South Africa, The PRAKARSA – Senior researcher The PRAKARSA Ah Maftuchan, representing Indonesian civil society organizations, delivered a speech at the “Plenary Session on Equality: From Dialogue to Policy Action” at the Civil 20 Summit 2025 held in Johannesburg, South Africa, 12-14 November 2025. Maftuchan attended online in his capacity as a representative of Indonesian civil society organizations (CSOs) and the International Advisory Committee (IAC) for C20 South Africa 2025.
In his remarks, Maftuchan commended the South African G20 Presidency's commitment to seriously addressing inequality by establishing the G20 Extraordinary Committee on Global Inequality Report. The committee, led by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, launched its inaugural report on global inequality on November 4, 2025.
Maftuchan outlined the report's key findings, describing the global "inequality emergency." This includes the extreme concentration of wealth, with the richest 1% capturing 41% of all new wealth created between 2000 and 2024, while only 1% of the wealth is distributed to the bottom 50% of the world's population. This gap is further exacerbated by the average wealth of the top 1%, which has surged by $1,3 million since 2000, while the average increase experienced by someone in the bottom half of the global population has only increased by about $585.
Furthermore, inequality is not just about wealth but also income, with 83% of the world's countries—home to 90% of the global population—recorded to have high income inequality. The tangible impact of this structural inequality is reflected in worsening food insecurity, with one in four people globally (2,3 billion) now experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity, a number that has increased by 335 million since 2019.
"This is a policy choice. This negative trend can be reversed," Maftuchan stressed.
Widespread Impact and the Need for Collective Action
Maftuchan emphasized that inequality is not only an economic problem, but also undermines democracy, social cohesion, and political stability. "Poor public services will
"Eroding public trust in the government, the consequences of which are political instability, declining confidence in democracy, and increased conflict," said Maftuchan.
Maftuchan further emphasized that this problem is transboundary, encompassing inequality between countries, often driven by corporate and global financial interests. Therefore, addressing it must be an international agenda, including within the G20.
Policy Recommendations for National and Global Levelsl
Based on the report, Maftuchan expressed his support for the recommendations put forward by the Committee on Global Inequality established by the South African G20 Presidency and emphasized the various roles the G20 could play in facilitating global coordination.
First, reform international economic rules: redesigning intellectual property rules (related to the pandemic and climate change) and rewriting international tax rules to ensure fair taxation for multinational corporations and the super-rich, with reference to the UN Tax Convention.
Second, national action: exploring pro-worker regulations, reducing corporate concentration, taxing large capital gains, investing in public services, and implementing more progressive tax and spending policies.
Third, new models of cooperation: exploring new efforts between countries, especially in volatile geopolitical situations, for example in terms of tax, trade and the green transition.
Pushing for Wealth Tax
On this occasion, Maftuchan also specifically emphasized the promotion of the "taxing the super-rich" agenda. He stated that this measure is a concrete reflection of equitable wealth distribution and an effective policy tool.
He recounted the C20's advocacy journey, which began with Indonesia's 2022 G20 Presidency, continued in India in 2023, and continued in Brazil in 2024. "The most prominent success was during Brazil's 2024 G20 presidency," he said.
Brazil's then-president of the G20 proposed a 2% tax on the ultra-rich (approximately 3.000 individuals with assets exceeding US$1 billion), which could generate US$200-250 billion in revenue annually. Unfortunately, due to opposition from several developed countries, the proposal was rejected and replaced by a more lenient statement from G20 finance ministers.
Maftuchan then explained that the United Nations (UN) has also paid attention to this issue, as evidenced by his experience of being invited to speak before the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in March 2024 to discuss the role of wealth taxes in funding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and improving distributive justice.
To continue this momentum, he called for optimizing South Africa's 2025 G20 Presidency and the United States' 2026 G20 Presidency as strategic opportunities to continue raising this issue.
Concluding his speech, Ah Maftuchan called for a spirit of collaboration among all CSOs worldwide. He expressed his hope that productive discussions would continue to foster the fight against inequality, leading to concrete policy action. "Let us maintain our collaboration to continue striving to create a just global system," he emphasized.