanity has received only one cent of every dollar of growth since 2000, the wealthiest one percent captured 41 cents.
They noted that the emergence of a trillionaire this year occurred amid one in four people facing food insecurity. Former leaders called for the establishment of a new International Panel on Inequality (IPI), modeled after the IPCC, to track inequality trends and assess policy effectiveness. The letter echoed concerns that intensifying inequality erodes democratic freedoms and undermines both democracy and economic progress, with studies showing unequal countries are seven times more likely to experience democratic erosion.
The former leaders expressed understanding of the challenges current leaders face and emphasized that extreme inequality strains economies and democracies, calling the IPI a vital response.
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