The Inequality Emergency: The Case for an International Panel on Inequality

In this episode, we move beyond measuring inequality to examine how it is lived and experienced by people who are affected by it and why that distinction matters for policy.

Dr. Wanga Zembe-Mkabile, social policy expert and one of the Founding Committee members of the International Panel on Inequality (IPI), brings a critical perspective often missing from economic debates: the human and embodied experience of inequality. Drawing on research in social determinants of health and epidemiology, she explains how the conditions people are born into shape not only income and opportunity, but health outcomes, life expectancy, and overall well-being.

This conversation also challenges dominant ideas of meritocracy, showing how structural inequality predetermines life chances long before individuals can “compete.” It also explores why inequality is no longer just a development issue, but a global emergency with consequences for economic stability, personal well-being, security and trust in institutions.

As momentum builds behind the International Panel on Inequality, this episode examines what a global, multidisciplinary body could mean for policymakers, governments, and the development sector. Can better evidence, and better framing, drive more effective action on economic justice?

For economists, policymakers, and anyone working on inequality, this episode offers a deeper understanding of how inequality operates across systems—and why addressing it requires more than data alone.

This is the second episode in a short series on the International Panel on Inequality. In our previous episode, we were joined by Isobel Frye and Katy Chakrabortty on the process of making the IPI and what aims to achieve.

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