G20 chair S.Africa seeks to tackle poverty with inequality panel

Group of 20 president South Africa announced Thursday it had commissioned a Nobel laureate-led team to tackle global inequality and poverty, a push that could revive calls to tax the rich.

The six-member team, led by Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, will analyse the impact of wealth and income inequality, and offer practical policy solutions to world leaders, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

South Africa this year holds the rotating presidency of the group of the world's leading economies, which it will host at a summit in November.

"People across the world know how extreme inequality undermines their dignity and chance for a better future," Ramaphosa said, pointing to the uneven global vaccine rollout as a stark example.

According to an analysis by anti-poverty NGO Oxfam released in June, the world's richest one percent have accumulated nearly $34 trillion in new wealth over the past decade, enough to end annual global poverty 22 times over.

That wealth divide is exacerbated by debt, rising energy prices and trade wars, Ramaphosa said, adding: "A new oligarchy in our global economy is becoming apparent."

Proposals for a minimum global income tax pushed by the global left have faltered in the face of resistance from major economies like the United States, next in line for the G20 presidency.

In 2021, nearly 140 countries backed a deal brokered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for a 15-percent global minimum tax on multinationals, but its future is in doubt and US multinational companies are exempt.

G20 finance ministers in July said they had set an objective of "finding a balanced and practical solution" on the tax ahead of the leaders' summit.

The G20 is made up of 19 nations and two regional organisations that account for more than 80 percent of world economic output.