Messages from Chair of the Board
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights is leading the way, partnering with grassroots communities and organisations to demand an end to extractive and exclusionary frameworks that have failed to halt the climate crisis, stop the devastation of the COVID pandemic, and promise little to the many communities without access to clean water, quality education, or safe housing and health services.
Prof. Margaret Satterthwaite
Chair of the Board until November 2022
In a world where individuals, groups and peoples continue to suffer serious human rights violations, the GI-ESCR continues to apply its talents and visions to press for fundamental changes to the systems and practices that perpetuate in equalities and marginalisation.
Prof. Marcos Orellana
Chair of the Board from November 2022
Message from Executive Director
GI-ESCR is part of a movement that is rethinking power relations and our relationship with the planet. During 2022, we took further our commitment to facilitate discussions and agreements on the actions that are needed. We worked in several ways to establish economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights as an essential point of reference for reforming the institutions that govern our societies.
Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona
Executive Director
Achievements in numbers
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The event on the future of tax reform in Latin America was streamed by EFE News Agency
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Testimonials
It would be remiss on my part if I don’t take cognisance of the support that we received from five partners, namely, the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, Dullah Omar Institute, Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Initiative for Social and Economic Rights, Open Society Foundation and Right to Education Initiative. In this regard, the Commission is extremely grateful to our partners.
Not many organisations come back to communities with their research findings to achieve change. But GI-ESCR has done exactly this, coming back to disseminate their research with communities to raise awareness and mobilise for change.
From Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition perspective, the side-event organized by GI-ESCR at United Nations Commission on the Status of Women 2022 provided us with the extremely valuable opportunity to reach out to a different audience, an audience anchored in the women’s rights movement, whereas our usual audiences are more at home with issues of energy and climate change. We are grateful for this opportunity and look forward to future cooperation possibilities.
Examples of collaborative impact
We see our work as a cycle, an upward spiral of iterative and cumulative change in which local and global actions influence and benefit ea ch other.
Our normative proposal was included in the draft constitution prepared by Chile’s Constitutional Convention
In 2022, along with partners and as part of our programmatic work in Chile, we submitted to the Chilean Constitutional Convention a normative proposal for universal public services of good quality. The proposal was accepted by the Constitutional Convention and eventually included into the draft constitution.
Victory for indigenous women in Mexico who are fighting for a just energy transition
After years of advocacy, the Zapoteca indigenous community of Unión Hidalgo in Mexico achieved a significant victory over a transnational company that had failed to deliver a just energy transition. On 3 June 2022, Mexican authorities cancelled a large wind energy project that Electricité de France (EDF), a transnational French energy company, was planning to build on their territory without their participation or free, prior and informed consent. For several years, the community had denounced human rights abuses committed by those developing the energy project.
We influenced the education sector in Côte d’Ivoire
In 2022, we published a joint report with our partner, Movement Ivoirien des Droits Humains, on the impact of privatised and commercialised education on the right to education in Côte d’Ivoire in light of the Abidjan Principles.
Our normative proposal was included in the draft constitution prepared by Chile’s Constitutional Convention
In 2022, along with partners and as part of our programmatic work in Chile, we submitted to the Chilean Constitutional Convention a normative proposal for universal public services of good quality. The proposal was accepted by the Constitutional Convention and eventually included into the draft constitution.
Victory for indigenous women in Mexico who are fighting for a just energy transition
After years of advocacy, the Zapoteca indigenous community of Unión Hidalgo in Mexico achieved a significant victory over a transnational company that had failed to deliver a just energy transition. On 3 June 2022, Mexican authorities cancelled a large wind energy project that Electricité de France (EDF), a transnational French energy company, was planning to build on their territory without their participation or free, prior and informed consent. For several years, the community had denounced human rights abuses committed by those developing the energy project.
We influenced the education sector in Côte d’Ivoire
In 2022, we published a joint report with our partner, Movement Ivoirien des Droits Humains, on the impact of privatised and commercialised education on the right to education in Côte d’Ivoire in light of the Abidjan Principles.
