Published in Devex

By Atila Roque, Otto Saki, Vuyiswa Sidzumo

Antonio Freitas, the deputy coordinator of the Group of 20’s finance track, recently opened a gathering of G20 officials and civil society representatives with an astonishing observation:

“If the five richest [people] on Earth spent $1 million per day,” he began, “it would take them 476 years to waste their wealth.”

He shared other statistics demonstrating the width and depth of global inequality, and then, for nearly 40 minutes, representatives from civil society engagement groups had the floor. Speakers offered perspectives from around the world, sharing the opportunities they saw for change, and the solutions they hoped the major economies of the G20 would deliver.

It was a remarkable moment for many reasons. Chief among them: The simple fact that a conversation like this had never happened before.

Read the full article