Poverty
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The Scale of Debt: Estimating Everyday Household Indebtedness Worldwide
17 March 2026 - by Isabelle Guérin, Arnaud Natal
This brief provides a first global estimate of everyday indebtedness. It suggests that at least 33% of the world’s population relies on borrowing to meet basic needs – a figure that is likely underestimated. This widespread reliance on debt (…) -
Nepal’s Protests Are the Result of a Blocked Revolution
28 September 2025 - by Sushovan Dhar
When Nepal became a republic in 2008, it aroused hopes for a fundamental transformation of Nepali society. The inability of Nepal’s left parties to deliver on those hopes created a mood of discontent among young people that exploded over the last (…) -
Nepal joins regional wave of revolt as popular anger at repression and inequality spreads across South Asia
12 September 2025 - by Sankha Subhra Biswas
Since 2022, a wave of movements that originated in Sri Lanka has spread across South Asia. In Bangladesh, the anti-quota movement sparked widespread protests in 2024, prompting the Sheikh Hasina government to respond with severe repression. In (…) -
The World Bank mired in contradictions about poverty
23 October 2024 - by Eric Toussaint
In its recent publications, the World Bank notes that as a result of the coronavirus crisis 23 million more people will be living in extreme poverty in 2020-2021. Indeed it reported on 2 April 2024: ‘In 2022, 712 million people in the world were (…) -
Measuring global poverty
9 October 2024 - by Michael Roberts
To track progress towards its goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030., the UN relies on World Bank estimates of the share of the world population that fall below the so-called International Poverty Line (IPL). In 1990, a group of (…) -
In solidarity with the people of the southeast of Moroccoand all those affected by the floods after September 8, 2024
12 September 2024 - by ATTAC/CADTM Morocco
Press Release On September 8, 2024 in regions of Ouarzazate, Zagora, Tinghir, Tata and Errachidia, heavy rainfall has left the several material and human losses. Due to massive flood many houses collapsed and many people lost their lives (18 (…) -
The unfulfilled promises of microcredit: some new evidence
9 August 2024 - by CADTM, Stéphanie Jacquemont
The student movement in Bangladesh ousted Sheikh Hasina last Monday, August 5, 2024. A new interim government has been formed to restore order, end repression, and hold a fair election to facilitate a democratic transition of power. Nobel (…) -
End Austerity: A Global Report on Budget Cuts and Harmful Social Reforms in 2022-25
8 July 2024 - by Isabel Ortiz, Matthew Cummins
This report exposes the dangers of a post-pandemic austerity shock, far more premature and severe than the one that followed the global financial crisis. It finds that 85 percent of the world’s population is living in the grip of austerity, more (…) -
South Africa: hanging on
29 May 2024 - by Michael Roberts
South Africa has a general election today with 28m citizens registered to vote. Since the end of the apartheid regime three decades ago, the African National Congress (ANC) has won all the elections with substantial majorities. But this time (…) -
A World of Inequality
15 May 2024 - by Maxime Perriot
A central feature of neo-liberal capitalism, which has ruled the global economy since the 1990s, is to deepen and widen inequalities. It makes a tiny minority indecently richer while leaving the majority in the lurch. Women and minorities such (…) -
Polycrisis again
8 October 2023 - by Michael Roberts
At the beginning of this year, I wrote a post on how the capitalist mode of production was in what some call a ‘polycrisis’, where various crises: economic (inflation and slump); environmental (climate and pandemic); and geopolitical (war and (…) -
Grant distribution failures foil ‘financial inclusion’
25 September 2023 - by Patrick Bond, Milford Bateman, Lena Lavinas, Erin Torkelson
The Postbank ‘glitch’ in early September was devastating to 600,000 social grant recipients, and although the problem was solved last week, according to the state-owned bank, advocacy NGO Black Sash reported ongoing crises. This is a tragedy, (…) -
Marrakech, world wealthiest’ banquet hall, receives main makers of poverty and injustices in the world.
