CRI is released by Oxfam and Development Finance International. 

• CRI assessed the commitment of 164 countries and regions to fight inequality.
  • SDG 10 aims to reduce inequality. 
• It assessed the performance on the basis of three parameters: Public Services Spending, Progressive taxation and Labour rights and wages.

Key Highlights of the Index 

• Ranking: 
  • Top performers: Norway, Canada, and Australia
  • Worst performers: South Sudan, Nigeria, etc.
  • India’s rank: 127
    • Other South Asian countries such as Nepal (115) and Sri Lanka (118) have performed better than India. 
• Rising Inequality: 
  • Gap between the Global South and the Global North has suddenly grown more rapidly than at any time since World War II. 
  • Billions of people face the terrible hardship of high and rising food prices and hunger, while the number of billionaires has doubled in the last decade. 
  • Key Deriving Factor: Conflict, debt crisis, and climate shocks, these are constraining spending in low- and lower middle-income countries. 
    • 84% of countries have reduced their spending on education, health and/or social protection.

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) opened the 2024 Hand-in-Hand Investment Forum.

About HIH

• Launched in 2019 by FAO
• It supports the implementation of nationally led, ambitious programmes to accelerate agrifood systems transformations by eradicating poverty (SDG1), ending hunger and malnutrition (SDG2), and reducing inequalities (SDG10).
  • It uses advanced geospatial modeling and analytics, as well as a robust partnership-building approach. 
• Areas of intervention: Developing value chains for priority commodities, building agro-industries, etc.
• Members:72 countries (India is not a member)