How the pregnancy penalty supercharges global inequality

Anthony Kamande Gender, Rights, Women's Economic Empowerment

In a blog for International Women’s Day, new parent Anthony Kamande reflects on the heavy cost his partner and family have paid for the simple act of having a baby. The world, and especially its poorer countries, needs a pregnancy rights revolution, he says, and international funders such as the IMF must play their part.

It’s time for the World Bank to show it truly cares about unpaid care

Fiana Arbab Gender, Influencing, Women's Economic Empowerment

The next funding cycle for the World Bank’s International Development Association could top $100bn – and, says Fiana Arbab, we must keep a close eye on the fraction of that being committed to transforming the lives of the billions of women doing care work.

After half a century of misguided policies, here’s how the World Bank and IMF can work for the poor…

Anthony Kamande Debt, Economics, Events

It’s time both the World Bank and IMF abandoned the short-term fixes and austerity that have repeatedly failed people in developing countries, says Anthony Kamande. With their joint annual meetings back on African soil for the first time in five decades, he sets out six ways both institutions can make real and lasting change: from debt restructuring to encouraging social spending and taxes on the wealthiest.

Five things we need for a feminist economic future

Rachel Noble Economics, Events, Gender

Why is debt a feminist issue? And why is it time to advance alternatives to GDP? Rachel Noble reports back from an inspiring gathering of the International Association for Feminist Economics in Cape Town.

We need to talk about inequality in West Africa

Mohamadou Fadel Diop Economics, Events, Inequality

As the African Union and regional economic communities gather to discuss their economies, the gulf between the rich and the rest in West Africa needs to be top of the agenda, says Mohamadou Fadel Diop – and that conversation must give serious attention to inequality-busting policies such as reversing austerity and debt cancellation.

Taxation of the super-rich has collapsed: as one in eight people go to bed hungry, that simply has to change

Max Lawson Inequality, Research, Tax

When even millionaires are pleading to be taxed so governments can tackle our colliding global crises, we can see there’s something rotten in the state of economic policy. Max Lawson introduces Oxfam’s 2023 Davos report, ‘Survival of the Richest: How we must tax the super-rich now to fight inequality’