Inequality is now so high that a woman garment worker earns less in a year than the Walton family earns every second. Climate change will force 50 million people to migrate from Bangladesh alone. The global crises of inequality and climate are both caused by our global economy. Together they threaten the future of humanity. It’s time for a new model – a model of Development Justice. This video explains Development Justice and the shifts civil society in the Global South demand. It makes the case for why we need a new development model to address the double crises of inequality and environmental collapse. If you’d like to use this video and for citations on statistics used in this video, or dub this video in your language, email leanne@apwld.org.

We would like to acknowledge the use of data on wealth flows between rich and poor countries from “Global Wealth Inequality” by therules.org.

 

Resource Sheet

 

Inequalities between the rich and poor have grown in almost all countries. But inequalities between countries have grown even larger.

 

In fact NASA funded research found that inequalities are so high that they have become a threat to the very existence of civilization.

 

The bottom half of the world’s 7 billion people collectively own the same as the richest 85 people in the world.

Think about that the richest 85 people own the same as 3.5 billion people.

 

And 80% of the world’s population still live on less than $10 per day.

Please see the following citations at: http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats#src1

  • Shashua Chen and Martin Ravallion, The developing world is poorer than we thought, but no less successful in the fight against poverty, World Bank, August 2008
  • For the 95% on $10 a day, see Martin Ravallion, Shaoshua Chen and Prem Sangraula, Dollar a day revisited, World Bank, May 2008. They note that 95% of developing country population lived on less than 10% a day. Using 2005 population numbers, this is equivalent to just under 79.7% of world population, and does not include populations living on less than $10 a day from industrialized nations.

 

They own the world’s largest retail store, Wal-Mart and have a collective net worth of $150 billion.

 

In an entire year, a woman garment worker from Bangladesh will make less than Christy Walton makes, in one single second.

 

Three of the nine planetary boundaries have already been exceeded.

 

In Bangladesh, tides are rising 10 times faster than the global average yet the country only produces 0.3% of the emissions driving climate change. By 2050, 50 million people from Bangladesh will have to flee the country – where will they go?

 

Women comprise 70% of the world’s poor.

  • We recognize that this poverty percentage is complex. The original 70% is from UNDP and referenced in various UN documents and by UN agencies, as seen in the links below. However, the percentage really depends on how poverty is measured. The MDG target is not disaggregated as it only measured households but multi-dimensional poverty indicators (i.e. where calorie intake, malnutrition, land ownership etc. are included) generally indicate that women are the majority and the more chronic the definition the higher percentage of women and girls.
  • http://www.unwomenuk.org/un-women/strategic-goal-4/
  • http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/humanrights/resources/factsheet.asp

 

They are 14 times more likely to die in disasters.

 

Rich countries try to compensate for the huge and growing gap by giving aid to poor countries- about 130 billion dollars each year.

 

One reason is that large corporations are taking more than 900 billion dollars out of poor countries each year through a form of tax avoidance called trade mispricing.

 

On top of this, each year poor countries are paying about 600 billion dollars in debt service to rich countries on loans that have been paid off many times over.

 

And then there’s the money that poor countries lose from trade rules imposed by rich countries to get access to more resources and cheaper labour. This costs poor countries about 500 billion dollars a year.

 

People around the world are demanding a new, fairer approach to development. They are demanding development justice.

 

A financial transaction tax of.05% could raise $650bn a year for governments to tackle poverty and address climate change.

 

Less than 1% of the total value of extractive industries globally is enough to cover the annual cost of universal access to clean, renewable energy.

 

Just 5% of “High Net Worth Individuals’ wealth is enough to cover the annual cost of universal social protection and universal social services.

  • High net worth individuals (HNWI) are defined as those having investable assets of US$1 million or more, excluding primary residence, collectibles, consumables, and consumer durables. According to Capgemini’s World Wealth Report 2013, the aggregate investable wealth of HNWI was US$46.2 trillion in 2012. And this is expected to grow by 6.5% per year to 2015. Download full report at http://www.capgemini.com/resource-file-access/resource/pdf/wwr_2013_0.pdf.  According to calculations by the International Labour Organization, less than 2 per cent of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would be necessary to provide a basic set of social security benefits to all of the world’s poor. This is equivalent to $1.47 trillion in 2013. See http:/www3.ilo.org:public:english:protection:secsoc:downloads:1519sp1.pdf
  • Another way we could use these funds is through climate change adaptation and mitigation. Estimates of incremental costs of climate change adaptation in developing countries range from US$4-100 billion per annum.  Estimates of incremental investments needed for climate change mitigation range from $69 – 565 billion per annum.  See http://www.climatefundsupdate.org/resources/estimated-costs-climate-change

 

Just 1% of the global military budget would ensure universal public education.