A/HRC/34/25 16. One major shift from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals is the inclusion of Goal 10, a new cross-cutting and stand-alone goal on reducing inequalities within and between countries. Rising inequalities across the world have become the defining challenge of modern times. Today, people live in a world where the top 1 per cent of the world’s population owns almost half of the world’s wealth. 3 Deepening, divisive and destabilizing inequalities both within and among countries are stirring social unrest, undermining social progress and threatening economic and political stability, affecting all pillars and areas of United Nations work, including development, human rights, humanitarian work, and peace and security. Equality and non-discrimination are at the centre of a human rights framework, including economic, social and cultural rights. The imperative of reducing inequality and ending discrimination means that all people in all countries should benefit from development, without discrimination of any kind. It also means paying special attention to the people who are most excluded or discriminated against, such as women and girls, children, young people, persons with disabilities, persons living with HIV/AIDS, older persons, indigenous peoples, refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants. 17. Tackling economic inequality is an important component of this goal; indeed, it is crucial for achieving a whole host of the other goals and targets. For instance, extreme income inequality slows poverty reduction; eradicating extreme poverty (Goal 1) will therefore be impossible without tackling economic inequality. Economic inequality has been shown to have a number of detrimental human rights effects, perpetuating social exclusion and creating stark disparities in access to health, education, housing and other services essential to the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights. A recent study, for example, found evidence that that income inequality is a causal factor in various bad health outcomes, suggesting that up to 1.5 million deaths could be averted in countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) if the Gini coefficient was reduced to below 0.30.4 On education, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that each extra year of education is associated with a reduction of the Gini coefficient by 1.4 percentage points.5 Economic inequality is also strongly correlated with social inequalities and discrimination, interacting with them in a vicious circle to create and deepen marginalization and disadvantage. Human rights actors and mechanisms should therefore strive to ensure that Goal 10 is given proper focus and priority in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.6 18. The special focus of the 2030 Agenda on those left furthest behind and most excluded means that progress can no longer be measured in averages or aggregate, as has often been the case with the Millennium Development Goals. Under the 2030 Agenda, Member States have therefore committed to disaggregate data by income, sex, age, race, ethnicity, migration status, disability, geographic location and other relevant characteristics. Collecting quality, accessible, timely, reliable and disaggregated data to monitor progress across all goals and targets is of utmost importance in ensuring that no one is left behind, and in identifying and prioritizing those who are furthest behind. 3 4 5 6 See Era Dabla-Norris et al, Causes and Consequences of Income Inequalities: A Global Perspective, International Monetary Fund Staff Discussion Note, 2015. See Kate Picket and Richard Wilkinson, “Income Inequality and Health: A Causal Review” in Robert Kaplan, Michael Spittel and Daryn David, eds., Population Health: Behavioral and Social Science Insights, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2015. See UNICEF, The Investment Case for Education and Equity, 2015. See also Center for Economic and Social Rights, From Disparity to Dignity: Tackling economic inequality through the Sustainable Development Goals, Human Rights Policy Brief, 2016. 5