Thaindian News

New Delhi, Jan 19 (IANS) Inequality has increased in 14 of 18 countries of G20, including India, with economic growth failing to trickle down to the poor, a new report from international voluntary organisation Oxfam said Thursday.

India comes in the rank of countries which have seen accelerating increases in inequality since the millennium along with Turkey, Germany, Indonesia and Australia.

“Inequality is rising in India also and this is worrying because it will hamper our efforts to reduce poverty and to build a truly inclusive society,” said Nisha Agrawal, CEO Oxfam India.

Agarwal quotes the report and charts five points on which the government needs to focus.

“Redistributive transfers; universal health and education; progressive taxation; removal of barriers to equal rights and opportunities for women; and land reform; all of these will be absolutely essential in India if we are to deliver inclusive development during the upcoming Twelfth Five Year Plan period,” she says.

The report released Thursday also says too many governments and policy makers have put economic growth first and the interests of poor people second - allowing their incomes to fall further behind those at the top and leaving them to bear the costs of economic growth such as environmental degradation.

“This analysis explodes once and for all the complacent assumption that governments can wait for economic growth to trickle-down to the poorest,” says Caroline Pearce, co-author of the report.

“The fact is poor people missed out on their fair share of the prosperity of the boom years and have been hit hardest by the crisis that followed,” she says.

“If the G20 wants to tackle poverty, it needs to go do more than promote growth - it needs to adopt policies that boost the incomes of the poor and protect them from environmental degradation.”

South Korea is the only rich country that has succeeded in reducing inequality during the last two decades.

The report says, the most equal tend to be developed economies with a higher than average income, including France, Germany, Canada, Italy, and Australia.