inequality

Development non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are deepening their understanding of the causes inequality and poverty, and so building up a political agenda and movement to tackle it. There has been vital new thinking about the need to ensure fair and progressive taxation as one of the means to ensure the capacity of states to provide better services to citizens, and thus contribute to reducing inequality. Other measures such as redistribution of assets through land reform have also been highlighted as critical.

South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world. It is often said to be the most unequal, but that is incorrect. A number of countries, for example Namibia and Seychelles, have higher gini coefficients (the measure most often used to measure income distribution) than does South Africa¹. There are a number of other countries that are clearly very unequal - some major oil producers for example - but, for obvious reasons, choose not to measure the extent of their inequality.
 

Do we live in a world where powerful men in government, powerful men in business and powerful men in army uniforms conspire to smash popular dissent to the growing inequality?

When the Forbes magazine - not the representative of the world's poor - quotes an Oxfam report, released at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Davos meeting this year, that raises the obscenity of inequality - then it is time the world’s rich and powerful stand up and answer some serious questions.

Following the elections and President Jacob Zuma's recent cabinet appointments, South Africa has missed its last opportunity - so tantalisingly close - to achieve gender parity in politics ahead of the 2015 deadline.
 
The 50 percent target for women's representation in all areas of decision-making is enshrined in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development adopted in South Africa in 2008.