‘We Want Hospitals, Not Superyachts’: Gen Z Protests Signal Global Revolt Against Inequality

Oxfam chief warns that governments risk losing public trust as young people demand investment in schools, healthcare, and social protection.

A new wave of Gen Z–led protests is erupting across continents, fuelled by anger over inequality, broken promises, and crumbling public services. From Morocco to Madagascar, young people are rejecting elite excess and demanding hospitals, classrooms, and clean water instead of helicopters, stadiums, and luxury yachts.

“The message is clear — people are done waiting,” said Amitabh Behar, interim Executive Director of Oxfam International, ahead of this week’s World Summit for Social Development in Qatar, the first of its kind in 30 years.

Recent demonstrations in Casablanca, Morocco, have carried the slogan: “We want hospitals, not stadiums.” In Madagascar, power and water outages triggered protests that eventually toppled the government. These uprisings, Behar says, mark a breaking point in the social contract between governments and their citizens — one where inequality and the neglect of public welfare have reached critical levels.

According to Oxfam, 84 percent of countries cut funding for health, education, or social protection in 2024, with nine in ten reversing progress in at least one key area. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals are now far off track, and aid cuts by wealthy nations — including U.S. foreign assistance reductions — could lead to 14 million preventable deaths by 2030.

Yet the problem is not a lack of money. Behar notes that global private wealth has ballooned by $342 trillion since 1995, eight times more than public wealth, while billionaires and corporations continue to enjoy historically low tax rates.

“The world isn’t short of wealth — it’s short of justice,” Behar wrote. “The richest individuals hoard resources that should be funding health, education, and care systems for everyone.”

He warns that over the next decade, $70 trillion will be transferred to heirs of the wealthy, entrenching what he calls an “inheritocracy.” Meanwhile, access to education and healthcare is increasingly determined by wealth, not need — leaving millions of talented youths, especially girls from poorer families, locked out of opportunity.

Behar argues that governments are dismantling welfare states under the false promise of “private finance first” models that promote privatisation and commercialisation of essential services. The result, he says, is a widening gulf between billionaires and those unable to afford basic healthcare.

“Last year, 49 new billionaires emerged from the health and pharmaceuticals sector,” he noted. “Yet half the world’s population still lacks essential health coverage.”

The upcoming World Summit for Social Development represents what Oxfam calls a “once-in-a-generation” chance to rebuild the public trust shattered by austerity and inequality.

“Governments must respond not with bullets and batons, but with classrooms and clinics,” Behar said. “The Gen Z movements are a warning: ignore the call for fairness, and risk the future of democracy itself.”