Establishing an International Panel on Inequality

In 2025, at the request of President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Professor Joseph Stiglitz was asked to lead a committee of global experts to prepare a report on global inequality, to be presented to the G20. The final report outlined the drivers of extreme inequality, its consequences and its solutions. The report declared an inequality emergency that is on a par with the climate emergency and should be treated as such. Its main recommendation is for the establishment of a new International Panel on Inequality (IPI), which would play a similar role to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Following the launch of the report, the leaders of South Africa, Spain, Brazil, and Norway signaled their support for the initiative, and have joined Professor Stiglitz, Professor Jayati Ghosh and a number of other inequality experts in the creation of a Founding Committee for the establishment of the IPI. Momentum for the panel accelerated following high-level Founding Committee meetings – the first taking place in Geneva in March 2026, the second in Johannesburg in April 2026 and the third in Barcelona in July 2026.

The proposal for an IPI has received support from the UN Secretary-General, the African Union (AU), and the 21 Member State signatories to the In Defence of Democracy initiative through the Barcelona Declaration of April 2026. More than 700 economists and other leading inequality academics from around the world have also backed the proposal, and President Lula of Brazil recently highlighted the need for an IPI at the G7 meeting in Evian.

The Founding Committee is working to build a strong coalition of member states who signal their support for establishing the IPI ahead of UNGA in September. Member States are being provided a ‘Vision statement’ to offer their support to the IPI, and leaders will be invited to participate at a UNGA High-Level Leaders level event on the IPI. Alongside this, vital multilateral-level and regional-level engagement to build support for the IPI continues.

Central to this momentum-building moment is the need for strong and sustained support from inequality experts and economists, and civil society across the world. The Committee continues to welcome vocal support from inequality advocates to champion the need for the panel, building upon the Johannesburg meeting and other key moments to date.

The III has been closely involved in the IPI meetings, with III Senior Policy Fellow Ana Caistor Arendar serving as a member of the secretariat, and several III staff inputting as members of the Consultative Council, including III Director Professor Francisco H. G. Ferreira, and research programme leaders Professor Mike Savage and Professor Naila Kabeer. This work is being supported by AFSEE through the newly launched Research Engagement and Impact Support (RIES) Fund, which also facilitates the inclusion of AFSEE Fellows into the IPI development process.

Recently, in August 2026, forty prominent academics have signed an open letter urging Andy Burnham’s government to join a new global push to tackle inequality. Several III academics and associates are among the signatories including Professor Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Professor Mike Savage, Professor Naila Kabeer and Dr Tania Burchardt. They call on Burnham to sign the UK up to help create a new International Panel on Inequality (IPI), which is being developed at the UN. With the UK set to chair the G20 in 2027, they urge Burnham to take this opportunity to demonstrate his leadership on global inequality. The call was covered in an article for The Guardian.