News & Events

  • In 2011, Equal in Rights published “A Guide to Costing Human Rights” by Victor Steenbergen. This paper provides an overview of all the central concepts and definitions relevant for costing human rights policy.
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  • In 2011, Equal in Rights published “ Frontloading Human Rights: A Conceptual Framework for Building Budget and Realising rights” by Victor Steenbergen. This paper defines all the key concepts and provides an understanding of their relevance for Frontloading Human Rights.
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  • The International Human Rights Internship Program (IHRIP), in collaboration with the International Budget Partnership (IBP), implemented a ten-day West African Regional Learning Program on Human Rights Budget Work in Monrovia, Liberia from July 4th to July 13th, 2011.
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  • The Center for Women’s Global Leadership published its report on“Maximum Available Resources and Human Rights” in June 2011. This report examines a number of ways that governments can access financial resources in order to fulfill their obligation to use “maximum available resources” to realize ESC rights.
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  • “ No Protection for Children in the Budget 2011-2012” provides an analysis from a child rights’ perspective of the allocations for children (Budget for Children—BfC) in the 2011-12 Indian Union budget. 
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  • In December 2010, The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights in an article, "Austerity Budgets Will Cause Further Child Poverty", recently said that political priorities and budget allocations are the principal reasons for the large differences in child poverty rates among European countries, and between those countries in similar economic situations. 
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  • In mid-2009 the International Budget Partnership (IBP) released “It’s Our Money. Where’s It Gone?”, a documentary film on the work of one of its partners, MUHURI (Muslims for Human Rights).  MUHURI involves communities directly in monitoring expenditure of the government’s Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in Mombasa, Kenya.“
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  • In early 2010 IHRIP and the International Budget Partnership (IBP) produced Reading the books: Government budgets and the right to education” that looks at elements of the right to education and where these might be found in a government’s budget; a government’s human rights obligations and questions these raise about a government’s budget; a process for using a rights framework to analyze a government’s education budget; and a short discussion of costing related to the right to education.
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Resources on macroeconomic policies, government budgets, and human rights PDF Print E-mail

 

Some very interesting and accessible resources have been developed in the past few years that explore the impact of macroeconomic policies on governments' budgets and human rights:

  • ActionAid.  Contradicting commitments (2005).  This report discusses how the achievement of Education for All is undermined by the IMF. The report intends to demonstrate the IMF's role in constraining countries from increasing public expenditure in education in order to be able to meet the Education for All and Millennium Development GoalsMESHR220x320.

  • ActionAid. Confronting the Contradictions. (2007). This report addresses the chronic and severe shortage of teachers in three countries in Africa, and investigates the role in the situations of IMF policies with regard to wage bill ceilings. The report ends with useful recommendations to civil society for how best to address macroeconomic policies in research and advocacy.

  • ActionAid and Education International. Toolkit on Education Financing (2009). The toolkit provides basic information about education financing, including about key issues facing education systems, key issues in education financing, how to develop a campaign on education financing, and how to build a national evidence base.

  • Radhika Balakrishnan & Diane Elson. Auditing Economic Policy in the Light of Obligations on Economic and Social Rights (2008) considers how concerned citizens might audit economic policies from a human rights perspective, which a particular focus on economic and social rights.  The paper draws on a project on economic policy and social rights in Mexico and the USA, aiming to audit key economic policies in the two countries in the light of human rights obligations and the analysis produced by “non-conformist” economists.

  • Radhika Balakrishnan and Diane Elson. Why MES with Human Rights? Integrating Macro Economic Strategies with Human Rights (2005) focuses on the human rights impacts in Mexico and the United States of public expenditure, taxation and trade policies, monetary and fiscal policies, as well as regulation and pension reform.

  • Radhika Balakrishnan, Diane Elson and Raj Patel.  Rethinking Macro Economic Strategies from a Human Rights Perspective: Why MES with Human Rights II (2010) draws on a two-year collaborative effort that examined human rights and macroeconomic policies in Mexico and the United States.  The document proposes a novel focus and methodology to evaluate macroeconomic policies from the perspective of the progressive realization of people’s economic and social human rights, and States’ compliance with their minimal, basic responsibilities to their people.