<p>(DAVOS) This year, as ever, the well-meaning chatter about prosperity for all will flutter down as thickly as the snowflakes that are steadily burying the buildings that house the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.</p>
<p>Delegates will pay up to $60,000 just to be here and thousands more on flights and expensive accommodation, not to mention expensive food, in this ski-resort.</p>
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<p>WEF has been going on year-in, year-out since 1971 in this snowy corner of the Alps &#8211; at more than 5,000 feet above sea level one of the highest spots in Europe and one of the coldest places on earth &#8211; but only now is the embarrassment about the world&#8217;s growing army poor and dispossessed starting to bite.</p>
<p>Arguably the anger and despair of the world&#8217;s poor majority is a major factor behind the populism, extremism, lack of trust in leadership and disillusionment with capitalism that has led to this economic think-tank to theme this year&#8217;s gathering : &#8220;A shared future in a fractured world&#8221; a paradox if ever there was one.</p>
<p>Oxfam has been banging on about the inequalities of the world for decades. This year it released damning evidence ahead of Davos claiming a mere 42 people &#8211; enough to fill one bus &#8211; own more than 3.7 billion of the poorest people; compared with 61 last year and 380 in 2009.</p>
<p>Other highlights from its &#8216;Reward Work, Not Wealth’ report include:</p>
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<li>Billionaire wealth has risen by an annual average of 13 percent since 2010 – six times faster than the wages of ordinary workers, which have risen by a yearly average of just 2 percent. The number of billionaires rose at an unprecedented rate of one every two days between March 2016 and March 2017.</li>
<li>It takes just four days for a CEO from one of the top five global fashion brands to earn what a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn in her lifetime. In the US, it takes slightly over one working day for a CEO to earn what an ordinary worker makes in a year.</li>
<li>It would cost $2.2 billion a year to increase the wages of all 2.5 million Vietnamese garment workers to a living wage. This is about a third of the amount paid out to wealthy shareholders by the top 5 companies in the garment sector in 2016.</li>
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<p>Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International reckons: “The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system. The people who make our clothes, assemble our phones and grow our food are being exploited to ensure a steady supply of cheap goods, and swell the profits of corporations and billionaire investors.”</p>
<p>IMF head Christine Lagarde put her two pennyworth in when she announced much better than expected growth forecasts on the first day of the gathering on Monday.</p>
<p>&#8220;In one fifth of the world&#8217;s emerging economies &#8211; that is countries like Brazil Russia and South Africa &#8211; per capita income fell at a time when the rest of the world was growing.</p>
<p>Maybe Davos needs to up the action rather than more words if it is to avoid more of that most dangerous kind of person &#8211; man with nothing to lose.</p>
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The rich are getting rich, this is by how much…

