World leaders have been urged to support the establishment of an International Panel on Inequality, which would assess the scale of inequality, its drivers and consequences, and the policies that can reduce it. The call was made by Brazil, Norway, South Africa, and Spain, along with Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York in September 2026. The proposed panel would be modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The African Union endorsed the initiative in February, and South Africa plans to present a General Assembly resolution to establish the panel. This move is significant, as inequality could have a permanent scientific body within the multilateral system for the first time. However, the usefulness of such a panel will depend on whose realities its assessments reflect. Recent experiences have shown that frameworks built mainly on data and institutions from high-income countries may not be accurate where inequality is most severe.
The African Centre of Excellence for Inequality Research has been producing country inequality diagnostics and analyses with African researchers and national statistical offices for over a decade. Their work is summarized in a recent book on inequality in sub-Saharan Africa. The centre's researchers believe that global initiatives are a step forward, but frameworks built mainly on northern data and institutions might not be accurate where inequality is most severe.
To address this issue, the African Inequality Review was developed to close the knowledge gap about inequality in Africa. The review aims to start new cross-country research on African inequality and build a public resource linking the continent's inequality datasets. It can offer African-led assessments of inequality, grounded in the continent's institutions and labour markets, linked data infrastructure needed to study rents, assets, and fiscal choices alongside household outcomes.
According to UN projections, sub-Saharan Africa will account for more than half of the world's population growth through to the end of this century. Almost all the global growth of the economically active population will come from Africa. Most Africans are concentrated at the bottom of the global income distribution, so this demographic shift will pull the world's distribution with it. Between 1990 and 2016, the share of the world's poorest income decile living in sub-Saharan Africa rose from about one in five to one in three.
The African Inequality Review is modeled on two previous reviews: the Deaton Review in the UK and the Latin American and Caribbean Inequality Review. The launch was held after a meeting of the African Union and South Africa African Expert Panel, which ensured senior African policymakers took part along with African and international practitioners and researchers. Participants identified priorities, including evidence gaps where fiscal, corporate, and asset data meet, and difficulties in assessing full economic and social returns to investments in public infrastructure.
The review's participants pointed to several priorities, including the need for better data on tax breaks, public infrastructure investments, and control over land, mineral resources, and credit. They also emphasized the importance of building on household survey research rather than replacing it. The African Inequality Review can provide a model of research designed with policymakers rather than delivered to them, which can help shape the future of global inequality.
Key points
- The International Panel on Inequality requires a strong African evidence base to accurately assess and address global inequality.
- The African Inequality Review aims to close the knowledge gap about inequality in Africa and provide African-led assessments of inequality.
- The future of global inequality will be determined by the prospects of Africa's young and growing population.
