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The G20 should take urgent action to protect poor countries from economic crisis that is forcing 100 people-a-minute into poverty, Oxfam said today. Developing countries across the globe are struggling to respond to the global recession.

Up to a quarter of a billion people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis and the crisis in Ukraine. Global inequality threatens to rise massively unless more is done to effectively address this situation.  

In response to calls for a waiver of Trade and Intellectual Property Rules (TRIPS) for COVID-19 vaccines, which is backed by more than 100 mostly developing countries, being blocked again at World Trade Organisation talks by rich countries, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager, Anna Marriott, said:“This is a massive missed opportunity to speed up and scale up the production of lifesaving vaccines worldwide by waiving the intellectual property barriers that prevent more qualified manufacturers joining the effort.

In response to Jeff Bezos’ space flight scheduled for Tuesday, Deepak Xavier, Oxfam International's Global Head of Inequality Campaign, said: "We’ve now reached stratospheric inequality. Billionaires burning into space, away from a world of pandemic, climate change and starvation. 11 people are likely now dying of hunger each minute while Bezos prepares for an 11-minute personal space flight. This is human folly, not human achievement."

With the UN Rio+20 talks effectively at a stalemate, Oxfam today calls on the Brazilian government to provide the leadership that is so urgently needed to rescue the Rio 92 Earth Summit legacy, and chart a path toward equitable and sustainable development.

The G7 must pursue windfall taxes on excess corporate profits including from those making huge returns from surging food and energy prices. The revenues can be used to fund an end to global hunger and to tackle climate change, says Oxfam.

European leaders failed today to meet the expectations they had raised of cracking down on tax dodging at a summit in Brussels. In reaction, Catherine Olier, Oxfam’s EU Policy Adviser, said:

G20 finance ministers in Lima today endorsed international tax reforms for tackling tax dodging launched by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). While the measures are a tax milestone, they poorly represent the critical needs of developing countries, Oxfam warned today.

Oxfam believes that reducing inequality is fundamental to fair and sustainable development.

G20 finance ministers met in St. Andrews, Scotland, on 7 November 2009. Oxfam reacts to their communiqué.