Fighting Inequality in the Time of Covid-19: The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index 2020

The Commitment to Reducing Inequality (CRI) Index aims to monitor government policies and actions towards the goal of reducing inequality. The first CRI Index report was published in 2017 by UK-based organisations Development Finance International and Oxfam International. Released in October 2020, this third edition focuses on the low public spending on healthcare, inadequate social protection for workers, and regressive taxation by governments, which left populations vulnerable during the Covid-19 pandemic. The report ranks 158 countries on their “commitment to reducing inequality”. It marks government policies across three categories: public services (health, education and social protection), taxation, and workers’ rights. The report states that the Covid-19 pandemic has tested the commitment to reducing inequality made by governments. It recommends that countries improve their efforts to promote public services spending, progressive taxation and workers’ rights in fulfilment of their ‘National Inequality Reduction Plans’– in keeping with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 10) of reducing inequalities. The 66-page report is divided into four chapters: The impact of COVID-19 on commitment to fight inequality (chapter 1); The 2020 index results: fighting inequality through public services (chapter 2); Fighting inequality through tax policy (chapter 3); and Fighting inequality through labour rights and wages (chapter 4).