The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Wednesday called for a shift to more inclusive growth patterns, supported by redistributive polices and changes in social norms, alarming against deepening income disparities in countries around the world.

"Inequalities on today's levels are unjust... and they also impede human progress," said UNDP Administrator Helen Clark on the launch of the agency's new report, "Humanity Divided: Confronting Inequality in Developing Countries," which reveals that income inequality increased by 11 percent in those countries between 1990 and 2010.

Among its striking statistics, the report noted that a significant majority of households in developing countries -- more than 75 percent of the world population -- are living today in societies where income is more unequally distributed than it was in the 1990s.

Moreover, the richest 1 percent of the world population owns about 40 percent of the world's assets, while the bottom half owns no more than 1 percent.

If left unchecked, this deep disparity can undermine the very foundations of development, economic progress and social and domestic peace.

Clark said in her foreword to the report sharp differences in wealth, education, and other material resources influence the way people view themselves and others, "and can make equal participation of citizens in political and public life almost impossible."

Among other concerns, high and persistent inequality goes beyond income. While women are participating more in the workforce, they remain disproportionately represented in vulnerable employment and underrepresented among political decision-makers, and they still earn significantly less than men, the UNDP explained in the report.

Equally distressing is that evidence from developing countries shows that children in the lowest wealth quintiles were up to three times more likely to die before their fifth birthday than children born in the highest wealth quintiles in some regions.

"Social protection has been extended, yet persons with disabilities are up to five times more likely than average to incur catastrophic health expenditures," said the report.

Even as redistribution remains very important to inequality reduction, the report calls for a shift towards a more inclusive pattern of growth, which raises incomes of poor and low-income households faster than average in order to sustainably reduce inequality, key to the post-2015 development agenda.

The UNDP highlighted that in an unprecedented UN-facilitated global conversation that has involved almost 2 million people across the globe, people demand a say in decisions that affect their lives. People are indignant at the injustice they feel because of growing inequalities and insecurities that exist particularly for poorer and marginalized people.

Clark explained the report was intended to help development actors, citizens, and policymakers contribute to global dialogues and initiate conversations in their own countries about the causes and extent of inequalities, their impact, and the ways in which they can be reduced.

"It is only through the action and voices of many that we will be able to curb one of the greatest moral and practical challenges of our times: the quest for equality, shared prosperity, and human well-being," she said. Endi

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