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Feminist Alternatives to the Privatisation of Public Services

Feminist Alternatives to the Privatisation of Public Services

Feminist Alternatives to the Privatisation of Public Services | Global South Women's Forum

 

Feminist experts and activists shared their insights on the main impacts of the privatisation of public services on women’s rights and explored feminist alternatives to rethink the organization of essential public services at a session convened by GI-ESCR, the Centre for Economic and Social Rights, OXFAM India and Public Services International during the virtual Global South Women’s Forum on Sustainable Development 2020: Disrupting Macroeconomics (GSWF 2020).

Participants exchanged and strategised together, with the aim to strengthen their advocacy work for gender-responsive public services in the field of education, health and care.

Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, Executive Director of GI-ESCR and Former Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights initiated the conversation to frame debate and explained that, for more than four decades, in most parts of the world, the myth that the private sector could deliver more efficient and accessible social services has resulted in services traditionally owned and delivered by the State to increasingly pass to private hands. These measures, Magdalena highlighted, have not only failed to deliver in terms of costs/efficiency, but they have also raised several human rights concerns and have disproportionately impacted women and girls.

“To realise women’s rights and advance gender justice, we need to envision how we can organise, own, manage and deliver public services for a feminist future.”

In this light, Magdalena shared that the session convened had two main key purposes:

(i)      On the one hand, to collectively deepen the analysis and reflection on the impact of the privatisation and commodification of essential public services on women’s rights, and

(ii)    On the other hand, to articulate and share ideas, projects, and initiatives on feminist alternatives to the privatisation of public services to build back better and advance gender justice.

What are the impacts of the privatisation of public services on women’s rights?

Kate Donald, Director of Programs, Centre for Economic and Social Rights:

“Privatisation is part of a dangerous shift in values and philosophy of governance. It has mainstreamed the idea that the “private is efficient and the State inefficient”, that the State should be small and that the market can solve all our problems. However, the evidence has shown that, in fact, the market is creating more problems than the ones that it is solving.”

 

Verónica Montúfar, Gender, Equality, LGBT+ and People with Disabilities Officer Public Services International emphasised that

“Diminished and privatised public services have resulted in greater care burdens for women at home as the lack of adequate public services have shifted care giving responsibilities to the households. Reclaiming back the public is essential to advance substantive equality”.

Anjela Taneja, Lead Campaigner Inequality / Lead Specialist Essential Services, OXFAM India:

“The privatisation of public services has a deep impact on the possibility to realize women’s fundamental rights. It implies limited or no access to essential services for women living in poverty, who are often the ones more in need of these services.”

“ User fees imply women have to use out-of-pocket resources to cover for essential services. This means they often need to make “rationing choices” and place their children’s heath needs before their own.” “In education, privatisation also creates sorting effects as it is more common for parents to pay for a boy’s education than for a girl’s.”

The way forward: Why and how can we rethink the organization of public services to deliver women’s rights and advance gender equality?

Kate Donald:

“We need to change the narrative on public services and reclaim them as public goods and as human rights to which we are all entitled. We also need to change the narrative around care. A big part of the way forward needs to be placing care at the centre of our economies and our societies. Care is not “work” that needs to be redistributed among family members, it is a collective social responsibility which we should be contributing to.”

“The wealthiest in our societies should be the ones contributing more to finance a new social pact on care through progressive taxation. These is all part of a broader shift that we need to reframe our economic model and paradigms.”

Verónica Montúfar:

“The qualifier of “good quality” public services means that public services must be gender responsive. This means that it needs to provide women with the material basis so they can exercise their fundamental rights and that they must integrate a gender transformative approach. Public services must be used to intervene and transform patriarchal structures. Integrating a gender-responsive approach to public services will allow not only to make discrimination more bearable but also to transform and redistribute power and resources between women and men.”

Anjela Taneja:

“The question to me is not about “what?’” but about “how?” Change is political and we need a more political approach to ensure impact. We need to indeed to change the narrative around public services and repeat the message again and again to highlight the private sector’s failures until we can convince the common citizen and change the current paradigm. In these efforts, it is critical to reiterate the role of the State in the regulation of non-state actor’s participation in public services.”

“We also need a national commitment to universal coverage and defend the value of free services.”

“Feminist intersectional leadership is required to make change happen. Agency from women in front-line workers is critical in any process of change. Feminist social movements are the ones who are at the back of any sustainable movement to transform reality.”

Stay tuned!

An outcomes report with the summary records of the discussion, the resources shared and the initiatives and promising practices highlighted will be shared soon.

Watch!

 

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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.