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Civil Society Calls for Human Rights-Based Economic Reform at the UN

Civil Society Calls for Human Rights-Based Economic Reform at the UN

On 10 February, at the United Nations in New York, a statement was delivered on behalf of the Civil Society Financing for Development (FfD) Mechanism, calling for a stronger human rights foundation in the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4). This upcoming conference, set to take place in Seville in 2025, will bring governments together to assess progress on global financial commitments and shape the future of international economic cooperation.

The FfD process was established by the United Nations to address systemic issues in global economic governance, promote sustainable development and ensure the mobilisation of financial resources for development. Its preparatory process involves negotiations among UN Member States, consultations with civil society and other stakeholders, and the drafting of an outcome document that will shape global financial policies. The Zero Draft, released as a basis for discussion, serves as a key milestone in this process, outlining proposed commitments and guiding debates on issues such as debt justice, taxation, social protection and public services. With most of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) severely off track, the FFD process is a critical opportunity to reform financing at all levels, including much-needed changes to the international financial architecture.

The statement, drafted by a group of human rights organisations, including the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), was delivered by Human Rights Watch. It urged states to build human rights-based economies, regulate private actors in public service delivery and prioritise public services over private sector expansion. It also welcomed the inclusion of social protection in the Zero Draft but called for a firmer commitment to universality. Additionally, it highlighted structural inequalities in tax and debt systems, advocating for progressive taxation and accountability for international financial institutions. It further criticised IMF-led austerity measures for undermining social security and public services, and called for equitable, decolonial and sustainable financing mechanisms.

In our recently published position paper, we analyse the Zero Draft of the outcome document for FfD4, assessing its strengths and key shortcomings. While the draft includes some promising elements, it does not go far enough in pushing for the structural changes needed to address global inequalities and uphold human rights within planetary boundaries. The paper highlights critical gaps, particularly in relation to the privatisation of public services, the burden of unsustainable debt on the Global South, and the inadequacies of climate finance mechanisms. It also sets out proposals for progressive tax reforms, stronger corporate accountability, and a development model that prioritises public investment with human rights at its core.

 

The full statement is included below:

 

Thank you, Chair.

I hereby speak on behalf of Human Rights Watch and the Civil Society FfD Mechanism.

While the Zero Draft mentions human rights as a cross-cutting issue, it fails to recognise the critical role of economic, social and cultural rights and the right to development as guideposts to conduct the necessary economic transformation to deliver on development finance goals and a fairer Global Financial Framework. We call on states to explicitly ask for the building of human rights-based economies, a concept that has long been developed in the Global South and North, and which the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been championing recently.

Accordingly, FfD4 should ensure that public services are delivered in alignment with human rights standards, adequately regulating private actors where they may be involved, preventing the risks of privatisation and commercialisation that often reduce quality and accessibility. Development banks must prioritise public services over private sector expansion, ensuring accountability and compliance with human rights – including rights of women and gender-diverse people – racial and climate justice.

It also needs to deliver on social security. We are pleased to see social protection included in the Zero Draft, which is an important step forward from the elements paper. However, it is not included in the action areas and weakens past commitments by using vague terms like 'essential' instead of reasserting universality. All countries have committed that “'everyone has the right to social security' as stated in the UDHR and to establish social protection floors through ILO Recommendation 202. Failing to reaffirm universality would amount to backtracking on these obligations, disproportionately affecting women and marginalised groups.

Additionally, the next draft should acknowledge structural inequalities in international tax and debt negotiations. On debt, the current system results in a massive transfer of resources from the Global South to the Global North. This undermines human rights, including the right to development, as essential resources are diverted away from funding quality public services and social security, hindering compliance with the maximum available resources’ and Extra Territorial Obligations (ETO) of states. Advocating for measures like progressive taxation of corporations and high-net-worth individuals, combating illicit financial flows and holding international financial institutions accountable would strengthen the draft’s human rights foundation.

Moreover, the Zero Draft mentions the IMF and MDBs and their role in financing both social security and public services. These institutions, as specialised agencies under the framework of the UN, are also bound by international human rights law, both in stable times and during crises. Too often, IMF-led austerity measures have resulted in cuts in social security and public services, prioritising narrowly targeted, time-bound schemes over rights-aligned systems.

As we advance in the FfD4 process, we urge a strong commitment to human rights, substantive gender equality, universal, rights-aligned public services and social security, backed by equitable, decolonial, antiracist, antisexist and sustainable financing mechanisms, as the ongoing process towards a UN Tax Convention encouragingly exemplifies.

