Middle East and North African Billionaires See Wealth Surge During Pandemic

According to the report, the fortune of the 21 richest billionaires in the Middle East and North Africa has increased by about $10 billion since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak. Their combined wealth represents more than double the regional emergency funds provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to respond to the pandemic and nearly five times the funds of the UN Covid-19 humanitarian response plan for the region, the report says.

"The pandemic has highlighted the deep inequalities and massive failures of the region’s economic systems, which have left millions without jobs, without health care, without social safety nets, and allowed billionaires’ fortunes to increase by more than $63 million a day since the start of the pandemic," said Nabil Abdo, Oxfam’s policy analysis advisor for the Middle East and North Africa.

And to warn: "if governments do not immediately prioritize people over profits and if the rich do not pay their fair share of taxes, millions more will be pushed to the brink of poverty and deprived of their fundamental rights."

Oxfam experts call on governments in the region to act quickly and allocate more financial resources to protecting the most vulnerable.