Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

06/12/2026

⚠️ Austerity is often presented as a technical response to fiscal pressure. In practice, it weakens public systems, reduces access to health and education and shifts costs onto people who rely on .

🏥📚 Our research on Kenya and Ghana examines how fiscal choices affect , equality and the future of public provision.

🗓️ Join us for ‘Multi-Country Study and Legal Brief Launch: From Austerity to People-Centred Fiscal Policy in Kenya and Ghana’.

🔗 Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Ux_a3CCkQQq7mDdDm5lSEg

06/10/2026

Tomorrow, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury and Economic Planning, John Mbadi, will deliver Kenya’s 2026/27 budget statement in Parliament. 🇰🇪📊

As the country turns to the numbers, we are asking: do they reflect the realities facing public ? 🏫

Between April and May, we worked with education and public finance partners to follow the budget process closely: a consultative forum, a letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Education, a webinar on education budget gaps and a joint memorandum to the National Assembly, all highlighting the budget shortfalls in the sector. 📝

Budget figures must translate into learning outcomes, adequate school funding, school meals, teacher support, TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training), higher education and inclusive education for learners with disabilities. 🎓

When public education is underfunded, families often carry the extra cost. 💸

Tomorrow’s budget statement should be watched with one question in mind: will public money deliver quality public education for all? 📢

🔗 Read more about the process and our recommendations here:

GI-ESCR advances social justice and human rights worldwide, promoting equality, dignity, and accountability for all people.

06/08/2026

At the opening plenary in Bonn, Magdalena Rochi Monagas, our Programme Officer on Climate Justice, spoke on behalf of the Women and Gender Constituency. 🎤

As anti-rights agendas, authoritarianism and militarism rise, we reaffirmed a commitment to feminist , climate finance, gender-responsive climate action and a away from fossil fuels. ⚖️

We highlighted the establishment of the Belém-Antalya Mechanism (BAM) and the second phase of the Just Transition Work Programme as important opportunities to advance a feminist just transition away from fossil fuels, alongside the effective implementation of the Belém Gender Action Plan (GAP), locally led adaptation and the transformation of food systems. 🌾

As negotiations continue in Bonn, we stand in solidarity with communities around the world demanding a just, equitable and fossil-fuel-free future. 🌱

At the opening plenary in Bonn, Maggie Rochi, our Programme Officer...

06/08/2026

📘 We are launching our multi-country study and legal brief on the financing of public services in Kenya and Ghana.

🏥📚 The research examines how austerity, debt pressures and fiscal choices affect public health and education systems, and why States must finance these services in line with their obligations.

⚖️ The launch will bring together policymakers, human rights institutions, civil society, and community representatives to discuss pathways towards people-centred fiscal policy, tax justice, rights-based debt management and stronger .

🔗 Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Ux_a3CCkQQq7mDdDm5lSEg

05/27/2026

The global tax system is rooted in colonial extraction, fueling inequality worldwide. The OECD-led rules have long enabled profit-shifting by corporations, tax evasion by the ultra-wealthy and illicit financial flows, robbing governments, especially in the , of public revenue and deepening structural inequalities.

These tax structures are also shaped by colonial and gendered power dynamics, with real consequences for women, girls and LGBTQI+ communities everywhere.

📢 Join us for an important discussion on international tax, inequality and gender justice.

The webinar is a kick-off space for the community to explore:

🔹 How feminist economics can reshape global tax rules
🔹 Pressure points in current negotiations
🔹 Making the a tool for redistribution, repair and transformative change

🔗 Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/0Bens_RjRmCN9pC2EC0UJA

🗣️ Interpretation into English and Spanish will be available.

05/21/2026

🌍 Santa Marta pushed fossil fuel phase-out beyond the usual limits of climate negotiations. The next test is whether that momentum can be continued within long-lasting global arrangements. The UNFCCC has shown its incapacity to address defossilisation, but it remains the most complete legal instrument to tackle the climate emergency, addressing the differentiated historical responsibilities and capabilities of States.

⚖️ This transition cannot be left to technical roadmaps. It needs public finance, rights-based governance, participation and international cooperation.

🌱 Debt, unequal trade and limited fiscal space keep countries locked into fossil fuel dependence. A rights-based transition can break that cycle and help build care-centred, gender-just and stronger public systems.

🔗 Read our full analysis:

GI-ESCR advances social justice and human rights worldwide, promoting equality, dignity, and accountability for all people.

05/13/2026

El cuidado sostiene la vida, la dignidad, las economías y las sociedades. Sin embargo, en América Latina y el Caribe continúa recayendo de manera desproporcionada sobre mujeres y niñas, a menudo sin reconocimiento, remuneración, protección ni apoyo público suficiente.

📘 El nuevo policy brief de Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “Cuidado como derecho humano y bien público: Evidencia y orientaciones para América Latina y el Caribe”, se basa en diez iniciativas de la región para mostrar cómo las políticas de pueden avanzar derechos, igualdad y responsabilidad pública. También acerca evidencia regional a públicos más amplios y a quienes toman decisiones, convirtiendo aprendizajes de iniciativas sobre políticas de cuidado en recomendaciones claras.

