South Africa pushes for a UN panel to measure global inequality
Ronald Lamola told a high-level UN event that inequality should be treated as a global emergency, as four countries seek support for a General Assembly resolution.
South Africa has stepped up its campaign for a new International Panel on Inequality, asking United Nations member states to back a General Assembly resolution that would create a permanent body to measure inequality and feed evidence to policymakers.
International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola made the call on Wednesday at a high-level event on the margins of the 81st UN General Assembly in New York. South Africa advanced the proposal alongside Brazil, Norway and Spain. The event was held under the auspices of the four countries’ leaders and drew UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed, Nobel Prize-winning economist Professor Joseph Stiglitz and other international stakeholders.
The initiative follows work done during South Africa’s G20 Presidency in 2025, when President Cyril Ramaphosa commissioned an independent committee of experts on global inequality chaired by Stiglitz. That committee’s report, published in November 2025, identified inequality as a global concern and recommended a permanent international body able to assess and monitor it and give policymakers authoritative analysis.
Lamola told the event the panel is a direct outcome of the G20 work. “This bold initiative culminated in the publication of the first-ever G20 report on inequality in November 2025,” he said. The report examined the drivers, consequences and trends of inequality and argued that inequality was not inevitable but could be addressed through policy choices and coordinated international action.
He said inequality reaches beyond income and wealth. It corrodes democracy, social cohesion and sustainable development, erodes trust and undermines human dignity, he said. “For South Africa, inequality must be treated as a global emergency,” Lamola said, adding that addressing it requires action that is as urgent and coordinated.
Deputy Secretary-General Mohammed told the session the international community faces an inequality crisis that needs both national and global responses. “Today we are shining a spotlight on the inequality crisis,” she said. “Sustainable Development Goal 10 calls on us to reduce inequality within and among nations, and yet we see breathtaking levels of income and wealth inequality, with the richest 10% of the world’s population now owning 75% of all wealth.”
She said inequality also shows in unequal access to housing, healthcare, nutrition and education, and in disparities between countries. She warned that technological developments could deepen inequality further if the benefits and power of frontier technologies became concentrated in a small number of hands. The proposed panel, she said, would bring together governments, economists, civil society and academics to provide objective, science-based analysis on the scale and drivers of inequality and to put forward solutions. She named education, healthcare, social protection, decent work and the governance of technology as part of the policy landscape, and highlighted gender equality and ensuring artificial intelligence is accessible to and governed by all countries.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said Brazil had also placed inequality at the centre of its G20 Presidency in 2024, helping establish the political foundation for the initiative. Brazil adopted the first G20 Ministerial Declaration on reducing inequality and launched the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty during its presidency, he said, and welcomed South Africa’s work during its own G20 Presidency, particularly the establishment of the independent experts committee. “Brazil is proud to be part of this effort, together with South Africa, Norway, Spain, and leading academics to propose the creation of an international panel on inequalities,” Vieira said.
Lamola said the founding committee is committed to ensuring the panel is established through a UN member state-led intergovernmental process. “We, as the IPI founding committee, wish to underscore our full commitment to a UN member state-led intergovernmental process through the UN’s General Assembly resolution that leads to the establishment of this panel, while safeguarding the independence of its work once established,” he said. South Africa and its partners have begun consultations on the panel’s objectives, scope, design, financing mechanism and reporting lines.
In her summary of the discussions, UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said participants emphasised that inequality is shaped not only by domestic policy choices but also by international rules governing areas such as debt and taxation. Participants also discussed the historical impact of colonialism and the need for better scientific data and analysis to support policymakers, she said. “We heard such strong welcome of the role that experts and academics on inequality can play on this issue, and the important support that this can provide to policymakers,” Byanyima said.
The G20 expert report envisaged the panel as a technical body centred on data and policy-relevant analysis rather than advocacy. It would monitor existing and emerging research, identify gaps in knowledge and data, and produce periodic assessments of the drivers, measurement and impacts of income and wealth inequality, including their relationship with other dimensions such as health and opportunity.
For South Africa, the initiative is an effort to carry the inequality agenda from the G20 into the wider multilateral system. The objective is to build enough support among UN member states for a General Assembly resolution establishing the panel, followed by the development of its mandate and institutional arrangements through an intergovernmental process. The proposal sits alongside other items on the UNGA81 agenda, including development financing, reform of the international financial architecture, climate action, technological change and efforts to advance the Sustainable Development Goals.
This report is based on the South African Government News Agency’s summary of the event rather than the full record of the proceedings.
Source: SAnews (South African Government News Agency), Lamola: Global action needed to tackle inequality, https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/lamola-global-action-needed-tackle-inequality
