Feminism in Public Debt: A Human Rights Approach

Bohoslavsky, Juan Pablo (Ed.); Rulli, Mariana (Ed.) Book Feminism in Public Debt: A Human Rights Approach Business, Finance and International Development Provided in Cooperation with: Bristol University Press Suggested Citation: Bohoslavsky, Juan Pablo (Ed.); Rulli, Mariana (Ed.) (2024) : Feminism in Public Debt: A Human Rights Approach, Business, Finance and International Development, ISBN 978-1-5292-3729-0, Bristol University Press, Bristol, https://doi.org/10.47674/9781529237290 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/305335 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ BRISTOL “So, you thought sovereign debt concerns have nothing to do with gender? This book – with all its infuriating description and illuminating analysis – will show you how the emergence and attempts at resolving sovereign debt problems are deeply gendered, how they reinforce and accentuate multiple inequalities and rely critically on placing greater burdens on women and girls. If only policy makers at all levels would not just read this book, but really take all its arguments seriously.” Jayati Ghosh, University of Massachusetts Amherst “This book deftly demonstrates that over-indebtedness, austerity and other orthodox economic policies have a negative impact on human rights, particularly for women. The macroeconomic policies pushed by the IMF and adopted by many governments – particularly at the current juncture – benefi t only a few, harming the majority of households and women disproportionately.” Isabel Ortíz, Columbia University “The expanding fi eld of sovereign debt and human rights has become a lot richer with this new volume by two eminent experts and their team. This book successfully ends the victimization of women in the race to unsustainable debt.” Ilias Bantekas, HBKU Qatar Foundation and Georgetown University Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky is Senior Researcher in the fi eld of fi nance and human rights at Argentina’s National Scientifi c and Technical Research Council (CONICET) at the National University of Río Negro. Mariana Rulli is Senior Researcher and Professor of Political Science and Gender Studies at the National University of Rio Negro. EPDF and EPUB available open access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. As many developing countries are facing increasingly higher levels of debt and economic instability, this interdisciplinary volume explores the intersection of sovereign debt and women’s human rights. Through contributions from leading voices in academia, civil society, international organizations and national governments, it shows how debt-related economic policies are widening gender inequalities and argues for a systematic feminist approach to debt issues. Offering a new perspective on the global debt crisis, this is an invaluable resource for readers who seek to understand the complex relationship between economics and gender. FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT EDITED BY JUAN PABLO BOHOSLAVSKY AND MARIANA RULLI 9781529 237276 ISBN 978-1-5292-3727-6 bristoluniversitypress.co.uk FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT A Human Rights Approach Edited by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky and Mariana Rulli BUSINESS, FINANCE AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Foreword by Diane Elson Business, Finance and International Development Series Editors: Catherine Dolan, SOAS, University of London, Paul Gilbert, University of Sussex, Lena Lavinas, The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Emma Mawdsley ,egdirbmaCfoytisrevinU, Dinah Rajak, University of Sussex, Farwa Sial, SOAS, Jessica Sklair, University of Cambridge This series is dedicated to interdisciplinary work on business, finance and international development, drawing on crosscutting conversations in the disciplines of anthropology, critical management studies, development studies, economics, geography and socio-legal studies. Forthcoming in the series: Varieties of Impact Investing: Creating and Translating a Label in Local Contexts Edited by Philip Balsiger, Daniel Burnier and Noé Kabouche Find out more at bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/ business-finance-and-international-development Business, Finance and International Development International Advisory Board Jimi Adesina, University of South Africa, South Africa Ilias Alami, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands Stephen Brown, University of Ottawa, Canada Sadhvi Dar, Queen Mary University of London, UK Arun Kumar, University of York, UK Luis Mah, University of Lisbon, Portugal Sonwabile Mnwana, University of Fort Hare, South Africa Judy Muthuri, University of Nottingham, UK Serena Natile, University of Warwick, UK Sanchita Saxena, University of California, Berkeley, US Ndongo Samba Sylla, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Senegal Celine Tan, University of Warwick, UK Anna Zalik, York University, Canada Find out more at bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/ business-finance-and-international-develo p ment FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT A Human Rights Approach Edited by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky and Mariana Rulli First published in Great Britain in 2024 by Bristol University Press University of Bristol 19 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK t: + 44 (0)117 374 6645 e: [email protected] Details of international sales and distribution partners are available at bristoluniversitypress.co.uk Editorial selection and editorial matter © Bohoslavsky and Rulli 2024. Individual chapters © their respective authors 2024 The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are available open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) which permits reproduction and distribution for non-commercial use without further permission provided the original work is attributed. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-5292-3727-6 paperback ISBN 978-1-5292-3728-3 ePub ISBN 978-1-5292-3729-0 OA PDF The right of Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky and Mariana Rulli to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Bristol University Press. Every reasonable effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material. If, however, anyone knows of an oversight, please contact the publisher. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the editors and contributors and not of the University of Bristol or Bristol University Press. The University of Bristol and Bristol University Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Bristol University Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. 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Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY v Contents Series Editors’ Preface viii List of Figures and Tables x Notes on Contributors xii Acknowledgements xxi Foreword xxii Diane Elson Preface xxvii 1 Introduction: Feminist Sovereign Debt – Utopia or Oxymoron? 1 Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky and Mariana Rulli PART I Debt and Feminist Agendas 2 Debt, Economic Violence and Feminist Agenda 29 Corina Rodríguez Enríquez 3 Debt, Development and Gender 41 Penelope Hawkins and Marina ZuckerMarques 4 Debt and Climate Change: Twin Crises Burdening Women in the Global South 60 Iolanda Fresnillo Sallan and Leia Achampong PART II Human Rights and Debt Approach 5 Legal Standards on Debt and Women’s Rights 81 Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky and Julieta Rossi 6 Letter from UN Special Procedures to the IMF (2022) 95 7 Impact of Debt on Women’s and Girls’ Human Rights – Introduction to the 2023 Report of the UN Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls, ‘Gendered Inequalities of Poverty: Feminist and Human RightsBased Approaches’ 102 Dorothy EstradaTanck vi FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT 8 Debt and Human Rights in the World and Regional Conferences on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean 115 Marita Perceval and Mariana Rulli PART III International Financial Institutions, Gender and Diversity 9 Gender Mainstreaming at the International Monetary Fund 135 Camila Villard Duran 10 Why are Neoliberal Policies Machistas? 150 Diane Perrons 11 Continuity of the IMF’s Androcentric Policies Before, During and After the Pandemic: The Case of Latin America 164 Alicja Paulina Krubnik PART IV IMF, Women and Diversities in Latin America and Argentina 12 Life Sustainability and Debt Sustainability: Care in the Centre 185 María Nieves Rico 13 Where a Right Fails, a Debt Increases: Gender Inequalities and Economic Vulnerability of Women and LGTBQ+ Groups 197 Florencia Partenio and Ariel Wilkis 14 Debt and the Right to Education in Latin America and the Caribbean 211 Francisco Cantamutto and Agostina Costantino PART V Gender Impact Analysis: Frameworks and Experiences 15 Debt Sustainability Analysis: Life After Capital – A View from Feminist Economics 231 Patricia Miranda and Verónica Serafini Geoghegan 16 Measuring and Managing Gender Equality: The Case of Gender Budgeting in Austria 246 Ulrike Marx 17 Rights, Gender and Progress Indicators: The Debts of Democracy 260 Flavia Marco Navarro and Laura Pautassi CONTENTS vii PART VI Work Agenda for Egalitarian Transformations 18 A Gender Lens for the International Monetary and Financial System: Truly Feminist Reforms Needed 277 Christina Laskaridis 19 Gender Bonds: Do They Leverage or Threaten Women’s Rights? 296 Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky and Lena Lavinas 20 Institutionalization of the Gender Approach in Public Finances: How to Strengthen – Rather than Dilute – Feminist Demands? 311 Magalí Brosio and Mariana Rulli Index 331 xiv FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT Law at the Law Faculty of the University of Murcia and Codirector of its Legal Clinic. Dorothy holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute, an MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a Law Degree from Escuela Libre de Derecho (Mexico), and enjoys broad academic and professional experience in the UN, State bodies, NGOs and universities in Mexico, Italy, Spain, the US and Canada, focusing on human rights, gender equality, human security, migration and socioeconomic justice. She is author of Human Security and Human Rights under International Law: The Protections Offered to Persons Confronting Structural Vulnerability (Hart Publishing, 2016; Best Book Award 2017, InterAmerican Bar Association). Iolanda Fresnillo Sallan is Policy and Advocacy Coordinator at Eurodad – Debt. During the last two decades, Iolanda has been very involved in local, national and international social movements and has participated in campaigns on development finance, debt, human rights, feminism, environment, peace, trade and responsible consumption. She has worked for more than ten years as a researcher, campaigner and communications officer at the Observatory on Debt in Globalization and as a research consultant at Eurodad, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Transnational Institute, among others. Iolanda holds a Master’s degree in Development and Cooperation and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, both from the University of Barcelona. Since 2019 she has been working on the interrelations between debt and the climate crisis, with several articles and publications. Penelope Hawkins is Senior Economist in the Debt and Development Finance Branch of UNCTAD. She focuses primarily on sustainable sovereign debt, financing for development and the nexus between debt and climate finance. Previously, as the founder and Managing Director of Feasibility (Pty) Ltd, Penelope undertook leading research projects in the financial sector in Southern Africa, commissioned by regulators, policy makers and the private sector. She has a PhD. In her thesis she examined the financial constraints of small open economies, and extended the analysis of financial fragility, vulnerability and exclusion to nations as well as businesses. Most recently, she has edited, together with Ioana Negru, a two volume Festschrift in honour of Professor Sheila Dow (2022). Alicja Paulina Krubnik is a PhD candidate at McMaster University and a political economy and comparative public policy scholar. Her research applies critical and intersectional feminist perspectives to the exploration of how international financial agreements and debt impact the environmental and social policies of lowincome and emerging economy countries. Alicja’s work also extends to the policy sphere, where she has worked with local NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xv community organizations and nongovernmental organizations, as well as the Senate of Canada, as a policy researcher in the areas of poverty reduction and social protections. Alicja holds an MSc in Political Economy from the LSE, an MSc in Economics and Governance from Leiden University and a Bachelor’s from the University of Toronto. Christina Laskaridis works on the political economy of sovereign debt, financial crises and international organizations. She is leading a grant on environmentrelated financial risks and regulatory capital requirements funded by INSPIRE and a project on debt sustainability. Her thesis, ‘Debt sustainability: towards a history of theory, policy, and measurement’, received the 2022 Joseph Dorfman Best Dissertation prize. Christina has a PhD in Economics from SOAS, University of London, and is a Fellow of St Edmund Hall and Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, where she teaches a postgraduate course on Financial Crises. Christina uses her expertise to advise on debt and development issues, such as to OHCHR’s Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, UNCTAD, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and several NGOs working on sovereign debt issues. Lena Lavinas is Professor of Welfare Economics at the Institute of Economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and Research Associate in the Department of Economics at SOAS, University of London (2022– 24). In 2021– 22 she was a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at SOAS, and in 2020– 21 she was a member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton. Most of her research examines how welfare regimes adjust to changes in contemporary capitalism, especially under the aegis of financialization, investigating how the restructuring of the social reproduction sphere reshapes social policies and impacts wellbeing. She has published extensively on the financialization of welfare regimes, social policy reforms, gender issues and labour market reforms. Flavia Marco Navarro is a lawyer, Master in Economic Law and specialist in gender studies. She is a consultant for UN agencies and international cooperation agencies, a researcher at the Center for Participation and Sustainable