STWR - Share The World's Resources

While economic growth can be a powerful tool for lifting people out of poverty, increases in GDP often fail to trickle down to much of the population. Alternative measures of well-being are required to ensure issues such as inequality and redistribution are put on the development agenda, say Save the Children.

Growing global inequality presents a major obstacle in the fight against poverty. Redistributing resources more fairly requires a greater cooperation between governments that eschews the current ‘cut-throat’ nature of international free trade competition, says Justin Frewen.

Poor countries across the globe are struggling to respond to the global recession that continues to slash incomes, destroy jobs and has helped push the total number of hungry people in the world above 1 billion, writes Oxfam.

The current global development agenda prioritises poverty reduction whilst largely ignoring the problem of inequality. Policy makers should place greater value on redistributional justice, which could be achieved through global taxes and social protection, argues Francine Mestrum.

Poverty is above all a political problem; it results from the human and institutional indifference of policy makers towards the less powerful. Only a global social movement can influence politics radically enough to end world poverty, says a report by Christian Aid.

Economic recession has reversed a 20-year decline in world poverty and is likely to add up to 90 million people to the ranks of the hungry in 2009 - an increase of six per cent over current totals, says a UN report.

Globalisation is not a convincing excuse for accepting inequality. But is equality and generosity sustainable in the context of the world market? As the example of Scandinavian countries shows us, the irrefutable answer is yes, says Göran Therborn.