{"id":3657,"date":"2019-07-09T08:08:29","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T08:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=3657"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:24","slug":"west-africas-richest-1-own-more-than-everyone-else-combined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/07\/09\/west-africas-richest-1-own-more-than-everyone-else-combined\/","title":{"rendered":"West Africa&#8217;s Richest 1% Own More Than Everyone Else Combined&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><strong>By Nduka Orjinmo and Damian Zane<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\naid charity Oxfam&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfam.org\/en\/pressroom\/pressreleases\/2019-07-08\/west-african-governments-are-least-committed-reduce-inequalities\"><strong>says\nthat inequality is at crisis levels in West Africa<\/strong><\/a> but accuses many\ngovernments in the region of ignoring the issue, despite economic growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A\nreport, co-authored with financial consultancy Development Finance\nInternational, ranks West African countries on their commitment to public\nspending, taxation and labor markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nauthors cite several eye-catching statistics highlighting the state of\ninequality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They\nsay the &#8220;wealthiest 1% of West Africans own more than everyone else in the\nregion combined&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nreport also says that the combined wealth of Nigeria&#8217;s five richest men &#8211;\n$29.9bn (\u00a324bn) &#8211; is more than the government&#8217;s budget in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Overall,\nthe authors found that the three countries most committed to reducing\ninequality were Cape Verde, Mauritania and Senegal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nleast committed were Niger, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To\naddress the problems &#8220;West African governments must promote progressive\ntaxation, boost social spending, strengthen labor market protection, invest in\nagriculture and strengthen land rights for smallholder farmers,&#8221; Oxfam&#8217;s\nAdama Coulibaly said\u2026<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/live\/world-africa-48905016?ns_mchannel=social&amp;ns_source=twitter&amp;ns_campaign=bbc_live&amp;ns_linkname=5d241c1fef0ce9067bfeb41f%26%27West%20Africa%27s%20richest%201%25%20own%20more%20than%20everyone%20else%20combined%27%262019-07-09T05%3A06%3A43.707Z&amp;ns_fee=0&amp;pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:60d5c51f-b1e5-4fb7-bb10-eaed8f47c87c&amp;pinned_post_asset_id=5d241c1fef0ce9067bfeb41f&amp;pinned_post_type=share\">Read more&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Nduka Orjinmo and Damian Zane The aid charity Oxfam&nbsp;says that inequality is at crisis levels in West Africa but accuses many governments in the region of ignoring the issue,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}