Despite Scepticism, U.N. Hails Its Anti-Poverty Programme

The United Nations, which launched one of its most ambitious anti-poverty development programmes back in 2000, has hailed it as a riveting success story – despite shortcomings.

India’s Four Million Sex Workers Demand Equal Labour Rights

Although forced prostitution and trafficking of women remains a huge challenge in India, health experts, policy-makers and legal advocates say that most of the country’s estimated four million commercial sex workers join the trade of their own free will.

The Asia-Pacific Region Is ‘Growing’, but Millions Are Living in Poverty

Home to an estimated 3.74 billion people, the Asia-Pacific region holds over half the global population, determining to a great extent the level of economic stability, or chaos, in the world.

Indonesia Still a Long Way from Closing the Wealth Gap

Every afternoon, Wahyu sets up his wooden food cart by the side of a busy road in Central Jakarta to sell sweet buns, known as ‘bakpao’, to people passing by. In a good month, the street vendor can make around 800,000 rupiah, which amounts to roughly 62 dollars.

Sri Lanka’s Development Goals Fall Short on Gender Equality

When Rosy Senanayake, Sri Lanka’s minister of state for child affairs, addressed the U.N. Commission on Population and Development (CPD) in New York last month, she articulated both the successes and shortcomings of gender equality in a country which prided itself electing the world’s first female head of government: Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike in July 1960.

Urban Slums a Death Trap for Poor Children

It’s called the urban survival gap – fuelled by the growing inequality between rich and poor in both developing and developed countries – and it literally determines whether millions of infants will live or die before their fifth birthday.

Opinion: Progress of the World’s Women 2015-2016: Transforming Economies, Realising Rights

Our world is out of balance. It is both wealthier and more unequal today than at any time since the Second World War.

Opinion: The World Has Reached Peak Plutocracy

Parents in despair because they can’t pay the fees at the privatised neighbourhood school…

Analysis: Economic Growth Is Not Enough

Recent new data show a worrying picture of Latin America and the Caribbean. Income poverty reduction has stagnated and the number of poor has risen — for the first time in a decade — according to recent figures from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Youth Unemployment, Income Inequality Keep Rising

Global youth unemployment may be “six or seven times” what the International Labor Organisation’s (ILO) latest figures state, due to what a youth advocacy group calls a flawed system of assessment.

Q&A: “The Economy Needs to Serve Us and Not the Other Way Around”

Since his college days, John Schmitt says, he’s been “very interested in questions of economic justice, economic inequality.”

Will Myanmar’s ‘Triple Transition’ Help Eradicate Crushing Poverty?

Myanmar is never out of the news for long. This has been the case since a popular uprising challenged military rule in 1988. For over two decades, the country was featured in mainstream media primarily as one unable to cope with its own internal contradictions, a nation crippled by violence.

Low-Wage Workers Butt Heads with 21st Century Capital

“Supersize my salary now!”  The refrain rose over a busy street outside a McDonald’s in downtown Seattle.

CEOs at Big U.S. Companies Paid 331 Times Average Worker

In new data certain to fuel the growing public debate over economic inequality, a survey released Tuesday by the biggest U.S. trade-union federation found that the CEOs of top U.S. corporations were paid 331 times more money than the average U.S. worker in 2013.

20 Years On – Rwanda Uses Genocide Reconciliation to Boost Economic Growth

It’s almost 20 years now since Sylidio Gashirabake, a Hutu, was a perpetrator in Rwanda’s genocide. It’s also almost 20 years since his neighbour, Augustin Kabogo, a Tutsi, lost his sister and family in the violence. But today, both men work side-by-side in their joint business venture in Kirehe district in southeastern Rwanda.

Moral Monday Protests Inspire Truthful Tuesdays

Moral Monday, the populist movement in North Carolina that saw a diverse coalition of thousands of progressive activists descend upon the state legislature, is now spreading throughout the U.S. South.

In Minimum Wage Debate, A Battle Over Inequality and Job Loss

In the midst of a nationwide movement for policymakers to raise minimum wages for millions of workers in the United States, experts here continue to debate the advantages and drawbacks of raising the federal rate.

Widening Inequality Shatters Mirage of Social Mobility

Growing income inequality will pose a major threat to social stability in countries around the globe, according to a new report by the World Economic Forum.

Bachelet Poised for Easy Win in Fed-Up Chile

Voters fed up with the extremely unequal distribution of wealth and power in Chile are expected once again to elect a centre-left government Sunday.

Walking an Economic Tightrope with No Safety Net

With the richest one percent of the population now owning 40 percent of global assets, and the bottom half sharing just one percent, inequality is fast being recognised as a stubborn underlying obstacle to development.