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<p>We all celebrated. Poverty in the world halved in just two decades – historic success, humankind at its best, a world altogether more free, less exposed to disease, less violent. More girls in school, too! We Africans were told that “<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21572377-african-lives-have-already-greatly-improved-over-past-decade-says-oliver-august">war, famine and dictators have become rarer</a>.”</p>
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<p>Today that celebration stops. I <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL_JF63tZUw">often speak</a> about how our progress for a better world is threatened by a spiraling gap between rich and poor, withering global governance, climate change and more. Now, in failing to tackle these, something profoundly catastrophic is taking hold.</p>
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<p>The UN sounded the alarm earlier this year, joined by Oxfam and others. Our world of plenty is on the brink of unprecedented famine. Even as one famine in one country should be unacceptable – today we face the risk of four. People are dying and unless political decisions change, deaths will increase exponentially.</p>
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<h2 class="st__content-block st__content-block--heading">An urgent and bold response</h2>
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<p><a href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bn-four-famines-190517-en.pdf">Thirty million people across these four countries are severely hungry</a>. Ten million of them face life-threatening emergency and famine conditions. That’s more people than live in London, about the same as populous Jakarta.</p>
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<p>We expect an urgent and bold response to match &#8211; most of all by rich and powerful nations. The last famine, in 2011 in Somalia, should have been the very last: inaction there led to the deaths of nearly 260,000 people, half of them children. We can still prevent a recurrence.</p>
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<div class="image__credit">Image: The Economist</div>
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<p>I have just returned from visiting Nigeria and South Sudan where I met resilient women who told me “we want to walk freely, we want to farm, we want to feed our families.” I joined young people and entrepreneurs helping their communities survive. But even among the local people organizing themselves to share what little food and shelter and resources they have, hope is running out.</p>
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<p>I met women newly arriving, hungry and thirsty, in the small towns of Pulka in northeast Nigeria. Their harrowing journeys lined their faces. The horrors of life under Boko Haram will not leave them. A man who’d been there for three months with his wife and children – like thousands of people – still sleeping in the open. Now the arrival of over a thousand more people this week from Cameroon is pushing services to the brink, and limited water supplies will become even more stretched. Aid agencies like ours can reach these people – we do what we can. But we need to be able to reach people in areas where the potential famine is taking hold.</p>
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<p>In South Sudan – a country in which deadly famine was declared in February – I saw the chilling impact of a civil war. Entire communities have been driven from their homes by <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoHSouthSudan/Pages/Index.aspx">acts of ethnic cleansing</a>. All I have known from war in my own country didn’t prepare me for the carcass of violence I saw. You can’t escape the stench. Malakal used to be South Sudan’s second city; today it’s more a ghost town.</p>
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<p>The women there rationally explained to me how they choose hunger over the certainty of being raped on the journey out to collect food. The UN recently <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20979&amp;LangID=E">found</a>that 70% of women in Juba, South Sudan’s capital, had been raped or abused since the war began three years prior.</p>
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<p>Conflict and callous politics drive famine. In Somalia these conspire with drought and <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-climate-crisis-east-africa-drought-270417-en.pdf">climate change</a> for over three million people who urgently require support – mostly in rural areas, who are difficult to reach. The largest hunger emergency in the world is in Yemen where seventeen million do not know when they will get their next meal. Famines do not arrive like a meteor from the sky. They’re manufactured crises – the cruel consequence of government choices – and we saw them coming.</p>
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<h2 class="st__content-block st__content-block--heading">A fair share</h2>
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<p>But just as political failure led to these crises, political leadership can resolve them.</p>
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<p>The fundamental responsibility, yes, lies with those countries and the warring parties across the contexts. They must meet their most basic obligations to protect their people, provide services and uphold the safe passage of aid.</p>
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<p>Yet leaders of the G7 rich and powerful nations, who this week meet in Taormina, Sicily must be responsible to these people, too.</p>
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<p>Their immediate priority must be to save these people’s lives: we are billions shy of the funding target. And money can&#8217;t sit in bank accounts: it must reach those in need as quickly as possible. The UN is asking for $6.3 billion for all four countries but the world has stumped up less than a third of that. Oxfam has calculated a ‘fair share’ of funding that countries should commit to, based on their national income, and so far no G7 country has met this level, even though it is a tiny fraction of their budgets.</p>
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<p>France, Italy, and Japan have not given their fair share for <i>any</i> of the four countries, whilst inhumane proposals to withdraw life-saving aid now menace lives. The Trump Administration must not hold back the US Congress’ $990 million pledge to address famine. Lives depend on it.</p>
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<p>The most resounding plea from <a href="https://twitter.com/Oxfam/status/855747886696550406">women I met</a> – who have borne the brunt of the violence – was for peace. The international community must no longer be so polite. It is time to finally apply all its diplomatic pressure to push the parties towards the hard choices needed to end these conflicts. And if countries and armed groups fight – we’re realists – there are rules of war to fight by. They must too grant safe passage for civilians and access to aid agencies so we can help save lives in safety.</p>
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<p>The G7 are not some passive observers: they’re part of an international community that must also stop fueling these conflicts. Most are selling deadly arms to the parties fighting in Yemen even as they urge a political settlement. The US last weekend announced the sale of $110 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. <a href="https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/oxfam-condemns-PGM-sale-to-saudi-arabia/">Precision-guided munitions</a> that have been used to commit horrific abuses in Yemen are front and center in the sale. The UK has also sold billions of arms to Saudi Arabia, in violation of its obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty.</p>
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<p>The G7 and G20 must also know their responsibility when, in the Horn of Africa, they see <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-climate-crisis-east-africa-drought-270417-en.pdf">more intense natural hazards</a>. They’re supercharged by climate change powered primarily by the emissions of rich nations. I see this as cause for more ambition in rich nations’ commitments to the Paris Agreement – not a backslide.</p>
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<h3 class="list-group__header"><span class="list-group__title">Have you read?</span></h3>
<ul class="list-group__items">
<li class="list-group__item"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/conflict-and-famine-time-for-honesty">The true cause of hunger and famine? War and weak governance</a></li>
<li class="list-group__item"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/02/nearly-1-4-million-children-at-imminent-risk-of-death">1.4 million African children at imminent risk of starvation</a></li>
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<p>Each conflict is of course unique. South Sudan’s neighbors can use their strategic clout to broker peace. In particular we believe Uganda is well placed to do this. But Africa&#8217;s leaders with the African Union must also act. Nigeria spells out clearest the link between economic mismanagement and conflict: this is Africa’s largest economy facing famine. Nigerians living in poverty grew to 43 million in recent years.</p>
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<p>High corruption and the influence of big business and the wealthy elite keeps the poorest Nigerians trapped in poverty and cut-off from the benefits of economic growth and basic services. Some people &#8211; searching for the means to survive &#8211; became vulnerable to groups like Boko Haram. Nigeria’s inequality is but an extreme version of our global economic model that our powerful leaders preside over – one in which 8 men now own as much wealth as the bottom 3.6 billion people.</p>
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<p>Let’s first avoid a catastrophic loss of life. This is happening on the G7’s watch: they must now inject the necessary cash to save lives and make a genuine push for peace. They must, too, choose to be relevant. Otherwise, we will be a long time burying the victims of further inaction.</p>
<p><em>This article first appeared on WEF&#8217;s <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/05/our-world-of-plenty-is-on-the-brink-of-unprecedented-famine">website</a> on 24th May and is republished with its permission. </em></p>
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Our world of plenty is on the brink of unprecedented famine. We must act now

