Charity organization Oxfam has claimed a bang in extreme wealth was holding back efforts to tackle poverty in a briefing released ahead of next week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The charity claimed world's richest 100 people earned enough last year to end extreme poverty for the world's poorest people four times over, the Daily Star reports.

Oxfam said the net income last year of the 100 richest people was 240 billion US dollars, and added in contrast, people living in extreme poverty live on less than 1.25 US dollars per day.

The charity called on world leaders to commit to reducing inequality to levels last seen in 1990, the paper reported. Barbara Stocking, Oxfam's chief executive, said a global new deal was needed to reverse decades of increasing inequality. Stocking said we could no longer act as if the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many too often the reverse is true. Stoking added concentration of resources in the hands of the top one percent depresses economic activity and makes life harder for everyone else particularly those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Political and economic leaders from around the world will gather for four days at Davos from January 23.

Oxfam's briefing pointed out that the World Economic Forum's own Global Risk Report rated inequality as one of the top global risks of 2013, something the International Monetary Fund agrees with.

Oxfam said world leaders should learn from countries like Brazil, which has grown rapidly while reducing inequality, and also cited former US president Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s during the Great Depression, the paper concluded.

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