Human Development (Bolivia) and postgraduate lecturer. She has published books and articles in various countries in Latin America and Europe on social security, care, employment and other issues related to social policies. She is a member of the National Platform for Social and Public Coresponsibility of Care (Bolivia), the Global Carework Network and the Latin American Council of Social Science’s (CLACSO) Gender and Care Working Group. xvi FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT Ulrike Marx is Lecturer in Accounting at Queen Mary University of London. Her research mainly focuses on social studies of accounting, such as the emergence and translation of new (management) accounting phenomena as a response to crisis and political problematizations, for example the emergence of gender budgeting as ‘accounting for equality’, or more recently the emergence of managing and measuring wellbeing. Interdisciplinary in nature, her research draws upon organization theory, feminist theory, political philosophy and science and technology studies in order to develop insights to inform organizational, social and political action. Her research has been published in international journals such as Gender, Work and Organization and she is a member and affiliated researcher in a wide range of national and international research networks and communities. Patricia Miranda holds a Master’s degree in Finance from the Technological and High Studies Institute (ITES) of Monterrey in Mexico under an agreement with EMI in Bolivia, and a postgraduate degree in External Finance from Debt Relief International in England. She was Programme Officer for Latin America at Development Finance International in England, and at the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies in Mexico in a capacity building programme in public finance for highly indebted poor countries. As a Debt Analyst at Fundación Jubileo, she promoted and conducted a debt sustainability analysis with a human development approach. Currently, she is Director of Global Advocacy and Coordinator of the New Financial Architecture Area of the Latin American Network for Economic and Social Justice (LATINDADD). Florencia Partenio is a sociologist (University of Buenos Aires) and holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires. She is a member of the executive committee of the global south feminist network Women for Alternative Development for a New Era (DAWN). She coordinates the Feminist Digital Justice Project promoted by DAWN and IT for change and cocoordinates the School of Feminist Economics. She has been an expert consultant for the InterAmerican Centre for Knowledge Development and Vocational Training (CINTERFOR), ECLAC and ILO. She teaches in undergraduate and graduate programs at public universities in Argentina. She teaches in the Master in Feminist Studies at the IDAESUNSAM School. She is coauthor, jointly with Corina Rodríguez Enríquez, of the book Sostenibilidad de la vida desde la perspectiva de la economía feminista, published by Madreselva Editorial. Laura Pautassi is a principal researcher at Argentina’s CONICET and the Institute of Legal and Social Research, A. Gioja, School of Law, University of Buenos Aires and Adjunct Professor at the School of Law (University of NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii Buenos Aires). She is a lawyer (University of Córdoba) and holds a PhD in Social Right from University of Buenos Aires. She is director of the Interdisciplinary Working Group on Social Rights and Public Policy and a founding member and president of the Latin American Team for Justice and Gender (ELA). She specializes in economic, social and cultural rights, gender approach and public policies. Marita Perceval is Professor of Philosophy, teacher and Argentine politician. She served as National Senator for the province of Mendoza in the National Congress between 2001 and 2009. She was Argentina’s Ambassador to the United Nations between 2012 and 2015 and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Regional Director for Latin America from March 2016 until September 2019. She was Secretary of Equality and Diversity Policies of the National Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity from 2021 to 2022; and as of 2023 she was appointed, by Presidential decree, as the first Special Representative for Feminist Foreign Policy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship of the Argentine Republic. Diane Perrons is Professor Emerita in Feminist Political Economy at the LSE. She authored Is Austerity Gendered? (Polity 2021 – blog at https:// www.poli tybo oks.com/ blogdet ail/ isauster itygende red); Globalisation and Social Change (Routledge, 2004); and coauthored Gender, Migration and Domestic Work. Masculinities, Male Labour and Fathering in the UK, with Majella Kilkey and Ania Plomien (MacMillan, 2013). She codirected the LSE’s Gender, Inequality and Power Commission (2016) and is a member of the UK Women’s Budget Group Policy Advisory Group. María Nieves Rico is Argentinian, a feminist and a migrant. She holds a Social Anthropology degree from the National University of Rosario, Argentina, and has a Master’s in Sociology of Development and in Urban Development and Local Administration, and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Sociedad de Estudios Internacionales de Madrid in Spain. She was a UN official between 1992 and 2020, former Acting Director of the Social Development Division and former Director of the Gender Affairs Division of ECLAC. She was also an advisor to Latin American and Caribbean governments on gender equality policies. She is the author of several books and articles on women’s rights and the rights of children and adolescents in fields such as care, poverty, the labour market, education and environmental sustainability. Currently, she is an international consultant on public policies with a gender and human rights approach. Corina Rodríguez Enríquez is an economist (University of Buenos Aires), a Master in Public Policy (Institute of Social Studies, the Netherlands) and xviii FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT has a PhD in Social Sciences (Latin American School of Social Sciences – FLACSO). She is an independent researcher at Argentina’s CONICET, based at the Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Public Policy (CIEPP), a member of the Executive Committee of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), chair of Economics and Gender at the University of Buenos Aires, a postgraduate lecturer at several national universities and a consultant for UN agencies. She works from feminist economics on issues related to fiscal and social policies, organization of care, corporate power and publicprivate partnerships. Julieta Rossi is a lawyer who graduated from the Law School of the University of Buenos Aires. She holds a Master’s Degree in Law from New York University. She is a PhD candidate in Human Rights from the National University of Lanús. She is a member of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for the period 2023– 26.She is also Director of the Master in Human Rights at the National University of Lanús, research professor at the same university and Professor of the Master’s Degree in Human Rights at the Law School of the University of Buenos Aires and of the Master’s Degree in Human Rights and Democratization at the National University of San Martín. She is Assistant Attorney General of the Attorney General’s Office in the area of proceedings before the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (on leave of absence). Mariana Rulli holds a PhD in Social Sciences from FLACSO. She is a political scientist (University of Buenos Aires), Master in Families and Society (specialization in gender) from the University of Barcelona and Master in Design and Management of Social Policies (FLACSO). She is Professor of Political Science and a researcher at the National University of Río Negro. She has been a consultant on gender and human rights issues for UN Women, UNDP, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, InterAmerican Development Bank, CLACSO and Federal Council of Investments (CFI) in Argentina. She has held scholarships from CONICET, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and Fulbright. She has done research stays at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg and at UNRISD. She has been an advisor to Argentina’s Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity and to the Special Representative for Feminist Foreign Policy of Argentina’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Verónica Serafini Geoghegan is a feminist economist. She is a gender advisor for Latindadd, she has a Master’s degree in Social Sciences and a PhD in Economics. She is a categorized researcher in the national system of researchers of Paraguay, as level II. She researches topics related to labour NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xix markets, poverty and inequality with a gender perspective, fiscal policy and social protection. She teaches at universities in Paraguay and is a guest lecturer in several countries. She cooperates with civil society and international cooperation organizations. Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council is a body composed by independent human rights experts with (group and individual) mandates to report and advise on human rights from a thematic or countryspecific perspective. The system of Special Procedures is a central element of the United Nations human rights machinery and covers all human rights: civil, cultural, economic, political and social. Special Procedures conduct thematic studies and convene expert consultations, contribute to the development of international human rights standards, undertake country missions, engage in advocacy and provide advice for technical cooperation. Ariel Wilkis holds a PhD in Sociology (EHESSUBA), is a CONICET researcher, professor at the University of San Martín and dean of the School of Interdisciplinary Advanced Social Studies (EIDAES) in the same university. He specializes in economic sociology. He is the author of Las sospechas del dinero (Paidos, 2013), The Moral Power of Money (Stanford UP, 2017) and ¿Por qué importan las deudas? (Siglo XXI, 2023) and coauthor of Dólar. Historia de una monedad nacional (Critica, 2019). He edited the books El laberinto de las finanzas (Biblos, 2015), El poder de (e)valuar (Unsam edita/ Universidad del Rosario, 2018) and Las formas elementales del endeudamiento (UNL ediciones, 2020). His books have been translated into English, French and Chinese. Camila Villard Duran is an international legal expert with an interdisciplinary research background. She works on issues related to international monetary law, central banking, regulation of cryptoassets, climate finance and gender equality. Currently, Camila is an associate law professor at the ESSCA School of Management in France. From 2013 to 2022, she was a professor at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil, where she was awarded her ‘Livre docência / Habilitation’ in international economics from the Institute of International Relations. Camila is a former OxfordPrinceton Global Leaders Fellow. She holds a joint PhD in international economic law from the USP and the University of Paris 1 PanthéonSorbonne. Marina ZuckerMarques is a postdoctoral researcher at SOAS, University of London (Department of Economics). She is affiliated to the project ‘Debt Relief for a Green and Inclusive Recovery’, which aims to address developing countries’ debt crisis and support their green and sustainable development. xx FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT Previously, she worked at UNCTAD in the Debt and Development Finance Branch (Globalization and Development Strategies). Marina holds a PhD from the Freie Universität Berlin, where she defended her thesis on institutional and politicaleconomic drivers of renminbi internationalization. Marina is Brazilian and holds a Bachelor’s degree from FACAMP, and a Master’s from Zhejiang Gongshang University. xxi Acknowledgements We would like to thank the following persons and institutions: Contributors, for joining this polyphony of voices that are interwoven in the book. Diane Elson, for having contributed with her foreword, and Jayati Ghosh, Isabel Ortíz and Ilias Bantekas for their reviews on the back cover. Bretton Woods Project (BWP), Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (Argentina office) and the Open Society Foundations (OSF), for supporting in various ways the production, publication and dissemination of this book. Valeria Cardozo, Yessica Cernus and Cecilia Picariello, for translating into English the chapters originally written in Spanish. Finally, Bristol University Press for its enthusiastic support of this editorial project. Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky and Mariana Rulli (eds) Viedma, January 2024 xxii Foreword Diane Elson This pathbreaking book challenges conventional approaches to government indebtedness by proposing that government debt is a feminist issue. It focuses on debtdistressed lowand middleincome countries, especially in Latin America, providing new conceptual and empirical analysis, and suggestions for alternative, more genderequitable policies relating to sovereign debt. It is particularly original in counterposing the rights of international creditors to the human rights of people living in debtdistressed countries, and arguing that human rights should take precedence. Of course, lending and borrowing are everyday vital activities for governments, businesses and people. In the right circumstances, they can contribute to enhanced wellbeing, improved livelihoods and accumulation of valuable community assets, especially if organized through systems that have a high degree of mutuality, such as credit unions. However, lending and borrowing are more often marked by very unequal power. In financial markets, relations between creditors and debtors are not symmetrical: the laws that govern these activities are marked by creditor bias, privileging the rights of creditors over those of debtors (Young et al, 2011). An extreme form of creditor bias can be seen in the devastating debt trap in which almost all governments of lowand middleincome countries now find themselves. They are held responsible for State debt whether or not they themselves accumulated this debt. They are facing increasingly unfavourable conditions in the international economy (relating to interest rates, exchange rates and demand for their exports) over which they have no control. It has now become impossible to service this debt, on which interest has to be paid to foreign creditors in foreign currencies. Businesses faced with similar conditions can repudiate their debts through applying for bankruptcy: the rights of creditors are overridden by the imperative to sustain conditions for capitalist entrepreneurs to flourish, enabling them to start up and close down debtfinanced businesses and move on (with maybe a short pause) until they find a profitable activity. But no such option is open to governments: there is no regular legal mechanism for unwinding FOREWORD xxiii sovereign debt. Governments must apply for debt relief on a casebycase basis to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which conducts a socalled debt sustainability analysis and invariably concludes that austerity measures are required to make the debt sustainable. As this thoughtprovoking book demonstrates, measures that supposedly make government debt sustainable are making life unsustainable, with deepening poverty, worsening health and additional burdens on poor women. This book illustrates how this biased system of lending and borrowing is a gendered system, both in terms of the way that women and men are positioned in the financial system, and the way that the financial system interacts with the process of social reproduction, in which women have most of the responsibility for unpaid care work. Women are disproportionately debtors, men are disproportionately creditors. Men dominate most of the key financial decisionmaking positions in businesses, banks, regulatory institutions, governments and international financial institutions (Young et al, 2011). Women are disproportionately among those adversely affected by austerity measures. However, as contributors to this book show, promoting more women to leadership positions in the financial system will not solve the problem because the data and models that are used to analyse debt and debt sustainability exclude the unpaid care economy which is vital for social reproduction. There is a ‘strategic silence’ about the way that the unpaid care economy underpins the financial system (Bakker, 1994) and an implicit assumption that the impact of austerity measures can be absorbed by households without irreparable harm, in effect assuming that women’s unpaid work can stretch to compensate for shortfalls in provision of public services and in income from the labour market and the social protection system (Elson, 1991). This book shows in heartrending detail that this is not the case. In posing government debt as a feminist issue, this book highlights issues that are obscured in conventional economic analysis, including the way that violence (actual or threatened) and dispossession are utilized to discipline debtors. It illuminates the way that attempts to reduce government debt through austerity measures lead to increases in household debt, especially for the poorest women, arguing that when social rights fail, their debt increases. It argues that nonfinancial debts should be recognized as well as financial debts: finance capital is indebted to women and to nature for unpaid services that underpin its activities. In the balance sheet of who owes what to whom this should be taken into account. It reverses the morality tale that is often told about debt. Instead of seeing the debtors as uniquely irresponsible, it reveals the irresponsibility of creditors in creating a flawed international financial system that generates booms and busts in liquidity. The risks in this system are not pooled and shared but are downloaded from the dealing rooms of financial markets to the kitchens of poor women (Elson, 2002, 2011). 2 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT also a component of the capitalist system, and consequently of public debt as we know it. From the beginning of the capitalist system, women have been subject to violence (Federici, 2010): the economic, political and social processes of the consolidation and transformation of the system until the current stage of the deepening of financial capitalism have been violent in terms of gender.3 That same violence and gender unfairness is not only materialized in the differential effects of the contractual terms of debt and related fiscal policies, but also in the procedural aspects and/ or participatory processes. The idea that public indebtedness in democratic systems is a decision that purely and heroically reflects the ‘people’s will’ is an illusion (Eusepi and Wagner, 2017). Public debt is often promoted, imposed and/ or justified by domestic power groups over the other groups of the society (Roos, 2019) that will have to work and produce to repay such debt, and even sacrifice the full exercise and enjoyment of their rights to save enough for their creditors. Debt is an instrument of power through which wealth is regressively redistributed under the slogan ‘ “we” all owe this debt’ within countries in a covert, deep and lasting way. This is even more evident in countries where constitutional practices do not include a parliamentary, public and exante debate to decide on taking external sovereign debt. Within that general contractualist illusion, it can be noted that the groups of population that will be affected in a differential way by indebtedness, such as women in all their diversity, do not have institutional channels of actual participation in debt management. There is an aspect on which, in theory, orthodoxy and feminist economy could agree: if actually there is a mutual relation between the macroeconomic performance and the levels of inclusion and social equality (Kolovich, 2018; Davoodi et al, 2022), then fiscal policy (expansive or contractionary) and the levels (and types) of sovereign indebtedness would request that decisions in these two fields are consistent and sensitive to those interrelations and eventually to their impact on gender equality. In order to ensure this intermediate point is reached, impact assessments on debt strategies, and economic policies and reforms in terms of gender equality, should be part of the regular landscape in the national institutional practices (of the ministries of economy and finances, central banks, as well as mechanisms of the advancement of women’s rights) and of international credit institutions.4 However, this does not happen because those assessments, implemented and fully considered, would not be simple monetary quantifications, but would imply the creation of the social reality around the origins of inequalities. And, as we know, austerity is a dangerous idea because it is often immune to empirical refutation (Mark Blyth dixit). A particular, specific and recent example of that contradiction: the moment the government of Argentina approved a retirement moratoria in March 2023, which mainly benefited women who have worked in care tasks INTRODUCTION 3 without a social security framework to make contributions; the International Monetary Fund (IMF) questioned this measure and requested a larger fiscal restriction to compensate for the cost of this retirement moratoria. Therefore, the main goal of this book is to extend and strengthen a feminist approach to the challenges posed by sovereign overindebtedness (typically denominated in foreign currency) of lowand middleincome countries and the frequently resulting economic policies, which involves researching and reflecting about sovereign debt and economic gender violence, development, climate change, legal standards, United Nations (UN) developments (including world and regional UN conferences on women), international financial institutions’ (IMF and World Bank) androcentric policies, the right to care and the right to education, women’s private indebtedness, budget and debt (and life) sustainability analyses with a gender perspective, social progress indicators and their relation with debt, feminist reforms in the international financial architecture, gender bonds and the institutionalization of a gender approach in the public debt field. Although academic efforts were made to separately analyze these issues, this book offers to address them in a holistic and integrated manner, as well as in an interdisciplinary dialogue. 2. Debt distress and economic orthodoxy: bad news for women Even before the beginning of the COVID19 pandemic in 2020, a large number of countries had high levels of sovereign debt, with debt services that took the lion’s share and, in consequence, the possibility to ensure a proper expenditure financing to satisfy basic social needs. With the need to mobilize more resources during the pandemic, and the limited fiscal options that lowincome and middleincome countries have, the external debt (both public and private) of these countries grew during the health emergency. As of October 2022, 60 per cent of lowincome countries and 30 per cent of emerging economies were experiencing or close to experiencing situations of debt unsustainability, with a global crisis of debt very likely in the next few years (UNCTAD, 2022a). In 2021, lowincome and middleincome countries paid US$400 billion of debt service, more than twice the amount they received in official aid for development. Meanwhile, their international reserves were reduced by more than US$600 billion last year, almost three times the amount they received in support for the COVID19 emergency through the allocation of the IMF special drawing rights. Added to the very limited extension of the initiative to suspend the debt service and the rise of the interest rate, a high number of countries reduced their budgets intended to ensure the full fulfilment of the economic and social rights of the population (Ortiz and Cummings, 2022). In accordance with the very same IMF projections, in 2024, half of lowincome and middleincome 4 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT countries will allocate fewer resources to their health budgets than the ones allocated on average during the 2010– 20 decade, and one of the reasons is the significant increase of the amounts allocated to repay the external debt. The relative burden of debt in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean is considerable, as shown in figure 1.1. The percentage of the external debt compared to gross national revenues of the countries of Latin America has been increasing steadily since 2010, reaching 50 per cent in 2020, and above the same indicator for all lowincome and middleincome countries. Besides, it is worth mentioning that this higher level of indebtedness has not actually benefited women. If we take indebtedness to support growth or finance infrastructure as an example, the growth per se does not ensure a higher or better participation of women in the labour market, and the infrastructure does not usually consider the care economy. Moreover, as the tax structure of the countries of the region is characterized by being strongly dependent on indirect taxes (consumption tax, which is disproportionally levied on lowincome households and especially on those where women are heads of the household) (OECD et al, 2020), the increasing public debt repayment has deepened the already existing inequalities. This is added to fiscal evasion and avoidance, which according to ECLAC (2019) is still one of the main obstacles to move resources for the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda in the region. The most recent estimates show that fiscal evasion reaches an amount equal to 2.2 per cent of the GDP in the case of the valueadded tax (VAT) and 4.1 points of the GDP in the case of the income tax, an amount equal to US$335,000 million (ECLAC, 2019: 7). Figure 1.1: Percentage of external debt compared to gross national revenues of all lowincome and middleincome countries, and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (201021) 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 2010 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 Latin America and the Caribbean All low-income and middle-income countries Source: Own creation based on the data from the World Bank (2022) INTRODUCTION 5 While rich countries were able to move trilliondollar aid and encouragement packages to defuse the recession caused by the pandemic, this fiscal and monetary option was not available for lowincome and middleincome countries, including the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Capital flight, the collapse of exports and tourism, the price drop of raw materials and demand, as well as the already existing burden of the external debt, created the perfect storm and helps us understand why these countries resorted to a higher indebtedness during the pandemic. International financial institutions (IFIs) provided a series of programmes of financial assistance, while the possibility to accept debt relief both on the principal and the interest was limited to a few countries and for very limited amounts (IMF, 2022). Debt vulnerability exposes countries to cascade crises (UNRISD, 2022): economic, financial and monetary crises, which result in known and disproportionate impacts on women in all their diversity, whether it is measured in terms of formal participation in the labour market, their presence in politics, educational achievements, or effects on health, among other indicators (Blanton, Blanton and Peksen, 2019). In this aspect, there is a vicious circle: financial and debt crises generate higher inequality, which in turn creates higher levels of debt (Bazillier and Hericourt, 2015). IFIs, led by the IMF and the World Bank, have been suggesting and requiring, even during the pandemic (Ortiz and Cummins, 2021; Razavi et al, 2021), the need to implement orthodox economic measures (in other words, programmes of structural adjustment) in order to address overindebtedness.5 And countries did it: as of September 2022, 143 countries (including 94 lowincome and middleincome countries) were already implementing adjustment measures. As of 2023, 85 per cent of the world population is surviving under austerity measures, which will continue at least until 2025, with 75 per cent of the global population (129 countries) under adjustment mandates (Ortiz and Cummings, 2022). The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have not been exempt from this growing trend to implement austerity programmes: in a context marked by the steady increase of inequality, all the 24 agreements executed by the IMF with 14 countries of the region between April 2020 and May 2022 have contained, to a greater or lesser extent, conditionalities based on adjustment programmes (Oxfam, 2022). These programmes have a female face as they often disproportionally affect this population group, worsening preexistent gender inequalities. The first sectors that usually suffer from budget cutbacks are education, health and care (Kentikelenis and Stubbs, 2023), all of which are highly feminized in labour terms. These differential and discriminatory effects occur through a series of causal channels, including the loss of access to public services, fewer opportunities to access (or keep) jobs with decent conditions, a larger burden of unpaid care work, the increase of debt in households, and the weakening of food safety, among others (UN Independent Expert, 2018; 6 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT Serafini and Fois, 2021; Saalbrink, 2022); all aspects further analyzed by several chapters of this book. The large participation of private capital in public services, driven both by the IMF and the World Bank before, during, and after the pandemic, by placing profit as an omnipotent factor, is another policy that disproportionally affects women (Mariotti and Romero, 2022). The negative consequences for women’s human rights can be immediately noted, in ways that are more or less obvious (Muchhala and Guillem, 2022), and their effects can last for decades. This is also part of the intergenerational implication of sovereign debt. In fact, even in the context of the – limited and shortlived – expansive policy of public expenditure that took place during the COVID19 pandemic, and with the wellknown and disproportionate socioeconomic effects on women in all their diversity (ECLAC, 2022), when the fate of these public funds is closely observed, it turns out that men have received twice the resources women have received (Financial Transparency Coalition, 2022: 9). 