Public Services and the regulation of private actors
We work to reverse the harmful effects of commercialising public services such as education, healthcare, water, sanitation and social protection. We monitor the impacts of privatisation and commercialisation on these services, expose abuses when they occur, demand that those responsible are held accountable, and promote alternative arrangements aligned with human rights
Health
GI-ESCR gathers evidence of the impact of commercialised healthcare on human rights
Education
GI-ESCR works to promote quality public education for all and for regulation of for-profit actors in education
Addressing the environmental breakdown and ensuring a gender-just transition
We highlight the severe threat posed by climate change to economic, social and cultural rights and demand that States and other actors take ambitious action to address Climate Change through green transition plans that respect, protect and fulfil human rights, especially the rights of women
Strengthening economic, social, cultural and environmental rights frameworks, institutions, and accountability
We work to ensure that human rights frameworks and institutions are capable of responding effectively to contemporary economic, social and cultural injustices. We support national and local rights advocates to leverage the human rights system to fight social, economic and climate injustice and press for safe and accessible spaces in which civil society can engage with human rights monitoring and accountability bodies. We also disseminate the activities of human rights monitoring bodies and work alongside partners to ensure that these institutions remain strong, credible and sufficiently resourced to discharge their important mandates
Advocating for international standards on the Chilean Constitutional process
During 2022 GI-ESCR continued its work in Chile, pushing for a rights-respecting, gender-inclusive and social justice agenda in the Constitutional process.
The Constitutional Convention established in 2021 offered the ideal opportunity to develop and apply a progressive conception of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, including standards on gender equality, public services and fiscal policies.
Having begun our work in Chile in late 2019, by 2022 GI-ESCR had become a key player in Chile’s social and political ecosystem.
Gender Equality and women’s rights
We aim to transform social norms, power structures and the roots of inequality and discrimination by placing substantive gender equality at the heart of our advocacy to achieve economic, social and environmental justice
- Mainstreaming gender
- Influencing key international fora on women’s rights and
gender equality - Strengthening the movement for a feminist energy transition
- Feminist alternatives to the commercialisation of public services
- New standards for gender equality in Africa
- Mainstreaming women’s demands in Chile’s constitutional process
Fiscal justice to achieve economic, social, cultural and environmental rights
We advocate for putting human rights at the centre of tax and public spending policies in order to invest in public services, overcome gender inequalities, and address the climate emergency
- Without taxes, rights cannot be delivered
- Fiscal justice to achieve gender justice
- Bridging tax and climate justice in global forums
- Tax cooperation in Latin America
Partnerships and networks 2022
Relationships and partnerships are at the core of GI-ESCR’s strategy. By cultivating solidarity and equitable partnerships, we promote collaboration and initiatives to establish and realise human rights that are grounded in diverse perspectives
During 2022 GI-ESCR continued actively to facilitate spaces to harness collective power and break down disciplinary silos. In collaboration with organisations, movements, trade unions and groups, we linked grassroots actors and communities to national, regional and global fora. We also connected with new constituencies and explored innovative strategies to influence public opinion and raise awareness of human rights.
Representation
Women in GI-ESCR
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Financial overview
Income
$1,172,251
1,055,357.00 | Foundations | 90% |
112,094.00 | Government | 9.6% |
2,011.00 | Individual contributions | 0.2% |
- | In-kind contributions | - |
2,789.00 | Other | 0.2% |
Expenses
$1,172,251
95,865 | Environmental breakdown and just transitions | 8% |
178,570 | Institutional frameworks | 15% |
487,942 | Reverse the commercialisation of public services | 42% |
112,094 | Government | 10% |
255,558 | Operations | 21% |
42,222 | Fundraising | 4% |
$1,172,251
95,865 | Environmental breakdown and just transitions | 8% |
178,570 | Institutional frameworks | 15% |
487,942 | Reverse the commercialisation of public services | 42% |
112,094 | Government | 10% |
255,558 | Operations | 21% |
42,222 | Fundraising | 4% |
