Press releases

Today, Oxfam publishes “Takers Not Makers” as business elites gather in the Swiss resort town of Davos and, billionaire Donald Trump backed by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is inaugurated as President of the United States. The report shows that globally, billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion in 2024 alone, at a rate three times faster than the previous year.

Today, EU Foreign Policy Chief, Kaja Kallas, presented a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement at the meeting of EU Foreign Affairs Ministers. In response, Agnes Bertrand Sanz, Oxfam Humanitarian Expert, said:   “There are moments in history where delay and distraction are not neutral, it is a decision. While EU ministers continue to debate and defer, entire families in Gaza are being buried under rubble and people are being killed while trying to get food.  

Billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion in 2024 alone, equivalent to roughly $5.7 billion a day, at a rate three times faster than the year before. An average of nearly four new billionaires were minted every week. Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990, according to World Bank data.

Average global CEO pay hit $4.3 million in 2024, reveals new analysis from Oxfam ahead of International Workers’ Day (1 May). This is a 50 percent real-term increase from $2.9 million in 2019 (adjusted for inflation) —a rise that far outpaces the real wage growth of the average worker, who saw a 0.9 percent increase over the same five-year period in the countries where CEO pay data is available.

Ahead of the EU foreign affairs ministers' meeting to discuss the EU-Israel Association Agreement, Agnes Bertrand Sanz, Oxfam Humanitarian Expert, said: “The cost of inaction is measured in lives. Oxfam and partners see firsthand the unspeakable toll in Gaza: homes flattened, hospitals destroyed and looming famine. No one should live in this constant fear, not knowing if today will be the day they die. There is no time for more debate and no room for passing the buck. It is time for leadership and decisive action. Europe must ask itself: does it want to be complicit in these atrocities?”