<p> The World Economic Forum launches its second annual search to identify Africa’s next generation of top female technology innovators and entrepreneurs<br />
 The top five entrepreneurs selected by the Forum’s judging panel will be invited to participate in the World Economic Forum on Africa on 3-5 May in Durban, South Africa<br />
 The meeting will convene leaders from business, government and civil society to explore regional solutions<br />
 To enter the challenge, visit: http://wef.ch/womeninnovators</p>
<p>Building on the success of last year’s inaugural search, the World Economic Forum has started the process to select the top female tech innovators in Africa, who will be invited to share their experience and engage with leaders at the Forum’s regional meeting this spring.</p>
<p>The search is open to any female entrepreneur whose business is less than three years old, uses innovative technology or business models, and has at least one year of revenue generation. The business must also be able to demonstrate social and economic potential.</p>
<p>“Africa’s best prospects for inclusive growth lie in its ability to tap into its vast pool of entrepreneurial talent,” said Elsie Kanza, Head of Africa at the World Economic Forum. “We want Africa’s top female tech entrepreneurs to join us so we can celebrate them as role models and so they can help governments and policymakers create conditions for others to flourish.”</p>
<p>The 2017 World Economic Forum on Africa will convene on 3-5 May in Durban, South Africa, under the theme Achieving Inclusive Growth. The meeting will convene regional and global leaders from business, government and civil society to explore solutions to create economic opportunities for all. It will provide insight from leading experts on how Africa will be affected by the onset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, particularly in terms of safeguarding the region’s economies from negative disruption and exploiting opportunities for further growth and development.<br />
The application for the 2017 search for Africa’s top female innovators can be found here. The closing date for submission is Monday 17 April. Prior to the World Economic Forum on Africa, a panel of experts will select the five top entrepreneurs to participate in the meeting.</p>
<p>The co-chairs of the 2017 World Economic on Africa are: Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director, Oxfam International, United Kingdom; Siyabonga Gama, Group Chief Executive Officer, Transnet, South Africa; Frédéric Lemoine, Chairman of the Executive Board, Wendel, France; Rich Lesser, Global Chief Executive Officer and President, Boston Consulting Group, USA; and Ulrich Spiesshofer, President and Chief Executive Officer, ABB, Switzerland.</p>


Winnie Byanyima

The rich are getting rich, this is by how much…

Our world of plenty is on the brink of unprecedented famine. We must act now

World Economic Forum on the search for Africa’s Top Female Innovators

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Winnie Byanyima

The rich are getting rich, this is by how much…

Our world of plenty is on the brink of unprecedented famine. We must act now

World Economic Forum on the search for Africa’s Top Female Innovators

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