• Inequality
• Gender poverty reduction strategies

Inequality

This paper reviews theories and empirical findings on inequality and finds evidence for a liberal shift in international development:

• the reduction of absolute poverty has become the centre of attention in international development
• any concern for inequalities and relative poverty has been excluded
• (re)distribution of incomes has disappeared from the agenda

However, there are numerous economic and political reasons for which inequality should be seen as a more important and urgent problem:

• the magnitude of the phenomenon
• the possibly harmful impact of deprivation on efficiency and growth
• extensive overlapping of equity and equality
• public moral indignation and the ensuing political responsibility
• inequality's role as a driving force behind migration
• the likelihood of political instability induced by inequality
• the violation of social and economic rights due to inequality
• a historical ‘debt’ of rich countries towards poor countries
• inequality's role as a source of absolute poverty

The authors argue that these factors combined with the emergence of a global civil society and the dwindling legitimacy of the Bretton Woods institutions may open up a window of opportunity for putting inequality back at the heart of a UN led development cooperation. They promote the concept of World Public Finances as a means of thinking of redistribution at the global level and argue that global taxes and global public goods could take the place of development aid. Furhtermore they argue for a ‘Global Fund’ for globalisation and/or development could play an important role in spreading the concept of world public finances, in proposing global taxes and in organising global redistribution, based on the idea of a global welfare state.

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