3. IMF and its (archaic and selective) vision of human rights in debt issues In an unprecedented way, the IMF, which is an intergovernmental agency and part of the UN system, does not accept that it is bound by international human rights law. Confirming its historical stand, in 2017, in a letter submitted in the context of the elaboration of the Guiding Principles related to the assessments of the effects of economic reforms on human rights, the representative of the IMF stated before the UN: ‘The IMF has not accepted the Declaration on Human Rights as the motivating principle of our operations. UN agencies have generally accepted our arguments as establishing the limits of our engagement and obligations on promoting human rights.’ (IMF, 2017). This statement is problematic in at least three aspects. First, because the IMF is the only specialized agency of the UN system selfperceived as being above human rights. The United Nations Charter (Article 1.3) is unambiguous as to the importance of human rights for the activities of the organization. Besides, the IMF Articles of Agreement does not mention ‘human rights’ in the article (IX) on immunities. Second, stating, as the IMF does in its letter, that UN agencies have accepted such criterion is incorrect. On the contrary, both treaty bodies and the special procedures have repeatedly stated that IFIs (and the IMF is explicitly mentioned) should respect human rights and, therefore, they are internationally liable when they do not comply with such basic obligations. There is no doubt on this since in the 1980s the UN General Assembly ordered the IMF to stop funding the South African Apartheid to prevent it from financing a regime that violated fundamental human rights. Third, considering that several international conventions recognize the right to property as a human right, and in this INTRODUCTION 7 aspect the IMF does not hesitate when it must pursue its protection, how is this selective criterion justified as to which human rights are binding and relevant for the credit agency and which are not? In the context of this outlandish legal interpretation that the IMF upholds, the agency launched the selfproclaimed ‘gender strategy’ in July 2022. As is suggested in a letter that the mandate holders of the UN special procedures submitted to the IMF in 2022, as well as in a number of studies carried out by academics and organizations of civil society, the IMF ‘gender strategy’ tries to be a justification of orthodox policies.6 Under this strategy, women’s interests are relevant (‘macrocritical’ pursuant to the IMF jargon) and worthy of being promoted as long as they improve the fiscal situation of the debtor State and promote GDP growth, even at the expense of worsening the rights of women, as is the case when women are incorporated into the labour market with precarious and informal conditions.7 In January 2024 the IMF released its ‘Interim Guidance Note on Mainstreaming Gender’, which offers operational guidance to staff to implementing the gender strategy, discussing ‘light touch’ versus ‘deep dive’ approaches to gender analysis. Oddly, the paper does not even mention ‘debt’ once. The paper states that ‘staff would also examine comprehensively how shocks and trends, fiscal, monetary, and financial policies, and structural reforms can have differentiated impacts on men and women and, hence, narrow or exacerbate gender gaps’ (IMF, 2024: 9). Yet, this gender impact assessment of the IMF’s own conditionalities never takes place. If anyone still has doubts about the merely instrumental nature of the IMF ‘gender strategy’, that person needs to know that in 2017 the IMF posted an article on its website, written by (male) economists, where they explained why it was worth investing in the health of women in Rwanda: ‘Healthy women will probably work outside their houses, they will have more stamina and energy for physical jobs, and they will work more hours’ (Bloom et al, 2017). This step taken by the IMF to create the ‘gender strategy’ came to confirm a growing idea in industrialized countries about the importance of gender equality in terms of economic efficiency and good governance, which strengthens the mainstreaming of the genderbased approaches in some institutions. But, at the same time and almost inadvertently, in many cases this has led to the promotion of a more moderate sector of feminism – aligned with neoliberal ideas – that is more willing to instrumentalize and 'rinse' emancipatory demands instead of challenging the neoliberal assumptions that create and support gender inequalities (Budgeon, 2019). 4. Brief genealogy of feminist and debt agendas The indebtedness problem was included at least four decades ago in the agenda of the feminist movement (including activists and academics) in a 8 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT broad way and as a priority, highlighting that the debt issue is intrinsically intertwined with other demands and social and political phenomena with a direct effect on women’s rights. Yet, the inclusion of these topics in national governmental agendas has been scarce or almost nonexistent. Thus, it is key to investigate feminist agendas in a historical and critical manner so as to (re)think the progress of feminism in economic and especially financial issues, as well as the limits and challenges feminist demands have been facing. In parallel with the beginning of the crisis of the welfare state and of paid work, and jointly with the external debt crisis as far back as the 1970s, as well as the incomplete emergence of the ‘New International Economic Order’, the third wave of feminism consolidated, wherein the main demands of women focused on power relations that structured family and property, being included in the public scene and transforming the inequalities of the private space. In the decades that followed, women’s labour participation increased and the unfair, invisible and unpaid distribution of domestic and care work started to be questioned. However, when the phenomenon of mass incorporation of women into the labour market started, there was no fair (re)distribution of domestic and care work among the actors of the ‘care diamond’ (Razavi, 2007), and among men and women; instead, it resulted in the commercialization of much of this work and, consequently, the extension of the double working day for women. Women started to work massively in the labour market and they continued working in their houses. The ‘global feminization of work’ (Standing, 1989), which involved the increase of women’s participation in the workforce – and that included the hiring of women of the Global South with very low salaries for the intensive work in factories for exports (Elson and Pearson, 1981) – was connected to the liberalization of investments and trade (Peterson, 2005). The 1990s and years well into the 21st century, with an upsurge of neoliberalism and the consolidation of a new model of capital accumulation through the financial capital and indebtedness processes, witnessed the progress of the agendas of feminists and dissidents as to machista violence, participation in politics, the mechanisms of advancement of women’s rights, and the recognition of sexual and reproductive rights. Institutional agendas linked to the demands for economic autonomy, participation in the labour market and especially the recognition and the redistribution of the unfair division of unpaid domestic and care work also started to permeate. During these years, progress was also made as to the mainstreaming of the genderbased approach as a principle of public policy (Rodríguez Gustá, 2008; Payo, 2017), and it was included in regulatory, programmatic and budget frameworks. As far back as the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, the feminist movement, mainly from Latin America, suggested that the impact of the macroeconomic policies implemented in the context of the structural adjustment in peripheral countries was not neutral in terms of gender (Birgin, INTRODUCTION 9 1992). Indeed, in the Women’s Regional Conferences in Guatemala (1988) and Mar del Plata (1994) these problems were raised. In the Beijing Platform of Action (1995), which constituted the basis for the feminist action in the decades that followed, external debt and the orthodox economic policies as actual threats for women’s rights were explicitly mentioned. The Beijing Platform went as far as suggesting the need to grant debt relief for highly indebted peripheral countries. This same diagnosis and complaint has been – incipiently and incrementally – present during the decades that followed in world and regional declarations and agreements that address this situation and women’s rights.8 There seems to be an ethical assumption underlying these positionings that understands debt is legitimate providing it fosters human (bodily, cognitive and social) capabilities (Padgett Walsh and Lewiston, 2022). However, this specific complaint linked to debt, included in official documents and subject to academic research, did not escalate considerably in specific national governmental actions. The feminist and human rights approach in debt issues quickly found its limits. On the one hand, and in a more general way, because in recent decades a neoliberal colonization of human rights has persisted, focusing mainly on civil and political rights, which was not able to touch the economic roots of inequalities, and assumes a perfect compatibility between market economy and human rights (Bohoslavsky and Cantamutto, 2022). On the other hand, and in a more specific way, due to the recognized tension between the economic redistribution and the sociocultural recognition of the demands of the feminist movement (Fraser, 2000; 2008a; 2008b), which also explains the emergence and consolidation of a sector of moderate feminism, connected to ‘progressive neoliberalism’, which, while still advocating for the recognition of certain rights and individual liberties, says nothing as to the origins and implications of financial liberalism, and which has softened (or even marginalized) a number of demands of the most radical feminists, as well as institutionalized other more moderate ones, watering down its transformative potential. For that same reason, the IMF can afford to have its own ‘gender strategy’ that in turn is replicated without fear in a number of national governments, resulting in the institutionalization of a moderate – washed – feminism that, through nonperformativity, ends up doing something (institutionalizing) so that nothing changes (Ahmed, 2022); that is, ‘nonreformist reforms’. In other words, using this new ‘gender strategy’, sponsored and supported by the neoliberal agenda, the IMF can appropriate the notion of gender and eliminate any radical and emancipatory ideas of feminist movements to promote public policies whose goal is that women can be useful to capital. Something similar can be said as to the genderbased approach of the World Bank that is silencing the differential effects of the reform packages, the extractive projects they finance, the private health systems they promote 10 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT and the unfair systems of microloans they support. Among many other economic and androcentric delicatessens, the World Bank obviously focused on ‘economically empowering’ women (and, in certain cases, on specific civil and political rights – such as the prohibition of discrimination based on gender – with limited fiscal impact), as if gender inequalities do not have a deep structural root, including the unequal distribution of care tasks, which also requires structural solutions (Bruneau, 2023). In 2018, the World Bank withdrew a loan for education purposes to Tanzania until the government changed its policy of banning pregnant girls from going to school. There was no conditionality aimed at ensuring that a social safety net was in place in the country in order to guarantee that those persons could continue with their studies during the pregnancy and – when this was the case – after the delivery.9 Also regarding its gender approach, the World Bank announced in May 2023 that it was going to freeze new loans to Uganda because of the country’s discriminatory antiLGBTIQ+ law. Yet, when making this decision, there was no reference to human rights standards but to ‘values’; it only focused on discrimination in law but not in practice, there was no comprehensive policy to promote the rights of this group in a vulnerable situation, and the same financial decision was not taken in the case of other client countries with similar discriminatory laws; and it was made, in any case, on an implicit selective use of human rights, as economic and social rights did not deserve any (not even implicit) consideration from the World Bank. The expansion of the Washington Consensus, the exponential growth of financial neoliberalism, the consolidation of the model of infinite growth leveraged by debt, extractivism and other activities that damage the environment, as well as the higher development of highly masculinized sectors, all had specific consequences for women. The orthodox economic policies to address public overindebtedness (dismantling public services, weakening networks of social protection, labour flexibilization, higher relative burden of indirect taxes, reduction of standards for environmental protection, and so on) had a different impact on women and caused, for instance, higher private indebtedness for women to satisfy the needs related to social reproduction (Guérin, Kumar and Venkatasubramanian 2023). The result has been the ‘financialization of reproduction’ that subjects women to be simultaneously exploited as domestic workers and caregivers, as paid workers, as consumers and now also as debtors (Federici, Cavallero and Gago, 2021). The socalled ‘gender bonds’ that were recently created, subjecting gender equality to the ‘forces of the financial market’, imply the deepening of this financialization process up to paroxysm.10 Another irrefutable proof that neoliberalism can cannibalize everything (Nancy Fraser (2023) dixit). Debt, whether public or private, is key to the systemic and structural discussion of capitalism (Lazzarato, 2015). Just like the core of the capitalist heart has been targeted by the feminist economy denouncing the unfair INTRODUCTION 11 distribution of domestic and care tasks (Cantilon, Mackett and Stevano, 2023), the limits to indebtedness also affect the logic of modern financial capitalism. Our point here is that feminism from the inside and the outside, as an emancipatory social movement, should not only continue advocating, but also strengthen its demands and improve its strategies in terms of the regulation of the international flow of capital, the international trade of goods and services, the progressiveness of tax regimes, and the actual effects of orthodox economic policies on the human rights of women, as well as the criteria that should guide the granting, sustainability and restructuring of debt that feminism has been defending in the last decades. This is a challenge that goes beyond feminism and overlaps with a number of political struggles, including the workers’ struggle connected to production and salary, social protection and the environment. It is evident that the political aspect, as Nancy Fraser suggests, is an essential element to face this challenge and establish the rules and strategies for confrontation, and is the stage for the struggles for redistribution, recognition and representation. It is crucial to continue contributing to the narrative as to how wealth and its concentration is created, the role of debt in them, and their effect on human rights in general, as well as on gender inequalities in particular. That is to say, accepting the sacrifice of human rights on the altar of shortterm fiscal discipline – so as to ensure the full repayment of sovereign debt – and admitting that debt can be sustainable even when life is not, implies a major threat for women. The goal of this book is to contribute to the narrative so as to raise awareness and political action. 