‘New Wealth of Top 1% Surges by $33.9 Trillion since 2015 – Enough to End Poverty 22 Times Over…’

• Oxfam condemns “private finance takeover” of development efforts, as over 3.7 billion people remain in poverty ten years after the Sustainable Development Goals were agreed 
• New Oxfam analysis unveils “astronomical rise in private wealth”. Between 1995 and 2023, global private wealth grew by $342 trillion – 8 times more than public wealth.  
• Oxfam analysis also shows governments are making the largest cuts to life-saving aid since aid records began. Aid cuts could cause 2.9 million more children and adults to die by 2030, from HIV/AIDS causes alone.
• Results of a new global survey show 9 out of 10 people support paying for public services and climate action through taxing the super-rich. 
• Oxfam urges new strategic alliances to address inequality; urgently revitalize aid and tax the super-rich; and assert new “public-first” approach over private finance. 

Oxfam’s local partner Coast Trust helps to pack and load the food kits at Oxfam’s warehouse in Cox Bazaar, Bangladesh. (Photo: Tommy Trenchard/Oxfam)

Oxfam’s new analysis examines the failures of a private investor-focused approach to funding development. A decade-long effort by major development actors to recast their mission as one of supporting powerful Global North financial actors has led in fact to a host of harms and at the same time only mobilized paltry sums.

The analysis also looks at the role of private creditors, who now outpace bilateral lenders by five times and account for more than half the debt owed by low- and middle-income countries, in exacerbating the debt crisis with their refusal to negotiate and their punitive terms. 

“Seville is the first major gathering of countries worldwide at a time that life-saving aid is being decimated, a trade war has started, and multilateralism being fractured – all in the backdrop of the second Trump administration.

There is glaring evidence that global development is desperately failing because – as the last decade shows – the interests of a very wealthy few are put over those of everyone else,” said Amitabh Behar, Executive Director of Oxfam International. 

What the World Bank described as a “billions to trillions” paradigm shift has been a boon for wealthy investors – the richest 1% own 43% of global assets – but now faces overwhelming evidence of failure, even according to former champions.

Alarmingly, there is new momentum behind the idea of diverting the little aid that remains to private financial actors. 

“Rich countries have put Wall Street in the driver’s seat of global development. It’s a global private finance takeover which has overrun the evidence-backed ways to tackle poverty through public investments and fair taxation.

It is no wonder governments are abysmally off track, be it on fostering decent jobs, gender equality, or ending hunger. This much wealth concentration is choking efforts to end poverty”, said Behar. 

New Oxfam analysis shows that between 1995 and 2023, global private wealth grew by $342 trillion – 8 times more than global public wealth, which grew by just $44 trillion.

Global public wealth – as a share of total wealth – actually fell between 1995 and 2023.  

Oxfam is urging governments to rally behind policy and political proposals that offer a change in course by tackling extreme inequality and transforming the development financing system:  

• New strategic alliances against inequality. Governments must band together in new coalitions to oppose extreme inequality. Countries such as Brazil, South Africa and Spain are offering leadership to do so internationally. A new ‘Global Alliance Against Inequality’ supported by Germany, Norway, Sierra Leone and others sets an example for nations to back.  
• Public-first approach – reject the Wall Street Consensus. Governments should reject private finance as the silver bullet to funding development. Instead, governments should invest in state-led development – to ensure universal high-quality healthcare, education and care services, and explore publicly-delivered goods in sectors from energy to transportation.  
• Total rethink of development financing – tax the ultra-rich, revitalize aid, reform debt architecture, and move beyond GDP indicators. Global North donors must urgently reverse catastrophic cuts to lifesaving aid and meet the 0.7% ODA target as minimum. Governments must back efforts for a new UN debt convention, and support the UN tax convention, building on Brazil’s G20 effort to tax high-net-worth-individuals.   

“Trillions of dollars exist to meet the global goals, but they’re locked away in private accounts of the ultra-wealthy. It’s time we rejected the Wall Street Consensus and instead put the public in the driving seat.

Governments should heed widespread demands to tax the rich – and match it with a vision to build public goods from healthcare to energy. It’s a hopeful sign that some governments are banding together to fight inequality – more should follow their lead, starting in Seville”, said Behar.