Thank you.

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Climate and Environmental Justice

We have advanced rights-based and gender-transformative transition frameworks through research that centres the lived experiences of women and marginalised communities on the frontlines of extractive energy policies, promoting climate and energy frameworks attentive to the social and care-related impacts of transition pathways. We have developed a clear vision for a gender-just transition, firmly rooted in gender and human rights norms, establishing both the legal basis and the direction for the transformative changes our planet and societies urgently need. In particular, the ‘Guiding Principles for Gender Equality and Human Rights in the Energy Transition’, a collective effort built through online consultations, an in-person workshop and multiple rounds of revision with activists, practitioners and experts from around the world, outline a transformative vision for reshaping global energy systems through a human rights and gender equality lens.

Our work recognises that the climate emergency is both an existential threat and an opportunity to reimagine societies built on social, gender, economic and environmental justice. We ground our advocacy in feminist and intersectional principles, prioritising the agency and perspectives of communities in the Global South who have contributed the least to the climate emergency yet face its most devastating consequences. Central to our approach is the understanding that energy is not merely a commodity but a fundamental human right; essential for dignity, health, education, work and the realisation of countless other rights. We challenge approaches to the energy transition that risk replicating the harmful patterns of fossil fuel extraction and, instead, advocate for transformative policies that ensure human rights and gender equality as central to building climate-resilient societies rooted in dignity, justice and planetary well-being.

What's next?

We will continue to challenge approaches that treat energy transition as merely a technical shift, instead positioning it as an opportunity to reimagine economies and societies rooted in dignity for all, with particular attention to communities in the Global South who have contributed least to the climate emergency yet are most exposed to its worst effects.

We will connect community-level evidence and the lived experiences of those on the frontlines of extractive policies to national reform and global norm-setting, breaking down silos between human rights, gender, and climate movements, and advancing a shared vision that recognises just transitions as not only fundamental to achieving climate-resilient and sustainable societies, but as transformative pathways that advance social and gender equality, redistribute power and resources equitably, and ensure that energy systems serve the public good rather than profit.

We will mainstream rights-based and genderjust transition priorities in key multilateral spaces (particularly, within the Just Transition Work Programme and the to-be-developed Just Transition Mechanism, within the UNFCCC) to guarantee that just transitions are advanced at all levels.

We will also translate our work, through strategic advocacy, into at least two concrete policy wins, whether promoted, adopted, implemented, or scaled, in priority countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, or Kenya), ensuring these policies align with human rights standards, centre gender equality, and reflect the needs and views of affected communities.

We will build momentum for the progressive recognition of the right to sustainable energy to shift dominant narratives away from purely extractive solutions that sideline gendered impacts, community participation, and Global South perspectives.

Economic Justice and Climate Finance

Our work has transformed the global discussion on fiscal policy in a more just, emancipatory and sustainable direction. Our approach has combined both high-level, expert contributions within decisionmaking circles, with bold, impactful work on narrative change with the general public.

We have been instrumental in the inclusion of human rights as a guiding principle of the future United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, a multilateral instrument with the potential of raising approx. USD 492 billion per year in public revenues currently foregone to global tax abuse. In the process leading to the ‘Compromiso de Sevilla’ decided at FfD4, we proposed and succeeded in creating a specific human rights workstream within the Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism, which was critical to ensure that explicit commitments on the matter were included in the negotiating outcome. In a context of cutbacks in multilateral institutions, we have amplified the capacities of technical experts, providing rigorous technical support and leveraging our influence to ensure the enactments of groundbreaking standard-setting instruments, such as the 2025 UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Statement on Fiscal Policy and Human Rights, and the first ex oficio hearing on the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights on Fiscal and Economic Policies to Address Poverty and Structural Inequality, leading to an upcoming thematic resolution on the matter. We have also bridged the silos between multilateral tax discussions and climate finance debates, promoting ambitious financing commitments to increase international and domestic resource mobilisation during COP 28, 29 and 30.

At the regional level, our engagement with fiscal cooperation platforms such as the Platform for Fiscal Cooperation of Latin America and the Caribbean (PTLAC), where we are member of its Civil Society Consultative Council, and the African Anti-IFFs Policy Tracker, for which we participated in the pilot mission in Ivory Coast together with Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), have been critical in cementing a growing engagement between tax administrations and ministries of finance with international legal experts, exploring actionable and transformative initiatives, such as the taxation of high-net-worth individuals, beneficial ownership registries and corporate countryby-country reports, to be implemented at the international level.

