Join us for a public policy roundtable on the major inequality challenges likely to shape the post-2030 development agenda. As the international community looks beyond the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, persistent inequalities within and between countries remain a major challenge. What inequality issues should be at the centre of the next global development agenda? Which policies can make the greatest difference? And how can stronger evidence and international cooperation support more effective action? The discussion will bring together leading researchers and policy experts to consider priorities for national and international policy, gaps in the evidence available to decision-makers, and the role of international organizations and research institutions in supporting more equitable development. The event takes place as UNU-WIDER marks 25 years of the World Income Inequality Database (WIID) and considers what evidence will be needed to understand and respond to inequality in the years ahead. Programme15:30–15:35 | Opening remarks Patricia Justino, Director, UNU-WIDER 15:35–17:00 | Public policy roundtable Chair: Marta Roig, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) Panellists
-
François Bourguignon, Emeritus Professor, Paris School of Economics
-
Iikka Korhonen, Head of Research, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT)
-
Luis Felipe López-Calva, Senior Adviser, World Bank Group
The roundtable will explore questions including:
- What are the most important inequality challenges likely to shape the post-2030 development agenda?
- Which policy levers are most important for reducing inequality while supporting growth and structural transformation?
- What roles should taxation, social protection, and labour-market institutions play?
- Where are the most important gaps in the evidence available to policymakers?
- How can governments, international organizations, and research institutions cooperate more effectively?
REGISTER UNU-WIDER |
How much did development assistance reduce inequality when aid budgets expanded? The decline in global income inequality before COVID was driven by economic growth, read in tooth capitalism, in other words. China is very much a case in point; India also fits into that category. Those remarkable achievements cannot be attributed to aid.
ReplyDeleteReducing poverty, improving health and narrowing income gaps are important achievements. Aid may help deliver the first two without delivering the third.
Before concluding that aid cuts will produce greater inequality, we should ask: which aid programmes reduced inequality, where and by how much, and at what cost? Those are, after many decades of development assistance, reasonable questions.
The post-2030 agenda should begin with an honest evaluation of past results, rather than assume that restoring previous spending levels will automatically reduce inequity.
I am ironically amused that the discussions will cover the "post-2030" period. It patently shows how the world has failed in most of its global intentions in the 2030 Agenda for Development and is already looking towards setting other goals and targets while we still have at least three years to do something in the period left before the current deadline. Global inequalities not only persist but seem to have increased in our present times. Look at the individual wealth stats: with Elon Musk reaching almost a trillion dollars of personal assets, I looked up some IMF figures and found that only 21 out of the 193 countries in the UN have a GNP that is one trillion or more! Also, the total population of the countries not reaching that amount of GNP consisted of almost 48 % of the world. Think about that for a moment !
ReplyDelete