5. Politics and human rights as transformative feminist tools The criteria to assess debt sustainability, economic reforms and their results in terms of human rights, including gender equality, are mediated by politics (Kendrick, 2020). If the political and social context is androcentric, and the capitalist system is patriarchal, is it realistic to think that economic policies resulting from it will not have that machista bias? Therefore, efforts should not only aim at understanding and reporting the causal connections between economic policies and their effects in terms of gender, they should also focus on how power is created with an androcentric bias, which in turn is the result of a dynamics of interdependent dimensions (Padamsee, 2009); in other words, to rerecognize the supremacy of politics (Karl Polanyi dixit). Among these dimensions, positional factors (how people are placed in material structures or how current institutions and rules are formed) and interpretative factors (how we understand and see the world, whether through cultural or psychological means) are found. The feedback dynamics of these dimensions eventually determine the foundations of the social order, and with that the economic reforms and their consequences in terms of gender (Kendrick, 2020). 18 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT this is a strategy by the IMF to appropriate the gender discourse and shape it to the goals of neoliberal politics. The fourth part of the book sheds light on ‘IMF, women and diversities in Latin America and Argentina’, starting with chapter 12 written by María Nieves Rico, which enquires into the interrelation that exists among debt sustainability, life sustainability and care, which happens in a context of already deep structural inequalities. In her analysis, Rico shows how public indebtedness and its consequences have a complex meaning when analyzing their impact on the daily life of people, specifically how the measures adopted (considering the commitments with the IMF) have as one of their greatest consequences – whether directly or indirectly – the reproduction and deepening of gender inequalities. Furthermore, the author analyzes how, considering that socioeconomic situation, women face the costs of family management of care through the implementation of different strategies, such as the reduction of frequent expenses and the need to turn to formal or informal loans and indebtedness so as to satisfy current basic needs. Finally, the author shows the importance of implementing comprehensive care systems in the region to move towards life sustainability. In chapter 13, Francisco Cantamutto and Agostina Costantino analyze from a gender perspective the impact of public debt and orthodox economic policies on the human right to education in Latin America and the Caribbean. To that purpose, the authors analyze how commercialization and privatizations driven by neoliberal reforms, as well as fiscal austerity (including noncompliance with investment goals in education), have been particularly damaging for the rights of girls, adolescents and women, by excluding them from access and permanence in the education system, blocking training and labour opportunities. The chapter also explains the relation between investment deficits in the education sector and public indebtedness in Latin America and the Caribbean: by increasing the debt service expense in relative terms, investment in education is reduced, with its differential consequences for girls, adolescents and women. In chapter 14, Florencia Partenio and Ariel Wilkis analyze, in the context of the COVID19 pandemic and using a qualitative and quantitative study of households of popular classes in Argentina, the relations between the increase of private indebtedness and the deepening of inequalities. In this chapter, the authors suggest that there exists a clear difference of exposition to indebtedness between households with care tasks and households without care tasks, and that private indebtedness was used to finance expenses and consumption to maintain daily care tasks. Then they analyze the dynamics that enhance economic vulnerability when the mechanisms to protect labour rights fail and how economic vulnerability deepens when rights are not recognized paradoxically in an individual way. Besides this, they explain the interface between private and public indebtedness. Finally, they offer INTRODUCTION 19 reflections as to indebtedness, the care crisis and the lack of access to rights, all of which is reflected in households of popular classes. Thus, the authors show the existing relation between the overload of unpaid care work that is linked to overindebtedness and the lack of access to social protection for women, lesbians and trans persons. The fifth part of the book focuses on ‘Gender impact analysis: frameworks and experiences’. In chapter 15, Patricia Miranda and Verónica Serafini offer, from the theoretical guidelines of the Feminist Economy, a critical look at the prevailing analysis of debt sustainability. To that end, the authors analyze the theoretical structure of the economic orthodoxy – and the methodology used by the IMF – that gives absolute priority to capital, uses androcentric indicators, excludes tax justice as a key factor, gives an instrumental (nonintrinsic) character to gender equality and invisibilizes the effects of fiscal rules on women. This patriarchal bias of debt sustainability analyses that the IMF uses is a political fact with deep legal implications. In chapter 16, Ulrike Marx enquires into the connection between feminism and quantification to manage public finances ‘using numbers’, based on a study of the implementation of genderresponsive budgets in Austria between 2009 and 2012. The quantitative translation of feminists’ demands in the transversalization of the genderbased approach, specifically the budgeting practice, risks liquefying feminists’ demands by prioritizing efficiency, optimization and competition. While the author recognizes and warns about the political biases in accountability (‘numbers are political’), she emphasizes that, even when quantification may depoliticize and democratize feminism, it can also be a powerful political tool to make feminists’ demands visible, placing them at the core of the debate and giving them political legitimacy, including on discussion on public debt. In chapter 17, Flavia Navarro and Laura Pautassi focus on the importance of including the genderbased approach both in the field of State financial obligations and in the field of private debts of women and sexual diversities, and particularly on the development of progress indicators and their implementation. For that purpose, the authors present the main (quantitative and qualitative) indicators of progress that, in accordance with the InterAmerican system, are used in current monitoring mechanisms in the region, and consider their potential to measure, with a genderbased approach, the degree of compliance with State obligations connected to debt and their incidence on the level of fulfilment of human rights. Finally, from a critical look at the autonomy approach, the authors highlight the need to promote the recognition of a life free of indebtedness that enables women and sexual diversities to enjoy economic autonomy in all its dimensions. In the sixth and last part of this book, we focus on ‘Work agenda for egalitarian transformations’, which starts with chapter 18, where Christina Laskaridis analyzes from a feminist perspective the operation of the 20 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT international monetary and financial system (IMFS) through their two core institutions: the Group of 20 (G20) and the IMF. The author argues that these institutions have shown, at a rhetorical level, a growing interest in gender equality, but that concern has not been reflected in efficient policies and actions when reducing gender inequalities, which actually invisibilizes the ways in which the IMFS reinforces gender inequalities and other type of inequalities through the way in which capital flows, sovereign debt and related economic policies, currency hierarchies, liquidity cycles and the operational structures of global economic governance today. The final remarks identify a series of needed reforms from a feminist perspective. In chapter 19, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky and Lena Lavinas study what the socalled ‘gender bonds’ are, how they work, the economic ideas that support them, and which actors promote these gender bonds that have in the last years had an exponential growth, deepening the general phenomenon of financialization. Moreover, the authors critically analyze the limitations, contradictions and problems that these types of bonds pose that – in theory – tend to reduce gender inequalities and promote women’s rights through public policies and projects financed by investors that in turn generate profits, but at the end of the day, according to the authors, are ‘another brick on the neoliberal wall’. In chapter 20, the last one, Magalí Brosio and Mariana Rulli warn that, despite the general trend of the last four decades towards a growing institutionalization of gender areas of the State in Latin America and the IFIs, specifically as to gender institutionality in public finances, and particularly as to public debt, progress has been low and, in any case, timid. The authors also provide critical reflections on the proliferation of instrumentalist and performative strategies that have been reflected in gender institutionality at the State (in the case of genderresponsive budgets) and IFIs levels (as in the gender strategy of the IMF), limiting truly transformative approaches. Finally, the authors offer a series of proposals to discuss where and how to deepen gender institutionality in the field of public finances and, more specifically, of sovereign debt. Acknowledgements The authors thank Francisco Cantamutto, Laura Pautassi, Emilia Reyes and Verónica Serafini for their critical feedback for this introduction. Notes 1 The theatre play called Con la deuda al cuello (Up to their neck in debt) of the theatre company ‘Las Reinas Chulas’, that premiered in Mexico in July 2022, contributes to that end, as by explaining the relations among macroeconomic indicators, material conditions of life, inequalities and gender stereotypes, social indicators, and the increase of public and private debt, it shows how this combination can become a life shredder, mainly for women. In other words, gender violence. INTRODUCTION 21 2 In fact, if we take the period 2009– 21 to study the conditionalities imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to its debtor States, we find that States with the closest diplomatic connections with the US tend to receive a more benevolent treatment by the IMF, while those States closest to China face greater requirements in terms of austerity (Ray, Gallagher and Kring, 2022). 3 In this regard, see chapter 2 by Rodríguez Enríquez in this book. 4 See the chapter 20 Brosio and Rulli in this book. 5 Some of these policies include public service privatizations, health commercialization, public expenditure reduction in highly influential budgetary lines as to the fulfilment of economic and social rights, labour deregulation, weakening of the social protection system, salary and pension reduction, higher tax regressiveness and reduction of standards for environmental protection. 6 See chapter 6 in this book on the 2022 letter sent by mandate holders of the UN special procedures. 7 Regarding the ‘gender strategy’ of the IMF, see chapters 2 by Rodríguez Enríquez, 9 by Villard Duran, 10 by Perrons, 11 by Krubnik and 20 by Brosio and Rulli in this book. 8 See the chapter 8 by Perceval and Rulli in this book. 9 And this goes without mentioning that legal and practical barriers to accessing safe abortion implies a violation of human rights. 10 See the chapter 19 by Bohoslavsky and Lavinas in this book. 11 See the chapter 16 by Ulrike Marx in this book. 12 This would lead to a consideration of the immediate effects of debt on human rights and the longterm effects on development perspectives of debtor countries, as well as the level of social resistance to adjustment and other contractionary policies. 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Davoodi, Hamid; Montiel, Peter and TerMartirosyan, Anna (2022) ‘Macroeconomic stability, adjustment, and debt’ in Valerie Cerra, Barry Eichengreen, Asmaa ElGanainy and Martin Schindler (eds), How to Achieve Inclusive Growth, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 391– 423. ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) (2019). ‘Panorama Fiscal de América Latina y el Caribe 2019: políticas tributarias para la movilización de recursos en el marco de la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible’ (LC/ PUB.2019/ 8P), Santiago de Chile. ECLAC (2022) ‘Los impactos sociodemograficos de la pandemia del COVID19 en América Latina y el Caribe’ (LC/ CRPD.4/ 3), Santiago de Chile. Elson, Diane (1995) ‘Gender awareness in modelling structural adjustment’, World Development, 23(11): 51– 68. Elson, Diane and Pearson, Ruth (1981) ‘‘Nimble fingers make cheap workers’: An analysis of women’s employment in third world export manufacturing’, Feminist Review, 7(1): 87– 107. 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Mahlmann, Matthias (2023) Mind and Rights. The History, Ethics, Law and Psychology of Human Rights, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mariotti, Chiara and Romero, María José (2022) ‘Demystifying Bretton Woods Institutions’ rhetoric on public services’, Development, 65: 217– 27. 24 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT Mosley, Layna and Rosendorff, Peter (2022), ‘Sovereign debt architecture, suspended’, Just Money [online] April, Available from: https:// justmo ney.org/ laynamos leypeterros endo rffiwillsurv ivethedomes ticpolit icsofdebt/ Muchhala, Bhumika and Guillem, Andrea (2022), ‘Gendered austerity and embodied debt in Ecuador: Channels through which women absorb and resist the shocks of public budget cuts’, Gender & Development, 30(1– 2): 283– 309. 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Development prospects in a fractured world’, Geneva [online], Available from: https:// unc tad.org/ tdr2 022 UNCTAD (2022b) ‘UNCTAD Sustainable Development Finance Assessment (SDFA) Framework: linking debt sustainability to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda’, DA COVID19 Project Paper 16/ 22, November, Available from: https:// mobil izin gdev fina nce.org/ resea rchmater ial/ unc tadsust aina bledeve lopm entfina nceass essm entsdfaframew orklink ingdebt United Nations (2019), ‘Guiding Principles on human rights impact assessment of economic reforms’, Independent Expert on Debt and Human Rights, UN DOC. (A/ HRC/ 40/ 57, 19 December 2018); Human Rights Council Res. A/ HRC/ 40/ 8 (4 May 2019), Available from: https:// dig ital libr ary.un.org/ rec ord/ 1663 025?ln= es 26 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT UNRISD (2022) UNRISD Flagship Report 2022. Crisis of inequality: Shifting power for a new ecosocial contract, Geneva: United Nations, Available from: https:// www.perl ego.com/ book/ 4190 879/ unr isdflags hiprep ort2022cri sesofine qual ityshift ingpowerforanewecosoc ialcontr actpdf Villard Duran, Camila (2021) ‘The (in)visible woman at the International Monetary Fund: Engendering national economic rulemaking’, Journal of International Economic Law, 24(4): 738– 54. Whyte, J. (2019) The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism, London and New York: Verso Books. World Bank (2022) ‘International debt report 2022: Updated international debt statistics’, World Bank Group [online], Available from:https:// openkn owle dge .worldb ank.org/ bitstr eam/ han dle/ 10986/ 38045/ 978146 4819 025. pdf?seque nce= 8 PART I Debt and Feminist Agendas 34 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT evidenced. Ortiz and Cummins (2022) make a thorough analysis of the austerity measures implemented or projected in the world between 2022 and 2025. They indicate that, in accordance with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projections, public expenditure cutbacks are expected in 143 countries, which will affect 85 per cent of the global population. Countries of the Global South will be the most affected ones, with estimated cutbacks in 3.5 per cent of the GDP. More than half of the countries analyzed will make cutbacks that will take their public expenditure to levels lower than before the pandemic. The type of cutback measures analyzed have direct social impacts and affect significantly women: i) rationalization of social welfare programmes (many of them are feminized); ii) reduction of salaries in public jobs (that have a feminized payroll, particularly in the lowest categories); iii) privatization of companies and public services, as well as promotion of publicprivate partnerships; iv) labour flexibilization; v) social security reforms (that often limit the access to social security benefits to those who have weaker contributory records, among whom women are overrepresented); and vi) reduction of education and health expenditure (that mainly affect women due to their role in care arrangements, but also because the workforce in these sectors is feminized). The government in Argentina, which has signed a new agreement with the IMF in 2022 (thus confirming and legitimizing the indebtedness from Macri’s government), is also under the pressure of austerity, whose impact can clearly be seen in the last budgets. For instance, in accordance with the reports of the Argentine Budget Office, public investment dropped by 38.3 per cent in real terms in 2022.11 Meanwhile, the national government gave 33 per cent less in resources in real terms in 2022 to provinces and municipalities, compared to the previous year. This is expected to affect provincial and municipal budgets, and, therefore, the provision of education and health services that are decentralized at these subnational levels. Expenditure on the pension system (the main component of the social public expenditure) went from 8 per cent of GDP in 2021 to 7.7 per cent in 2022, and it is 1.9 per cent lower than in 2017. As the budget of the national government in Argentina includes a methodology of genderresponsive budgeting (GRB),12 it can be particularly analyzed how this austerity affects budgetary lines considered to potentially reduce gender inequality gaps. This is what Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia (Civil Association for Equality and Justice) (ACIJ, 2022) does and indicates for the 2023 budget: i) a reduction of 6.8 per cent in real terms compared to 2022 of social security benefits given through the Plan de Inclusión Previsional (pension inclusion program, that essentially women receive) and 8.8 per cent of noncontributory pensions for mothers of seven or more children; ii) a drop of 11.5 per cent in real terms for the universal DEBT, ECONOMIC VIOLENCE AND FEMINIST AGENDA 35 child allowance (Asignación Universal por Hijo, AUH) and the universal allowance for pregnancy (Asignación Universal por Embarazo, AUE), and 32 per cent in Tarjeta Alimentar (monetary transfers to buy food); iii) a reduction of 19 per cent in the budgetary line to implement the cash transfer program targeted at the children of victims of genderbased violence; iv) a drop of 45.5 per cent in real terms of the lines that finance the early childhood education programme ‘Primeros Años’; v) a drop of 37.2 per cent of funds for the protection of victims of genderbased violence. The austerity policy of the Argentine government is also expressed in the reduction of beneficiaries of the main workfare programme, called ‘Potenciar Trabajo’. This reduction also comes with a campaign of symbolic violence (from sectors of the government, the opposition and the hegemonic mass media) against the beneficiaries of this programme (and of welfare programmes of cash transfers in general, who are mainly women), who are accused of corruption (because in some cases the benefit is received without complying with all the requirements), but more extensively are accused of laziness and living at the expense of the State (in a discursive turn that hides huge benefits received by the concentrated capital and highincome sectors of the population through tax laundering, special treatments with respect to the exchange rate policy, tax exemptions and so on). In order to give perspective to the case of the Potenciar Trabajo programme as an example of the economic violence implied by adjustment policies that also affects relatively more women than men, it is worth mentioning that currently the programme has more than 1 million beneficiaries, 63 per cent of whom are women, predominantly young women (83 per cent are between 18 and 45 years old), and most of whom have a low level of education (66 per cent have not completed secondary education). Almost 50 per cent of the beneficiaries comply with the working requirement by working in community kitchens and canteens, in other words, having an essential role for the social reproduction of popular sectors (as was evidenced during the pandemic). Small agricultural activities also predominate to guarantee food safety. As Giosa Zuazúa (2022) states, despite its role to support the income of the most disadvantaged populations, but also its key role in the social reproduction of these sectors, the programme has been criticized and reduced since 2021. In October 2021, the Minister of Social Development of that time expressed the intention to suspend the subscriptions to the programme and to transform it into a tool to encourage registered paid labour (although he never mentioned how he would do it). In June 2022, the vicepresident of Argentina criticized the programme management, especially the role of social organizations as intermediaries between the State and the beneficiaries. In August 2022, the government announced that it would audit the beneficiaries of the programme, a measure that 36 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT was well received by conservative political and media sectors that defend the controversial narrative of meritocracy. At the beginning of December 2022, 20,000 beneficiaries of the programme were cut off. Ultimately, the context of adjustment and the effective reduction of budgetary lines for this type of programme ends up damaging the material living conditions of the beneficiaries due to transfer loss or payment delays, while a violent narrative is encouraged that accuses them of abuse of the public budget, denying the role that many of these persons play where the State fails (providing food, care and basic social infrastructure in poor neighbourhoods). The increasing weakness of State mechanisms to provide income and social reproduction force households to increase market exchanges, and as they do not have enough sources of income, they are forced to become indebted.13 This is how the direct relation between public indebtedness and domestic indebtedness is expressed. Debt as discipline for States, but also for households. Ultimately, debt sustainability, fulfilling fiscal deficit commitments and how to do it (always through cutbacks of expenditure with questionable priorities, instead of focusing on the sectors that systematically perform tax abuse and defund the State) become a practice of economic violence that puts life sustainability at risk. 4. Feminist resistance to indebtedness The expansion context of the feminist movement has been favourable to generating resistance to debt from a perspective that aims to challenge both capitalist and patriarchal violence. As Gago (2019: 84) explains, ‘(i)t is the appearance of a mass feminism that has enabled (and enables) to read the map of the different types of violence as a network’. This stage of feminist activism arose in the mass mobilizations of June 2015, summoned by the motto ‘Not even one more dead: We want ourselves alive’, precisely as a reaction to one of the more extreme forms of violence against women: femicides. This claim against the State as being responsible for the violence against women and as an actor that specifically could transform the situation with active policies to eliminate all forms of violence was later connected to the socalled ‘green wave’, the feminist movement that massively fought for the legalization of abortion (which was achieved at the end of 2020). It is in the context of this activism that there are actions that show how economic issues, and particularly the debt issue, are pervading the feminist agenda. As told by Cavallero and Gago (2019), on 2 June 2017, an action in front of the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic was organized, where pamphlets were given and a manifesto titled ‘We want ourselves alive, free, and debtfree’ was read. The manifesto explained this systemic understanding DEBT, ECONOMIC VIOLENCE AND FEMINIST AGENDA 37 of indebtedness processes, and private, domestic and family indebtedness was made visible and centred in public debate as a feminist issue. This activist approach to debt problematizes the abstract dynamics of finances in their relation with daily life, the different forms of violence (domestic and institutional) and current mechanisms of labour exploitation (that can also be understood as forms of violence). This approach is summarized in the motto repeated in feminist strikes on each 8 March: ‘the debt is owed to us’. Activism against economic violence and debt is extended to different fields. It is clearly expressed in a part of the feminist trade union activism. It is coordinated with other global social movements in the resistance to and in the G20 and the World Trade Organization (WTO).14 It challenges the prevailing discourse of financial inclusion as an opportunity.15 And it is expressed when it criticizes the hypocritical gender strategies of international financial institutions.16 At the same time, feminist resistance to debt is transformed into specific practices. They hold themselves in an attitude that proposes to be insubmissive to finances, and that promotes disobedience . For instance, feminist finance is implemented as loans provided by social organizations, they are channelled through experiences of ‘ethical finances’,17 they are reconverted to practices of community savings (as in the case of pasanaku in the Bolivian community), and they are organized to resist the evictions for real estate debts that cannot be repaid or to propose new regulations in the rent market.18 Ultimately, feminist resistance to debt generates collective organization, it reports systemic origins of indebtedness, it makes economic violence visible and it calls for insurrection against what was established as true. Finances can be questioned, challenged and transformed. And this is urgent and imperative. Notes 1 The author takes here the notion of economic violence developed by Santillana Ortíz et al (2021). 2 This movement enables us to ‘coin a political word that not only reports the violence against women’s body, but it also opens the discussion about other feminized bodies, and even more it moves from a unique definition of violence (that it is always domestic and intimate, and therefore confined) to understand it in relation to an idea of economic, institutional, labour, colonial, etc violence’ (Gago, 2019: 62). 3 To learn more about the genealogy of the concept of bodyterritory, see Ulloa (2021). 