At the local level, our interventions in fiscal reform debates in Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Nigeria have contributed to shaping legislative outcomes in a more progressive, rights-compliant direction.

As for our leadership in narrative change, we have a measurable track record in delivering tailored, innovative campaigns which have decisively expanded economic justice constituencies by appealing to a broader tent. In Latin America and the Caribbean, we created the ‘Date Cuenta’ campaign, coordinating over 40 organisations across civil society to deliver plain language, innovative messaging connecting progressive fiscal reforms to the financing of health, education and social protection. ‘Date Cuenta’ generated over 55 original campaign messages that were tailored to the realities of seven priority countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Honduras) and disseminated in Spanish, Portuguese and English. In doing so, we convened more than 65 online co-creation workshops with partners, coordinating a unified communications strategy which combined digital outreach, press and media coverage, and collaboration with influencers. Ultimately, ‘Date Cuenta’ resulted in more than 60,000 interactions on social media, coverage in major regional and international media outlets, including El País, Deutsche Welle, Bloomberg and France 24, and the participation of at least 63 social media influencers through 58 dedicated publications. In collaboration with Fundación Gabo and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, we also organised a two-day workshop in Bogota with 20 journalists from 13 countries, building a regional network trained in a human rights-based approach to fiscal policy that has since generated published media coverage on outlets such as La Diaria, Ciper, El Diario Ar and Milenio. Through ‘Date Cuenta’ and our regional advocacy, we strengthened civil society engagement in key processes, including the Financing for Development track and FfD4, co-organised highlevel dialogues with states and civil society from Latin America and Africa.

What's next?

We will shape the UN Tax Convention and its Protocols so they embed human rights principles, and we will stay engaged through follow-up processes (including the expected Conference of the Parties) to support effective implementation. We will keep linking tax and climate finance so that new resources mobilised through fiscal cooperation are channelled to adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage, in line with UNFCCC commitments.

Public Services for Care Societies

We have translated participatory research into accountability and policy outcomes.

In Ivory Coast, our work with Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits Humains and affected communities since 2023 exposed how privatisation and lack of accountability restrict access to quality healthcare. It contributed to the closure of 1,022 illegal private health centres, an executive instrument strengthening the regulation of private hospitals across the country, and the creation of a permanent complaints management committee in healthcare through a bylaw issued by the prefect of Gagnoa. Partners engaged through this process also advanced concrete improvements at facility level: members of the Gagnoa Midwives Association who took part in the participatory action research pooled resources to renovate the neonatal unit of the Regional Hospital, and the Director of the Gagnoa General Hospital launched an action plan to expand services and improve patient reception, with the facility receiving the award for best hospital in the country in 2025.

In Kenya, our research with the Mathare Education Taskforce documented the absence of public schools and the expansion of private provision, evidencing impacts on households and caregivers and strengthening demands for free, quality public education. This work contributed to stronger community agency and collective organisation, alongside ongoing strategies ranging from communications to litigation to secure a public school in the area, some involving GI-ESCR and others led independently.

Across Africa, this work is complemented by a multi-country study examining the human rights implications of austerity in education and health, including how regressive fiscal policies, rising debt burdens and persistent underinvestment undermine the financing and delivery of public services.

In Latin America, from 29 November to 2 December 2021, over a thousand representatives from over one hundred countries, from grassroots movements, advocacy, human rights, and development organisations, feminist movements, trade unions, and other civil society organisations, met in Santiago, Chile, and virtually, to discuss the critical role of public services for our future. Following the meeting, the Santiago Declaration on Public Services was adopted to demand universal access to quality, gender-transformative and equitable public services as the foundation of a fair and just society.

We are currently advancing work on care systems, linking public services and fiscal justice through integrated research, advocacy and communications, including a regional campaign framing care as a collective responsibility requiring sustained public investment.

What's next?

In Ivory Coast, we will evaluate and strengthen the complaints management committee and position it as a replicable model for other health facilities. In Kenya, we will support the Mathare community to co-design a model public school for Mabatini and Ngei wards, grounded in human rights standards. Building on our multi-country austerity study, we will drive national advocacy on financing for education and health: advancing reforms in Ghana; launching a fiscal policy and public services financing agenda in Kenya through the CESCR process and targeted coalition work; and, in Nigeria, using the new tax acts in force since 1 January 2026 to catalyse a national accountability campaign for adequately funded, quality public services. In Latin America, we will amplify locally led care pilots across 8 countries and turn lessons into influence—advancing care policies that strengthen care organisations, protect care workers’ rights, support unpaid caregivers, include disability and family networks, and redistribute care more equitably.