El policy brief se basa en el proyecto “Iniciativas para fortalecer las políticas de cuidado en América Latina y el Caribe”, a través del cual GRADE, Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo coordinó un esfuerzo regional para generar evidencia, fortalecer aprendizajes y apoyar políticas públicas que reconozcan el cuidado como un derecho humano, un bien público y una responsabilidad colectiva.

Junto con United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) y Global Alliance for Care / Alianza Global por los Cuidados, y con el apoyo de IDRC / CRDI y la Ford Foundation, el Fondo de Investigación-Acción Colaborativa de América Latina y el Caribe ha apoyado diez iniciativas en ocho países: Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, República Dominicana, México, Perú y Uruguay.

🔗 Lee el policy brief aquí: https://gi-escr.org/es/recursos/publicaciones/el-cuidado-como-derecho-humano-y-bien-publico-evidencia-y-orientaciones-para-america-latina-y-el-caribe

🔗 Lee más sobre el proyecto y sus iniciativas aquí: https://sites.google.com/view/careeconomylaac/proyecto

🔗 Mira “Nómbrale”, el lanzamiento de la campaña de comunicaciones de Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, aquí: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kl2FW578m78

05/13/2026

Care sustains life, dignity, economies and societies. Yet, across Latin America and the Caribbean, it continues to fall disproportionately on women and girls, often without recognition, pay, protection or sufficient public support.

📘 The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' policy brief, ‘Care as a Human Right and a Public Good: Evidence and Guidance for Latin America and the Caribbean’, draws on ten initiatives across the region to show how policies can advance rights, equality and public responsibility. It brings regional evidence to wider audiences and decision-makers, turning lessons from care policy initiatives into clear recommendations.

The brief builds on the project ‘Initiatives to Strengthen Care Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean’, through which GRADE, Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo has coordinated a regional effort to generate evidence, strengthen learning and support public policies that recognise care as a human right, a public good and a collective responsibility.

Together with the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and the Global Alliance for Care / Alianza Global por los Cuidados, and with support from IDRC / CRDI and the Ford Foundation, the fund has supported 10 initiatives across 8 countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.

🔗 Read the policy brief here: https://gi-escr.org/en/resources/publications/care-as-a-human-right-and-a-public-good-evidence-and-guidance-for-latin-america-and-the-caribbean

🔗 Read more about the project and its initiatives here: https://sites.google.com/view/carefundeconomylaac2/project?authuser=0

🔗 Watch ‘Nómbrale’, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' communications campaign launch, here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kl2FW578m78

05/12/2026

The world’s highest court has spoken. And now it’s time to act.

A UN General Assembly resolution, led by Vanuatu and a cross-regional group of States, aims to turn the International Court of Justice’s climate ruling into real-world action. This is about:

✔️ Respecting international law
✔️ Turning legal clarity into climate action
✔️ Delivering climate justice

The roadmap exists.

📢 We join nearly 400K people worldwide and 75+ civil society organisations in calling for States to step up, support, and co-sponsor the resolution. It’s time to . The world is watching.

🔗 Sign up here: https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/vanuatu_climate_resolution_2026_loc/

05/08/2026

Health, education, care, housing, social protection and climate action all depend on how public resources are raised, allocated and used. A new resolution by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos) recognises this connection by affirming as a human rights issue and clarifying how decisions on taxation, budgets, debt, public spending, economic reform and international cooperation shape States’ ability to guarantee rights in practice. 📘⚖️

It also sets out concrete obligations, including the need for States to:

🔹 Build progressive and redistributive tax systems
🔹 Protect essential social spending
🔹 Fund essential public policies, programmes and services
🔹 Review unjustified tax benefits
🔹 Strengthen transparency and accountability mechanisms
🔹 Assess the human rights impacts of economic policies before their enactment and implementation
🔹 Ensure fiscal decisions do not deepen structural discrimination

Alongside historic partners at the Initiative for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy, GI-ESCR has consistently spearheaded civil society demands for clearer and more ambitious Inter-American standards on fiscal policy and . This included stronger guidance on States’ obligations to mobilise the maximum available resources, strengthen international tax cooperation and use fiscal policy to fund rights in practice. This resolution marks the end of a long process of standard-setting work and opens a new implementation phase in which increased collaboration will prove even more essential. 📣

This resolution is especially significant as States negotiate a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation. Stronger regional standards can help ensure that global tax debates are informed by human rights, equality and the need to finance public services, care systems and climate action. 🌎

🔗 Read the resolution here:https://www.oas.org/en/iachr/decisions/pdf/2026/2-26-politicas_fiscales_eng.pdf

🔗 Read our full article here: https://gi-escr.org/en/our-work/on-the-ground/iachr-resolution-marks-a-step-forward-in-recognising-fiscal-policy-as-a-human-rights-issue-and-unpacking-actionable-legal-obligations

GI-ESCR advances social justice and human rights worldwide, promoting equality, dignity, and accountability for all people.