4 Gago (2019) identifies four scenes of violence that represent the update of this ‘war against women’: 1) The implosion of violence within homes as a consequence of the dehierarchization of the figure of the male provider; 2) the appearance of new types of violence in popular neighbourhoods in the context of the proliferation of illegal economies; 3) the pillage of land and common goods by transnational capital; and 4) the coordination of exploitation and extraction of value through the financialization of social life. 38 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT 5 An example of this that prevails today in the global agenda of development is the securitization processes that transform the expected returns of investments from the field of development financing into financial assets. This is linked to the processes that seek to leverage the financing of the private sector, and it is very frequent in publicprivate associations. To learn more about these processes, see Gabor (2019). 6 This is how the financial sector starts advancing over social sectors that it disregarded in the past, but now considers as new markets. This is clearly the case of loan instruments of low amounts that are spread in popular sectors. To understand this process and its particular feminization characteristic, see Cavallero (2021). 7 See chapter 19 by Bohoslavsky and Lavinas in this book. 8 Cobham and Jansky (2020) present a systematization of existing estimates that for developing countries vary from US$77 billion to US$240 billion with respect to the losses of corporate income tax. 9 To learn more about this idea of corporate capture of States and the development agenda, see Rodríguez Enríquez (2021). 10 Lavinas (2017) extensively develops this idea in her study of financialization processes of social policies, with special emphasis on the Brazilian case. 11 Data available online at: https:// www.econo mia.gob.ar/ onp/ ejecuc ion/ 2022#aif 12 Although the existence of GRB is a step forward, it is also important to mention that this is a first step, which is limited to the identification of budget lines that could have a positive impact on the situation of women and diversities, or on the reduction of gender inequality gaps. In the future, it would be expected that a budget analysis from a feminist perspective be a wider and integrated exercise that analyzes extensively both expenditure and macroeconomic policies (including indebtedness), combining quantitative and qualitative strategies, and that can notice the real impact of public policies on the conditions and quality of life of people. 13 Partenio (2022) systematizes the findings of a project that particularly researched the relation among debt, work and care in the popular sectors of Argentina, emphasizing the experience of women. There the consequences of the relation between public indebtedness and domestic indebtedness can be seen embodied. 14 On this matter, see the July 2018 issue of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) Informa that summarizes the actions and perspectives made in front of the summit of the WTO that took place in Buenos Aires at the end of 2017: https:// dawn net.org/ publ icat ion/ dawninfo rmajunio2018/ 15 On this matter, see the post of Verónica Gago and Luci Cavallero from May 2018 in Cartografie: https:// stud ique stio necr imin ale.wordpr ess.com/ 2021/ 05/ 26/ losmovi mien tosylasdeu dasveron icagagoylucicavabe llo/ 16 On this matter, see Elson and Rodríguez Enríquez (2021), as well as the manifesto signed by more than 100 feminist organizations that rejects the IMF gender strategy: https:// www.camp aign ofca mpai gns.com/ index.php/ en/ ourwork/ acti ons/ 354reject ionofintern atio nalmonet aryfundsstrat egytow ardmainst ream inggen der2 17 To learn more about the paradigm of ethical finances, see De la Cruz (2014). 18 Federici et al (2021) collect a series of experiences of resistance to indebtedness. 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Santillana Ortíz, A., Partenio, F. and Rodríguez Enríquez, C. (2021) Si nuestras vidas no valen, entonces produzcan sin nosotras. Reflexiones feministas sobre la violencia económica, Buenos Aires: Fundación Rosa Luxemburgo. 40 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT Sassen, S. (2015) Expulsiones. Brutalidad y complejidad en la economía global, Buenos Aires: Katz Editores. Sen, G. (2014) ‘Reconsiderando la acumulación originaria’, in G. Sen and M. Durano (eds), Refundando los contratos sociales: Feministas en un mundo feroz, London: Zed Books, pp 139– 142. Svampa, M. (2019) Las fronteras del neoextractivismo en América Latina. Conflictos socioambientales, giro ecoterritorial y nuevas dependencias, Wetzlar: Calas. Ulloa, A. (2021) ‘Repolitizar la vida, defender los cuerposterritorios y colectivizar las acciones desde los feminismos indígenas’, Ecología Política, 61: 38– 48. (the issue number is 61) 41 3 Debt, Development and Gender Penelope Hawkins and Marina ZuckerMarques 1. Introduction Austerity, associated with financial crisis, has long been shown to disproportionally affect women (Elson, 1993; Périvier 2018; Geoghegan and Fois 2021). This chapter makes the point that gender discrimination from sovereign debt relations is not, however, limited to crisis phases, and the seeds of women bearing the brunt of public debt burdens are sown during the expansionary phase of an economic development model dependent on debtled growth. The chapter goes on to identify some of the pathways that link development policies, debt and gender discrimination throughout the debtled growth cycle. Section 2 sets the scene by describing the problem of debtled growth and gender discrimination. In section 3, the growing indebtedness of developing countries is discussed. In section 4, we consider some of the channels impacting women during the debtacquisition phases and austerity phases of debtled growth. Section 5 concludes with some proposals on the sovereigndebt agenda, including a revised conceptual framework for considering debt sustainability that employs a development lens to address gender equality. 2. Debtled growth and discrimination There is a widespread acceptance among economists from different traditions that, apart from mobilizing domestic resources, developing countries also need to channel external resources to grow and meet development challenges. To address this, in 1961, a United Nations (UN) General Assembly resolution called on member states ‘to pursue policies that lead to an increase in the flow of development resources, public and private, to developing countries’.1 But six decades on, the mechanisms of international financial debt architecture 42 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT still fail to generate the necessary quantum of funding and financing at a price that enables such development. Instead, net financial transfers (or net resource flows) continue to flow from developing countries to advanced ones, creating a paradox (Kregel, 2004): external resources are deemed necessary to fund development, but this in turn generates return flows of interest payments and profit remittances which may dominate the current account in excess of capital flows (UNCTAD, 2020). Raúl Prebisch, who later became the first Secretary General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), pointed out, ‘as the stock of foreign capital increases, its financial services also grow, which will demand an increasing proportion of resources from exports, and the more the proportion of these services grows, the less there will be room for importing capital goods with these resources’ (Prebisch, 1950: 480, authors’ translation). For this reason, some economists have argued that development hinges on the terms of trade and development aid (Prebisch, 1952).2 But muchdesired aid from developed countries has mostly disappointed and better trade conditions for developing countries have failed to materialize (see section 3). Instead, with foreign direct investment difficult to attract, the default option for growth strategy has become debtled growth, resulting in a debt treadmill for developing countries: rising indebtedness of developing countries has increased vulnerability and undermined growth prospects, with the impact on women most visible during the austerity phases. In the debtled growth model, financial markets and mounting financial leverage drive the real economy and, increasingly, the debt sustainability of developing countries is no longer in the hands of the affected sovereigns. In an environment of fragility and spillovers, falling commodity prices and weakening growth, or monetary policy decisions, in developed economies can quickly lead to unsustainable debt burdens in developing countries (UNCTAD, 2019). Under this debtled growth strategy, developing countries can be seen to alternate between debt acquisition and austerity phases, and while this may not be entirely binary, it is useful to the later discussion in this chapter to differentiate between them. In the debt acquisition phase, capital inflows put upward pressure on exchange rates and reserve accumulation takes place. The exchange rate appreciation tends to reduce the competitiveness of the domestic industry (Kregel, 2018), which serves to chill domestic exportled enterprise and export earnings in general. Given that developing countries tend to import capital goods, a longterm reduction in export earnings may undermine the ability of the country to import necessary inputs for investment. More insidiously, as capital flows inward, developing countries have shown a strong predilection to accumulate foreign exchange reserves. Rising reserve accumulation means an opportunity forgone in terms of muchneeded investment and social expenditure (Elhiraika and Ndikumana, 2007). DEBT, DEVELOPMENT AND GENDER 43 In the austerity, or crisis, phase, the country is obliged to prioritize repayment of creditors, particularly external creditors. Current notions of debt sustainability as the ability of a government to meet its current and future payment obligations without exception arrangements or default thus depends on the willingness and ability of governments to sacrifice domestic objectives to meet foreign claims (7). By doing so, governments put aside human rights commitments, once resources to ensure the realization of economic and social rights are diverted to pay debt claims. While Kregel calls for a new definition of debt sustainability that supports the longterm process of development, which UNCTAD is in the process of fleshing out (see section 5), countries faced by financial crisis have been obliged to reduce fiscal expenditure, in the attempt to generate enough resources to avoid default. Gender equality is a crucial component of successful development. Financial crisis can force a disproportionate cost on women, increasing their economic vulnerability, and affecting societal outcomes (Floro and Dymski, 2000). Conversely, economic growth that leads to increased female labour force participation without compensatory investments in social care provisioning and better distribution of caregiving responsibilities will ultimately compromise investment and growth (Braunstein, Seguino and Altringer, 2021).3 Since improving women’s status and economic activity has macroeconomic benefits for economic growth and development (Stotsky, 2006), wherever rising debt burdens and debt service payments compete with scarce fiscal resources for health, education and social assistance in normal times – or lead to the cutbacks associated with austerity – progress on gender equality is undermined and development outcomes are unwound. Building on this, the chapter traces three key dimensions of women’s engagement with society and the economy – as employee, as caregiver and as citizen – each of which creates pathways to gender discrimination during the cycle of debtled growth, not only during crisis. The analysis suggests that the acquisition of sovereign debt itself may inhibit the possibility of necessary compensatory investments in social care provisioning for equalityinducing investment and growth (see section 4). Instead, in developing countries where debt is attracted at interest rates which far exceed those associated with the cost of capital in developed countries, the acquisition of the sovereign debt creates a servicing requirement which imposes a ceiling on investment in public and social services (Persaud, 2022), effectively locking in inequality and ultimately a lower development path. 3. Growing indebtedness of developing countries During the last 20 years, external debt levels have increased at an unprecedented pace in developing countries, with the total external debt stock for lowand middleincome countries (excluding China) rising from US$1.9 trillion in 50 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT of GDP on health expenditure, less than half the global average of 9.8 per cent (WHO, 2021). Other developing countries also face similar debtservicing challenges, as can be seen in Figure 3.3. Ninetyfour per cent of all maternal deaths occur in lowand middleincome countries (WHO, 2023), where debtservice outweighs expenditure on health – except for upper-middleincome countries (excluding China). During the pandemic, in 2020, some 62 countries spent a larger share of their budget on servicing debt than healthcare expenditure, and for 36 countries, debt servicing was larger than education expenditure (Munevar, 2021). The lack of an adequate public healthcare system may impose a personal financial burden on women. Lower public expenditure on health is likely to deprive outlying areas of hospitals, clinics and medical personnel, and forgoing treatment may be a poor woman’s only option (Smith, 1999). Moreover, given the accumulated backlog in healthcare provision, and the emphasis on generating sufficient public revenues to service the debt, governments are more inclined to acquiesce to pressure to privatize public services, and adopt a userpays system, while at the same time shifting budget from social services to ensure adequate debt servicing (see for example, the case of Ecuador in Muchhala and Guillem, 2022). Userpays systems are regressive and the most vulnerable are simply excluded from what should be universal, publicly provided services (Elson, 1993). Both costs and geographical proximity are correlated with women’s Figure 3.3: Public and publicly guaranteed debt service as share of health expenditure budget, by country groups, 2000– 19 0 50 100 150 200 250 12345678910 Lower middle income Low income LDCUpper middle income ex. China Source: Own elaboration based on WB International Debt Statistics and IMF. Classification as per WB (2022) DEBT, DEVELOPMENT AND GENDER 51 use of healthcare services, with women from poorer households seeking less or delaying treatment as it becomes more expensive or less accessible. (Dupas and Jain, 2021). Such behaviour can be detrimental to women’s health, particularly to pregnant women, and ultimately results in a higher mortality rate (Taneja and Jadhav, 2022). For those who are obliged to incur debt burdens to pay for healthcare, this can lead to