Giving Compass' Take:

• Stanford Social Innovation Review takes a look at the global wealth gap (via a World Inequality Lab report) and concludes that more collaboration among world leaders is needed to curb the gains of illicit wealth and deliver more economic equity.

• Despite a recognition that current political headwinds may make sweeping policy changes difficult, the piece is optimistic that with more accessible data and evidence, positive change can be made. NGOs can be part of the solution by advocating for more transparency in the flow of financial assets.

• You can never learn too much about how to fight inequality — here are some more thoughts on how we can redesign and change the system.

The implications of ongoing tax avoidance are massive, glaring, and unacceptable. Globally, tax avoidance represents at least $500 billion lost annually. The United States alone loses $189 billion or more each year. That’s money that should and could be going into vital needs, such as infrastructure, schools, health, and worker retraining.

Despite the challenges we face, it’s clear enough what we must do to curb the rise of inequality. Chiefly, global leaders with an interest in mitigating it must work together to expose the enormous and undocumented flows of illicit wealth — a problem that no nation can solve alone. For example, advocates across nations recommend creating a global financial register that documents and tracks the ownership and movement of financial assets — and real ownership of companies — worldwide. Adopting such standards would deal a major blow to corruption.

This kind of collaborative global approach is not unprecedented, and no period of political inaction is permanent. In 1978, for instance, Sweden became the first country in the world to ban aerosols, responding to research that showed that the accelerants degraded the planet’s ozone layer. In the decade that followed, more countries followed suit, until virtually all nations agreed to reduce ozone-depleting chemicals. Today, it’s clear that the ozone layer is in recovery — in large part because a first-mover nation helped spur global action.

By curbing international tax avoidance, enhancing transparency, and promoting global standards that help ensure corporations and individuals pay their fair share, we can begin to curb the rise of inequality where it is doing the most harm. But more immediately, we can give people in democratic societies worldwide a reason to once again believe their institutions are working to serve them.

Read the full article about promoting transparency and fair share in the face of global inequality by John Irons and Xavier de Souza Briggs at Stanford Social Innovation Review.