South Africa calls for action on inequality

Pretoria has proposed a UN body modeled on climate science panels to track global wealth gaps

South Africa will push to put inequality at the center of the global agenda through a UN resolution, President Cyril Ramaphosa has said.

Pretoria plans to submit a draft to the UN General Assembly in 2026 proposing the creation of an International Panel on Inequality.

“This will ensure that inequality is placed as a critical issue on the global agenda that requires the ongoing attention of world leaders and the broader United Nations system,” Ramaphosa said in Barcelona on Saturday.

The proposal has already received backing from the African Union, he added, calling on UN member states and civil society to support the initiative.

The body would be modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and tasked with monitoring global inequality trends, assessing their causes and impacts, and evaluating policy responses.

Inequality, as defined in the G20-backed report, includes disparities in income, wealth and access to opportunities, as well as differences in economic development among countries.

READ MORE: UN declares slave trade ‘gravest crime against humanity’

The move follows a global inequality report commissioned during South Africa’s G20 presidency and led by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, which found that inequality is “neither inevitable nor interminable.” 

The World Inequality Report 2026, compiled by more than 200 researchers, found that the top 10% of earners receive more income than the remaining 90% combined, while the poorest half of the global population accounts for less than 10% of total income.

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South Africa, which the president described as “possibly the most unequal society in the world” due to its apartheid legacy, hopes the initiative will help mobilize international efforts toward greater social justice.

“If we are to build democracy, to strengthen democracy across the world, if we are to empower people to take charge of their lives, it is essential that we intensify the struggle for equality and social justice,” Cyril Ramaphosa said.

The initiative comes amid a broader push by African nations to assert their positions more forcefully on the global stage, including calls for historical accountability, the return of cultural artifacts, and greater recognition of past injustices.

In March, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution led by Ghana describing the transatlantic chattel slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity” and calling for reparations.