Elijah Ntongai, an editor at TUKO.co.ke, has over four years of financial, business, and technology research and reporting experience, providing insights into Kenyan, African, and global trends.

Oxfam International has released a report highlighting Africa’s growing inequality crisis and the rise of the super-rich.

Africa is grappling with a deepening dual crisis of inequality, marked by extreme wealth concentration and weak government commitment to addressing the gap.

According to the recently published report, the continent is home to nearly half of the world’s 50 most unequal countries, and the disparity is worsening.

The report titled 'Africa’s inequality crisis and the rise of the super-rich' was launched ahead of the African Union Mid-Year Coordination Meeting in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, and warned that the explosive concentration of wealth is accelerating inequality.

The report and Fati N’Zi-Hassane, the director, Oxfam in Africa, noted that the inequality is driven by policies that enrich elites while starving public services.

“Africa’s wealth is not missing. It’s being siphoned off by a rigged system that allows a small elite to amass vast fortunes while denying hundreds of millions even the most basic services. This is an utter policy failure, unjust, avoidable and entirely reversible.’’

The richest 1% in Africa have seen their income grow five times faster than the bottom 50% since 2020, while African billionaires have increased their wealth by 56% in just five years.

Shockingly, the continent’s four richest men hold more wealth than half of Africa’s 1.5 billion people combined.

A tiny elite of dollar millionaires—just 0.02% of the population—own nearly 20% of the region’s wealth, whereas the poorest half own less than 1%.

The gender gap is also stark, with men holding three times more wealth than women, making Africa the region with the world’s highest gender wealth inequality.

"Despite deepening poverty and widening inequalities, African governments remain the least committed globally to narrowing the gap — slashing budgets for public services like education, health and social protection, while imposing some of the world’s lowest wealth taxes on the ultra-rich. On average, the continent collects just 0.3% of GDP in wealth taxes. This is less than any other region and well below Asia (0.6%), Latin America (0.9%), and OECD countries (1.8%). Over the past decade, that already meagre share has dropped by nearly 25%," Oxfam noted.

Oxfam further observed that:

"If each of the five richest African men spent US$10,000 (KSh 1.29 million) per hour for the next 100 years, they would still be worth US$4.28 billion (KSh 552.99 billion) each on average.

If each of the five richest African billionaires were to lose 99.9999% of their wealth, they would still be 56 times richer than the bottom 99.999% of the African population on average."

According to the Forbes billionaires list, Aliko Dangote, Johann Rupert, Oppenheimer, and Nassef Sawiris are the top four richest individuals on the continent.

Oxfam's report indicates that the four have more wealth than the combined wealth held by half of the continent combined.

Earlier, presented a list of the top 10 richest individuals in Africa in 2025 and the sources of their wealth.

Mike Adenuga, the 71-year-old Nigerian telecom and oil magnate, rounds up the top five richest Africans with a net worth of $6.9 billion (KSh 892.86 billion).

Other top richest persons in Africa include Abdulsamad Rabiu – $5.1 billion (KSh 659.12 billion), Naguib Sawiris – $5 billion (KSh 646.20 billion), Koos Bekker – $3.4 billion (KSh 439.81 billion), Mohamed Mansour – $3.4 billion (KSh 439.81 billion), and Patrice Motsepe – $3 billion (KSh 387.72 billion).

Source: TUKO.co.ke