Oxfam is part of a global movement for social justice. We mainly work to fight for economic and social rights for people without a voice or people who are oppressed.
We need to tackle extreme inequality because it is morally indefensible and socially corrosive - undermining our health, affecting our well-being, and undermining peaceful societies.
Economic inequality is a corrosive force that undermines economic growth, puts a brake on the fight against poverty, and sparks social unrest.
Conflict and callous politics drive famine.
The struggles to overturn colonial rule were long and often bitter. But, over time, most were inevitably successful.
Money doesn't just buy a nice car; it also buys better education or healthcare. Increasingly, it can buy impunity from justice, a pliant media, favorable laws, business advantage, and even elections. This, in turn, perpetuates the policies that allow a tiny elite to accumulate ever more wealth at the expense of the majority.
To build more human economies in Africa, governments must be far more strategic, wise, and forward-looking in their expenditure and build diverse economies that are going to deliver the jobs for the next generation.
When men and women, boys and girls, are denied the right to education, the right to own land, the access to basic services like healthcare and clean water, a fair price for the crops they grow, a fair wage for the work they do, or the right to be part of making decisions that affect them, the result is poverty.
Corporations are driving down wages and working conditions across the globe to maximize returns for their shareholders. They use their power and influence to ensure the rules align with their interests - no matter the cost.
I am still haunted by the memory of my Ugandan friends dying from HIV years ago because high prices kept the medicines they needed out of reach.
Protecting space for civil society and citizenry is particularly critical in a world marked by rising political and economic inequality.
The extremely wealthy have disproportionate influence on policies that impact us all. This corrupts our politics and leads to poorer people being denied the economic opportunity to flourish in life.
Rather than engineering our economies solely to maximise GDP, Africa's business and political leaders must build economies explicitly designed to end poverty and inequality.
We treat a planet at crisis point as an externality that can be shunted into a future generation. We continue to act as if we had the natural resources of several planets, not one.
We need to harness the boundless energy and creativity of our youth.
Inequality is inextricably linked with distribution of land and natural resources.
We don't want to tell young girls and boys that the odds are stacked against them from the start. Instead, we could tell them that with passion, conviction, and determination we can build a better future. This future is possible by redesigning our economy to truly reward hard work rather than wealth.
Rule of law, access to justice, and financial transparency happen by design, not accident.
Cutting down a forest for timber adds to GDP, but what we don't record is the loss to our wealth in terms of natural resources.
Here's something we're rarely told growing up: our world rewards wealth, not hard work or talent.
