Global Initiative for Economic Social and Cultural Rights

Reverse the commercialization of public services: our future is public conference. The gi-escr is proud to report the success of the our future is public (#ofip22) conference. The conference gathered Social movements, trade unions and civil society organisations from all over the world in santiago, chile for a 4-day conference aiming at developing strategies and narratives to strengthen public services for the realisation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and tackle the effects of climate change. The conference was attended by more than 400 people and many others participated virtually. (continued on schedule o)the result of which is the adoption of the santiago declaration which calls for universal access to quality, gender-transformative and equitable public services as the foundation of a fair and just society. Victory through the international finance corporation's decision to stop investing in fee-charging private schools. Among the achievements of the privatisation in education and human Rights consortium (pehcr), gi-escr and partners celebrated the decision by the world bank's international finance corporation not to resume investments in k-12 fee-charging private schools. In 2020, the ifc temporarily froze all direct and indirect investments in for-profit, fee-charging schools, from kindergarten to high school (k-12). We influenced the education sector in cote 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 cote d'ivoire in light of the abidjan principles. In the report, we recommended that the placement of students by the government in private schools (due to a lack of public schools) should depend on a set of criteria ensuring quality education in those schools. Such a rule would strengthen the regulation of private schools. We also recommended that the education act should be reviewed to align it with the abidjan principles on the human Rights obligations of states to provide public education and to regulate private involvement in education. Following an education sector review, the ministry of education decided to implement both of these recommendations in 2023.

Institutional frameworks: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. The proposal was submitted through the popular Initiative instrument (iniciativa popular de norma), a direct democracy mechanism created during the 2022 constitutional process. The procedure enabled (continued on schedule o)citizens and organisations to submit to the official constitutional debate any proposal that gathered the support of at least 15.000 signatures. Our proposal was among the 77 proposals (out of 2,495) that the constitutional convention deliberated. The proposal was inspired by the Global manifesto for public services and the principles of human Rights in fiscal policy. It reflected our advocacy work to recognise esc Rights in chile's new constitution and also fulfilled our programmatic objective to strengthen the capacity of national human Rights frameworks to tackle Social and Economic injustice effectively.

Environmental breakdown & just transitions:victory for indigenous women in mexico who are fighting for a just energy transition. After years of advocacy, the zapoteca indigenous community of unin 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 electricit de france (edf), a transnational french energy company, was planning to build on their territory without their participation or free, prior and informed consent. Gi-escr was privileged to collaborate with prodesc, a local organisation in mexico (continued on schedule o)that has led litigation and advocacy in defence of the indigenous community of union hidalgo since 2019. To combat the escalating climate emergency, it is necessary to shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy but also to deliver a gender-just transition that protects the planet and its people.

Fiscal justicegi-escr has been advocating for greatertax cooperation in latin americato build regional agreements that will be needed to combat tax havens, limit tax competition between countries and negotiate as a bloc an agenda that represents the interest of the region in international fora. Gi-escr has raised awareness of the link between tax justice, human Rights, and climate justice, as well as the negative impact on human Rights of the Global rules governing the current international financial and tax system. In the context of cop27, we co-published a policy brief,"loss and damage - the missing piece: international tax cooperation for new climate finance"on how a right-based approach to international tax cooperation can bridge the finance gap for loss and damage caused by climate change.