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Oxfam: Super-rich class undermines cooperation to tackle poverty, climate change

2024-09-29 21:20:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

As world leaders attend the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, the charity Oxfam says their work is being undermined by what it calls a 'global oligarchy' of the super-rich who control the world economy. As VOA correspondent Henry Ridgwell reports, Oxfam blames the super-rich for exacerbating problems like extreme inequality and climate change.

The United Nations General Assembly aims to provide an equal platform for leaders to discuss the world's most pressing issues such as poverty and climate change.

A new report from the charity Oxfam says the annual meeting of world leaders is taking place in the shadow of what it calls a 'global oligarchy' controlled by super-rich corporations.

VOA spoke to Mr. Nabil Ahmed who leads the economic and racial justice group with Oxfam's Americas department.

"They are influencing the creation of rules in their favor and they are doing it at the expense of ordinary people. This is fueling inequality within and between states.”

Oxfam says we are in an era of extreme global inequality, where a group that makes up 1% of the world's population owns more wealth than 95% of the rest of the world.

"We live in a world where many of the mega-corporations pay little or no tax," says Nabil Ahmed with Oxfam.

Brazil, which currently holds the presidency of the G20, wants to impose a minimum tax of 2% on the world's richest billionaires and says it would raise up to $250 billion. This effort is supported by Oxfam and many other non-governmental groups.

The plan is supported by several G20 countries, including South Africa, Spain and France, but opposed by the United States, which says a global deal is too complicated and unnecessary.

Brazil's finance minister said in July that transforming the current tax system was vital. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke out against the measure during the G20 meeting in July.

"It is very difficult to coordinate tax policy globally and we do not see the need or desire to negotiate such a global agreement. We think all countries should make sure their tax system is fair and progressive," said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Oxfam says developing countries spend tax revenue to pay off private creditors and banks. The charity also accuses big pharmaceutical companies of influencing the creation of intellectual property rights rules that benefit their shareholders.

Oxfam says poor countries have been unable to secure adequate coronavirus vaccines despite pharmaceutical companies receiving billions of dollars from governments to develop them.

"Taxpayers' money was used for vaccine development. In fact, public investments of several decades were used to create the mRNA vaccine," says Mr. Ahmed.

The company Pfizer told VOA that it had offered the coronavirus vaccine for free to poor countries, but many richer countries had made faster efforts to buy the doses produced.

The head of the Pfizer firm also warned that eliminating intellectual property rights would discourage companies from taking a big financial risk in developing such vaccines, a view supported by other big pharmaceutical firms./ Voa