Amitabh Behar: ‘We are moving from a scenario of inequality to one of global oligarchies’

Amitabh Behar, 53, is quick to name figures that demonstrate how global inequality is growing every day. In 2024, “billionaires added $2 trillion to their coffers, [while] 3.6 billion people live below the poverty line,” says the executive director of Oxfam International, during an interview with EL PAÍS in Madrid.

Behar — who was born in Raipur, India — lives in Nairobi, the capital and largest city of Kenya. Back in 2017, Oxfam moved its headquarters from Oxford, in the United Kingdom, to Nairobi, as part of its decolonization process.

The executive director of the NGO has just met with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. He has encouraged the European leader to exercise “global leadership” in the fight against inequality. Behar believes that this is especially important in the current scenario, with Donald Trump’s return to the White House. He predicts greater global inequalities as a result. “He’s a billionaire president backed by the richest man in the world,” the Oxfam director warns.

Question. The world is more unequal today. How big is that inequality?

Answer. According to our latest report, billionaires added $2 trillion to their coffers last year. We’ve seen the birth of four new billionaires every week. Last year, we estimated that, at this rate of growth, we would soon have a trillionaire, but wealth has started to grow faster and we’ve had to revise our estimate. It looks like we’ll have five trillionaires within a decade.

Q. And on the other side of the divide?

A. While we see wealth accumulating at the top, on the other side, there are 3.6 billion people who are still living below the poverty line. That’s almost 44% of the world’s population. There are 733 million people who go to bed hungry because they can’t eat three times a day. Of this group, 152 million have been added in recent years.

Q. And this inequality disproportionately affects women and minorities.

A. Study after study confirms that, when it comes to the climate crisis, women are the worst hit. And, if we’re talking about economic inequality, it’s also women who are the worst hit. Let me give you another interesting gender dimension to the whole question of inequality: in one year alone, women’s unpaid work [related to care] would contribute $10.5 trillion to the world economy. The same is true for marginalized communities, which are often further excluded from development processes.

There are 733 million people who go to bed hungry because they cannot eat three times a day

Q. What are the causes of this economic inequality?

A. There are multiple causes, but the bottom line is that we’ve created an economic system in which most of the money generated by the backbreaking labor of the working class — especially in the Global South — ends up in the pockets of the super-rich. Sixty percent of the wealth of billionaires isn’t earned wealth. According to our data, for example, 36% of this wealth comes directly from inheritance. All billionaires under the age of 30 have simply inherited their wealth. Much of the rest comes from monopolies, or through crony connections.

Q. What sustains this system?

A. Many people believe that colonialism ended in the middle of the last century, but modern colonialism continues to exist. In 2024, $30 million were extracted every hour from the Global South and ended up in the [Global] North, essentially, again, [reaching] the super-rich.

Q. Will the situation get worse with the rise of populism and the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House?

A. So, what we saw when Trump took office is a billionaire president who’s backed by the richest man in the world [Elon Musk]. With the first announcements that the Trump administration has made — cutting taxes for large corporations and the super-rich — it’s clear that inequality will be further fueled around the world.

Q. Trump has also signed an executive order establishing a moratorium on non-military foreign aid. Can the rest of the world replace the funding that the U.S. withdraws?

A. The U.S. is one of the largest contributors to humanitarian aid worldwide, so this decision is very worrying and will reshape the entire global development aid landscape. For example, the whole U.N. system is heavily dependent on support from the U.S. government. I don’t think any other government can fill the gap that will be created. But this is now likely to prompt deeper reflection about the economic system that we’ve created. The Trump administration is clearly the jewel in the crown of global oligarchies. We’re moving from a scenario of inequality to one of global oligarchies.

Q. What risks do these global oligarchies entail?

A. Not only is there a greater concentration of wealth in a few hands, but now that concentration of wealth is linked to a concentration of power. Global oligarchies are emerging, which are obviously going to be hugely damaging to political stability, to social cohesion and to democracies around the world. When it comes to the situation of inequality, people are losing confidence in institutions. They feel completely excluded and, therefore, people are angry. This anger is then expressed in their vote for non-traditional political actors.

Q. What can be done to fight inequality?

A. The first thing is that we must recognize that billionaires are a sign of the failure of public policies. We have to completely change our view, because billionaires are a political choice that we make through our economic system. And the good thing is that there are very clear solutions.

Q. Like which ones?

A. One solution is to tax the super-rich. During Brazil’s G20 presidency, we achieved a resolution to make billionaires pay taxes. The U.N. Taxation Convention — led by the African Union — is also being negotiated, so as to prevent tax evasion by multinationals. The second solution is to invest in education, healthcare, social security and childcare. When more money is invested in public services, societies are more equal. And thirdly, decent wages must be guaranteed for all. It’s often observed that — especially in the Global South — most of the supply chains, even those belonging to large companies, are in the informal sector. Many of the employees don’t even receive a minimum wage.

Q. And what about foreign debt?

A. The debt trap is a very critical issue. We have to understand that, at the moment, there are almost 50 countries that pay 48% of their annual budgets in debt repayment. This means that all of this money goes back to the rich creditors in the Global North. And as a result, in these countries, there are fewer doctors, nurses, or teachers. We have to get out of this fetishism of GDP [as an indicator of growth] and look towards an economy that’s more humane, green and feminist.

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