A damning new report from international NGO Oxfam has exposed the staggering scale of wealth inequality in Africa, revealing that just four billionaires now possess more wealth than 750 million people combined — roughly half the continent’s population.
Published to coincide with the African Union’s biannual summit, the report calls urgent attention to what it describes as a “rigged system” that enables a small elite to accumulate unprecedented fortunes while hundreds of millions remain trapped in extreme poverty.
According to Oxfam, Aliko Dangote of Nigeria, Johann Rupert and Nicky Oppenheimer of South Africa, and Egypt’s Nassef Sawiris collectively control an estimated $57.4 billion in assets.
This figure eclipses the combined wealth of the poorest 50% of Africans, a continent where over 460 million people still live below the international extreme poverty line.
Oxfam’s analysis highlights how this vast inequality is perpetuated by a fundamentally unjust tax system.
“Africa is the only region in the world where effective tax rates have not increased since the 1980s,” the report notes, citing low levels of wealth and corporate taxation, widespread tax evasion through offshore structures, and the absence of progressive tax frameworks.
Fati N’zi-Hassane, Oxfam’s regional director, criticised the political inaction across the continent.
“It’s a rigged system.
The wealth of a protected few is prioritised over basic services for the many,” she said.
According to Oxfam’s estimates, modest reforms — such as a 1% tax on individual wealth and a 10% tax on high incomes — could generate sufficient revenue to provide universal access to electricity and education.
The report also warns that this extreme imbalance has far-reaching consequences.
Not only does it stall economic growth, but it also undermines democratic governance, worsens the climate crisis, and deepens gender inequality.
Despite the African Union’s target of reducing inequality by 15% within the next decade, Oxfam argues that without bold, structural reforms to taxation and redistribution policies, the continent risks entrenching a cycle of poverty and systemic exclusion.
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