Public spending

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has required borrowing countries to quadruple the size of their austerity cuts over the past decade, while simultaneously weakening the protection afforded to social spending in its loan programs, reveals new Oxfam analysis. These cuts undermine vital spending on public services – from healthcare to education and housing – that protect low-income communities. 

While India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, it is also one of the most unequal countries. The richest have cornered a huge part of the wealth created while the poor are still struggling to earn a minimum wage and access quality education and healthcare services. Join our campaign and fight inequality today.

Inequality between the richest and the rest in Malawi continues to rise, with poverty remaining extreme and endemic. This report presents a vision, roadmap and policy recommendations for a more inclusive, equitable and prosperous Malawi. It shows that inequality is not inevitable but the result of policy choices made by those with power.

The gap between the richest and the rest in Indonesia has grown faster in the past two decades than in any other country in South-East Asia. This report shows how President Jokowi could fight inequality by enforcing a living wage for all workers, increasing spending on public services, and making big corporations and rich individuals pay their fair share of tax.

‘Blending’ combines official development assistance with other private or public resources, in order to ‘leverage’ additional funds from other actors. This report aims to clarify what it is, how it works and how it is used, to foster greater understanding of this increasingly prominent development finance mechanism.

Vietnam has a strong record of poverty reduction, but today, increasing inequality is threatening decades of progress. To tackle the dangerous gap between rich and poor, Vietnam should urgently implement progressive policies on governance, taxation, public spending, public services, labour rights, and civic engagement.