Decisions about how to raise and spend money represent a government’s ultimate priorities. They impact what’s available, for whom, and where—affecting different communities in different ways. There is more than enough money in the world to guarantee a dignified life for all. We all have a stake in ensuring that governments invest public resources to tackle poverty, inequality, and other social problems. 

This has domestic and global ramifications. In recent decades, governments – particularly in the Global South – have been subject to extreme pressures to keep corporate tax rates low, offer generous exemptions, or turn a blind eye to tax avoidance and evasion. To compete with each other to attract investment, governments make decisions that favor the interests of big business over the interests of communities. Economic power translates into political power. This undermines the implementation of policies that guarantee people’s rights and combat inequalities. 

So that resources are fairly and justly distributed, we need to transform the role of governments in our economies. To do this, we’re strengthening the collective power of human rights and economic justice coalitions to challenge these regressive policy trends, as well as the unjust global economic governance arrangements that uphold them. We translate key human rights principles into more concrete guidelines for the design, implementation, and assessment of fiscal policies, to ensure people’s rights are better considered in them.