The World Bank has said it plans to change the way it measures inequality in a bid to help tackle the growing problem. However, civil society groups are worried that the proposed new indicators are too weak and let many countries off the hook.
The world is experiencing an “explosion of inequality,” linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and the fallout from the war in Ukraine on food and energy prices, which have seen the richest get richer, and the bottom half of the world’s people suffering huge health, education, and economic losses, according to a 2023 Oxfam report.
According to the World Bank, in 2020, global inequality rose for the first time in decades in part due to the pandemic.