27 August 2023 - by Jawad Moustakbal
“We cannot allow our yesterday and today’s enemies monopolise thought, imagination and creativity.” - Thomas Sankara “I hope the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will disappear soon” - Hugo Chavez My last visit, in the spring (…) -
Incoming World Bank President Ajay Banga’s predatory-finance background threatens even more prolific Bank poverty-creation
12 April 2023 - by Patrick Bond, Milford Bateman, Lena Lavinas, Erin Torkelson
Should the incoming World Bank president, Ajay Banga, be allowed to take office without a full investigation into his predatory-financing history, especially as a visionary leader of MasterCard committed to ‘financial inclusion’? (…) -
Richest 1% bag nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of the world put together over the past two years
17 January 2023 - by Oxfam
The super-rich outstrip their extraordinary grab of half of all new wealth in past decade. Billionaire fortunes are increasing by $2.7 billion a day even as at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages. A (…) -
Brazil’s economic and political rollercoaster
31 October 2022 - by Michael Roberts
The latest polls put Workers Party leader Lula de Silva ahead in the two-horse race with incumbent right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro in today’s final round of the presidential election in Brazil. If Lula wins, it will be a dramatic comeback (…) -
‘There is no money left’: Covid crisis leaves Sri Lanka on brink of bankruptcy
2 February 2022 - by Minoli de Soysa, Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Sri Lanka is facing a deepening financial and humanitarian crisis with fears it could go bankrupt in 2022 as inflation rises to record levels, food prices rocket and its coffers run dry. The meltdown faced by the government, led by the (…) -
World inequality report 2022
12 December 2021 - by Thomas Piketty, Lucas Chancel, Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman
The job of holding up a mirror to the world can be a frustrating one. When the news is persistently bad, when the mirror highlights more wrinkles than we want to face up to, it is easy enough to find excuses—we are about to turn the corner, (…) -
Afghanistan Facing Famine
15 November 2021 - by Human Rights Watch
Donor countries, the United Nations, and international financial institutions should urgently address Afghanistan’s collapsed economy and broken banking system to prevent widespread famine, Human Rights Watch said today. The UN World Food (…) -
The World Bank and IMF are using flawed logic in their quest to do away with the informal sector
10 November 2021 - by Mike Rogan, Max Gallien, Vanessa van den Boogaard
Many low and middle-income countries face a myriad of challenges. But policies that can address them are few and far between. The challenges include high and rising inequality, budget crises and the ongoing pandemic. (…) -
What can be done now to ameliorate poverty, unemployment and inequality?
2 August 2021 - by Jeff Rudin, Jonathan Cannard, Bruce Baigrie, Maxine Bezuidenhout, Jaco Oelofson, Keamogetswe Seipato
“What are the status quo limits to what can be done about poverty, unemployment and inequality?” This sentence, buried deep in a recent Daily Maverick article by one of us, evoked a sizable response, some sympathetic, others hostile. The (…) -
1% own 45% of the world’s personal wealth while nearly 3bn people have little or no wealth at all
24 June 2021 - by Michael Roberts
Just 56m or 1% of adults out of 5.3bn globally are millionaires in net wealth terms. And they own 45% of all global personal wealth. The other 99% own the rest and there are nearly 3bn people in the world that have little or no wealth at all (…) -
To Address Increasing Inequality and Global Poverty, We Must Cancel Debt
16 June 2021 - by Eric Toussaint, C.J. Polychroniou
Massive debt levels are a feature of contemporary capitalism that cannot be eradicated without radical change, says political scientist Éric Toussaint “The indebtedness of the working classes is directly connected to the widening poverty gap (…) -
Migrant Women Are Holding Society Together During This Pandemic
14 April 2021 - by Taroa Zuñiga Silva
The past year has seen several lockdowns as a result of the pandemic, which have had a deep impact on education, employment and the way we work globally. These factors have had an especially stark effect on women. For more than 168 million (…) -
Covid 2021: more calamity ahead?
4 December 2020 - by Michael Roberts
The news that a COVID-19 vaccine could well be available by the start of 2021 sent the stock markets of the world shooting up to new record levels. However, the rally was quickly tempered by the rocketing rise in COVID-19 infections as the (…)
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CADTM
COMMITTEE FOR THE ABOLITION OF ILLEGITIMATE DEBT
8 rue Jonfosse
4000 - Liège- Belgique
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