Johannesburg wealth gap highlights inequality as G20 challenge

DW (English)

More than 30 years after the end of Apartheid, South Africa is often referred to as the world's most unequal country. The country's economic capital Johannesburg epitomizes the problem of systemic imbalances.

Transcript

00:00When you live in a place like Dipsluet, shacks for homes packed tightly along poor quality roads

00:07and little prospect of getting out. A place like Thatchfield, large houses surrounded by green

00:13lawns, can seem like a distant dream. These two places are less than 15 kilometers apart

00:21in Johannesburg, but the lives lived within them are worlds apart. Richard Dube is 24,

00:30he lives in Dipsluet, and although he graduated high school, he's been having trouble finding a job and making ends meet.

00:38Recently he started doing woodwork to try to make some money, but it's difficult to find new customers in Dipsluet.

00:45Well, it's been really tough, you know. Maybe that's the reason why we can't have those opportunities,

00:51because some people are scared to come here, because they think that Dipsluet is very dangerous, which is not true.

01:00John Tavengwa is Dube's uncle. After seeing how his nephew and other young residents were struggling to get jobs,

01:07he decided to do something. Using recycled building materials, members of the Bambanani Rainbow Skills Development Organization

01:16are trying to create a center where they can turn local fortunes around.

01:21We can give them skills like mechanical skills, carpentry skills, farming, you know, building skills.

01:29There is a lot of skills that we can bring up to teach the communities, you know, so that we can fight this inequality.

01:41But when this is your home, where the schools are underfunded, healthcare is difficult to access, and there are few jobs available,

01:50the route to a better future can't seem blocked by everything around you.

01:55It's a problem recognized by important thinkers.

01:58Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Laureate Economist. He heads the G20 Inequality Panel.

02:05You're always going to have some inequality, but we have, in the last quarter century, just built up extremes of inequality

02:15that should be morally reprehensible, and that actually interfere with the way our economy works,

02:24the way our politics works, and with the way our society works.

02:29It's very clean, and it's a completely different environment.

02:33Richard sees the distance between the haves and the have-nots when we take him to nearby Thatchfield.

02:39So, when you look at an area like this, do you think that the people that live here actually know what your experience is like in Dibsluet?

02:47Yeah, truly speaking, I think they know the conditions, but they don't really care, because they don't stay there, you know.

02:56If they come where we come from, they would understand that they try to help us in some sort of way.

03:05Inequality experts say the people who should try to help are those leading governments in the G20.

03:12How do you see that you see?

03:29YAMONE STRETCHING

03:32It's easier to have jobs in the present.

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