Swaziland has just been named as the most unequal
country in the world, in a report from the globally-renowned charity Oxfam.
The analysis was published to coincide with the World
Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa in Cape Town, South Africa, attended by King
Mswati III who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.
The report called
Starting With People, a human economy approach to inclusive growth in Africa
detailed the differences in countries between the top most earners and those at
the bottom.
The report stated that getting an accurate picture of
inequality in developing countries where data collection is poor is extremely difficult
as big earners do not fully report their earnings.
It reported that the Brookings Institute recalculated the
Gini coefficient, which is a way that inequalities in wealth is measured, to
take into account some of this previously-missing wealth. The new calculation
put Swaziland as the most unequal country in the world.
The government, which is handpicked by King Mswati,
had failed, the Oxfam report stated. It said it ‘failed to put measures in
place to tackle inequality, with poor scores for social spending and progressive
taxation, and a poor record on labour rights.’
The extent of poverty in Swaziland has been reported
extensively outside of the kingdom. In its annual report on human rights in the
kingdom, published in March 2017, Amnesty
International said two thirds of the people in Swaziland continued to live
below the poverty line and that around half the population said they often went
without food and water, and over a third said that medical care was inadequate.
In Swaziland, nearly seven in 10 of the kingdom’s 1.3
million people have incomes of less than $US2 a day. Meanwhile, King Mswati III
lives a lavish lifestyle, with at least 13 palaces, fleets of top-of-the-range
Mercedes Benz and BMW cars and at least one Rolls Royce. He has a private jet
airplane and is soon
to get a second.
Amnesty reported that Swaziland’s human rights record
was examined under the UN
Universal Periodic Review process and a number of concerns were raised.
‘They included the need to address barriers in access
to primary education; the reintegration of girls into the education system
after giving birth; non-discriminatory access to health and education services
irrespective of perceived or actual sexual
orientation or gender identity; and the need for measures to be taken to
combat and eradicate forced labour.’
See also
PM
GETS IT WRONG ON POVERTY
ECONOMY:
IMPOSSIBLE TO CUT POVERTY
GOVERNMENT
MISLEADS ON POVERTY
SWAZI
POVERTY: MINISTERS LIE TO UN
HUGE
RISE IN SWAZI KING’S BUDGET
KING
GETS NEW JET AS PEOPLE STARVE
SWAZIS
AMONG HUNGRIEST IN THE WORLD
KING
PARTIES, HIS SUBJECTS GO HUNGRY
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