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It was WEF full of nervous energy; more diverse perspectives needed: Oxfam's Behar |
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| 24-1-2025 | |||
Davos, Jan 23 (PTI) As the five-day World Economic Forum Annual Meeting drew to a close, rights group Oxfam International's Executive Director Amitabh Behar on Friday said it was a WEF with a lot of nervous energy and called for bringing in real-life stories of the poor and marginalised people. Speaking to PTI on the last day of the summit, Behar said, "This was a WEF with lots of nervous energy. People talked about the new Trump presidency, the global economy and a lot more. "But, the marginalised sections of the society who form a majority of the global population and people who live in hunger, those living in conflict zones and those facing inequality were pretty absent in all these conversations." He said the Oxfam report highlighted those issues, but there is a need for WEF to bring in many more diverse perspectives and real-life stories of the global majorities. On the first day of the meeting on January 20, the Oxfam report on inequality said that the billionaire wealth across the globe surged by USD 2 trillion in 2024 to USD 15 trillion at a rate three times faster than the previous year. It contrasted the huge jump in the billionaire wealth with the number of people living in poverty barely having changed since 1990. The wealth of billionaires in Asia increased by USD 299 billion in 2024, Oxfam said while predicting that there will be at least five trillionaires within a decade from now. The year 2024 saw 204 new billionaires getting minted -- an average of nearly four every week. Asia itself got 41 new billionaires in the year. In its report titled 'Takers, not Makers', Oxfam said the richest 1 per cent in the Global North extracted USD 30 million an hour from the Global South through the financial systems in 2023. It further said that 60 per cent of billionaire wealth is now derived from inheritance, monopoly power or crony connections, showing that "extreme billionaire wealth is largely unmerited. PTI BJ BAL BAL Source: PTI |
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