impoverishment. According to the WHO (2020), in 2015 alone, outofpocket health expenditure pushed 89.7 million people into extreme poverty (below US$1.90 per person per day). The same report indicates that, as of 2015, there were at least 927 million people that incurred catastrophic health spending, meaning they spent over 10 per cent of their income on a health crisis or chronic condition. For 200 million people, it corresponded to over 25 per cent of their income, leading in many cases to unmanageable debt. The use of debt to pay for health expenditure (see Figure 3.4) shows that women tend to borrow as much or more than men (the exception being in uppermiddleincome countries), although men are typically more financially included and a larger proportion of them incur debt than women. The tendency for women in poorer nations to borrow more for health services highlights the importance of having a wellresourced, publicly funded healthcare system. Women as caregivers Around the world, women spend more time performing unpaid household work (cooking, cleaning, fetching water and firewood, taking care of children and so on), and in some countries, their unpaid workload is ten times longer Figure 3.4: Share of respondents that ‘borrowed any money’ versus ‘borrowed for health purposes’, by income group, 2021 Note: LIC = lower-income country; LMIC = lower-middle-income country; HIC = highincome country Source: Own elaboration based on WB Findex Database 2021 52 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT than that of men (Ferrant et al, 2014). Consequently, women are constantly timepoor which often limits or even impedes their participation in paid remuneration (Périvier, 2018). This problem is reflected in the gap between the labour participation rates of men and women. As Figure 3.5 shows, for all income groups, female labour participation is considerably and consistently lower than for men, and in 2021, the difference between female and male labour participation remained stubbornly high at 38 per cent in lowermiddleincome countries. Although the labour market participation gap is decreasing, a decline in the gap of 10 per cent between 1990 and 2021 was achieved only in highincome country groups. Public expenditure is key to lowering the burden of caregiving on women and freeing them to increase their (renumerated) labour market participation rates. Publicly funded social services, including childcare, have been shown to be of paramount importance, with provision of day care for children increasing maternal employment (Thévenon, 2013; Nishitateno and Shikata, 2017; Andresen and Havnes, 2019). In general, country comparisons show that a decrease in women’s unpaid care work by two hours a day may increase women’s labour force participation rate by up to 10 per cent (for a given level of GDP per capita, fertility rate, female unemployment rate, female education, urbanization rate and maternity leave) (Ferrant et al, 2014). Figure 3.5: Labour participation gap between men and women, by income country group, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2021 0% 5% 10 % 15 % 20 % 25 % 30 % 35 % 40 % 45 % 1990 2000 2010 2021 1990 2000 2010 2021 1990 2000 2010 2021 1990 2000 2010 2021 LICs LMICsUMICsHICs Note: LIC = lower-income country; LMIC = lower-middle-income country; UMIC = upper-middle-income country; HIC = high-income country Source: Own elaboration based on WB Gender Data Portal DEBT, DEVELOPMENT AND GENDER 53 Publicsector spending in infrastructure (including electricity, roads, water and sanitation) can ease the barriers for women entering the labour market (Dinkelman, 2011; Lei, Desai and Vanneman, 2019; Fabrizio et al, 2020). Electrification brings general benefits, but women’s relative household responsibilities means access to electricity can improve efficiency in timeintensive activities like laundry, food preparation, storage and cleaning, freeing up women to pursue paid work. Despite historical improvements in access to energy, in 2019, for over 940 million people (or about 13 per cent of the world’s population) living without electricity was still a reality (Ritchie et al, 2022). Women as employees The public sector is the largest employer of women, and globally women represent 46 per cent of the public sector workforce compared with 33 per cent in the private sector (Mukhtarova et al, 2021). Data from the International Labour Organization (ILO) show that in 2019, in 78 of an available sample of 96 advanced and developing economies, the share of women working in the public sector is higher than in the private sector. This pattern may be explained by the size of public budgets in healthcare and the gendered division of labour. Globally, women make up to over 70 per cent of workers in the health sector, predominantly as nurses and midwives. As figure 3.6 demonstrates, women can be considered overrepresented in healthcare and education sectors while the same cannot be Figure 3.6: Female participation in construction and civil engineering, education and human health sectors, by income group, 2019 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% LMICsUPMICsHICsLMICs UPMICs HICs LMICsUPMICsHICs Construction and civil engineering EducationHealth Note: LMIC = lower-middle-income country; UMIC = upper-middle-income country; HIC = high-income country. Given lack of data, lowincome countries are not included Source: Own elaboration based on International Labour Organization. Classification as per WB (2022) 54 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT said for construction and manufacturing sectors. The latter sector can be considered better renumerated and less subject to fiscal budgetary cuts. Both of these factors – the gendered division of labour and the lower rate of pay in womendominated sectors – serve to disadvantage women. Given the fact that the public sector is a key employer of women, austerity measures as well as constraints of public budgets are detrimental to female employment. While employment losses caused by public expenditure cuts in areas dominated by women – like healthcare – are an obvious concern, the lack of public investment in the healthcare system curbs job opportunitycreation, which therefore affects mostly female workers. Supporting the public health system brings double benefits for women: as citizens, they would have better healthcare conditions, and as employees, higher employment opportunities. This, in turn, is associated with gains in development (Bargawi and Cozzi, 2017). 5. A feminist debt agenda is a development agenda To build a feminist agenda on debt, it is crucial to rethink the prevailing growth model reliant on external debt, especially from private creditors who offer worse borrowing conditions for developing countries when compared to multilateral and official lenders. A debtled growth model makes developing countries fragile to external shocks, which in turn worsens gender inequalities. During the debt acquisition phase, increasing debt burdens limit social progress as debt service payments compete with scarce fiscal expenditure for health, education, social assistance and infrastructure investment – areas where public expenditure is essential to improve the socioeconomic condition of women. During the austerity phase, hardearned improvements in social expenditure tend to be undone, directly and indirectly increasing gender inequality through women’s vulnerability to reduced social provision, social protection and employment opportunities. This in turn undermines development. Supporting developing countries to get out of debtled growth and expand fiscal space for gender equalityboosting development requires an alternative approach to debt sustainability that can account for social and economic goals, putting human rights at the forefront of this discussion. The UN Human Rights Council has advanced towards this goal by setting up ‘Guiding principles on human rights impact assessments of economic reforms’, as presented by the UN Independent Expert on debt and human rights in 2018 (Independent Expert, 2018), and with following an adopted resolution (Human Rights Council, 2019) which emphasizes the need to consider debt issues to respect human rights. Part of this shift also requires a new approach to debt sustainability assessments that better bridge creditor and debtor needs and commitments, from DEBT, DEVELOPMENT AND GENDER 55 an evaluation of shortterm flexibility in meeting domestic and foreign claims of creditors to one where more flexibility into servicing debts is introduced, without sacrificing longterm development objectives (Kregel, 2007). In an effort to contribute to this shift, UNCTAD has developed the Sustainable Development Finance Assessment (SDFA) framework for policy makers of developing countries with explicit focus on the achievement of basic development goals and structural development. The UNCTAD SDFA aims at assessing a country’s development finance needs to achieve structural transformation through the first four SDGs (mentioned earlier) while at the same time ensuring the sustainability of the external and public sector financial positions (Hawkins and Prates, 2021). This framework incorporates sustainable development finance as a whole, considering all sources of external financing, that is, foreign direct investment (FDI), foreign portfolio investment, remittances and external debt (both public and private). Its objective is to underline that there are a range of policy options to maintain external financial and public sector sustainability while also achieving the SDGs, with the SDFA framework allowing the assessment of these options (UNCTAD, 2022). A seachange in debt sustainability analysis that allows for, rather than sacrifices, development is needed. Debt sustainability is linked to the perceived fragility of developing countries and their ability to withstand external shocks. Strategies to scale up development finance need to minimize the exposure to external shocks, crossborder capital flows and external debt service burdens (UNCTAD, 2019). This in turn requires the rekindling of multilateralism to boost official development assistance, the staunching of illicit financial flows and a redesigned international financial architecture where developing countries have access to affordable debt and timely and orderly debt workouts. Such an approach to debt sustainability upholds gender equality as part of a development agenda which ensures public finances deliver necessary public services. Without this, a feminist development agenda will remain elusive. Acknowledgements We are grateful for the helpful comments provided by Gary Dymski and Katie GalloglySwan on earlier drafts of this chapter. The views expressed here are our own and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNCTAD. Notes 1 General Assembly resolution 1710 (XVI), ‘‘United Nations Decade – A programme for international economic cooperation’’, A/ RES/ 1710(XVI) paragraph 2 (19 December 1961), available from undocs.org/ en/ A/ RES/ 1710(XVI). 2 For more about this debate, see Fajardo (2022). 56 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT 3 Braunstein et al do not explicitly consider the role of debt in their analysis of growth. 4 From 2000 and 2020, the increase was from US$644 to US$2,399 billion for lowermiddleincome countries, and from US$1,180 to US$4,127 billion for uppermiddleincome countries. 5 Increased from US$79 billion to US$166 billion between 2000 and 2020. 6 UNCTAD II (1968) adopted resolution 27(II), entitled ‘‘Growth, Development Finance and Aid’’, considered a supplementary target for net ODA of 0.75 per cent of the gross national product (GNP) of developed countries in addition to an overall target of financial resource transfers ‘‘of a minimum net amount of 1 per cent of the GNP’’. UNCTAD II was instrumental in putting development finance and ODA on the international agenda. In 1970, UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution 2626 (XXV, § 43) adopted a 0.7 per cent of GNP target for ODA, changed to a 0.7 per cent of GNI target in 1993. 7 Authors’ own calculation based on WB International Debt Statistics and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Creditor Reporting System (CRS). 8 A full listing is available here: https:// unc tad.org/ topic/ leastdevelo pedcountr ies/ list References Andresen, M.E. and Havnes, T. (2019) ‘Childcare, parental labor supply and tax revenue’, Labour Economics, 61: 101762. Bargawi, H. and Cozzi, G. (2017) ‘Engendering economic recovery: modelling alternatives to austerity in Europe’, Feminist Economics, 23(4): 225– 49. Braunstein, E.; Seguino, S. and Altringer, L. 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(2022). ‘Experiences of women while availing services in the private healthcare system of India’, Oxfam [online] 26 May, Available from: https:// www.oxf amin dia.org/ gender priv atis atio nhea lth DEBT, DEVELOPMENT AND GENDER 59 Thévenon, O. (2013) ‘Drivers of female labour force participation in the OECD’, OECD [online] 23 May, Available from: https:// www.oecdilibr ary.org/ soc ialiss uesmigrat ionhea lth/ driv er soffem alelab ourforcepartic ipat ionintheoecd_ 5 k46c vrgn ms6en UNCTAD (2019) ‘Current challenges to developing country debt sustainability’, Available from: https:// unc tad.org/ sys tem/ files/ offic ialdocum ent/ gds20 18d2 _ en.pdf. UNCTAD (2020) ‘Topsy turvy world: Net transfer of resources from poor to rich countries’ (Policy Brief No 78, May). Available from: https:// unc tad.org/ publ icat ion/ topsyturvyworldnettrans ferresour cespoorrichcountr ies UNCTAD (2022) ‘Sustainable Development Finance Assessment (SDFA) Framework: linking debt sustainability to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda’, UNCTAD DA COVID19 Project Paper 16/ 22 [online] 29 November, Available from: https:// mobil izin gdev fina nce.org/ resea rchmater ial/ unc tadsust aina bledeve lopm entfina nceass essm entsdfaframew orklink ingdebt WHO (2017) ‘Least developed countries health and WHO: Country presence profile’, [online], Available from: https:// apps.who.int/ iris/ han dle/ 10665/ 255 802 WHO (2020) ‘Global monitoring report on financial protection in health 2019’, [online] 13 April, Available from: https:// www.who.int/ publi cati ons/ i/ item/ 978924 0003 958 WHO (2021) ‘WHO country presence in least developed countries (LDCs)’, Available from: https:// apps.who.int/ iris/ bitstr eam/ han dle/ 10665/ 344 255/ 978924 0033 412eng.pdf?seque nce= 1&isAllo wed= y WHO (2023) ‘Maternal mortality fact sheet’, [online] 19 September, Available from: https:// www.who.int/ newsroom/ f actshe ets/ det ail/ mater nalmortal ity World Bank (2022) ‘International debt report 2022: Updated international debt statistics’, Washington DC: World Bank Group [online], Available from: https:// openkn owle dge.worldb ank.org/ han dle/ 10986/ 38045 66 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT their lack of owned land or property. In this context, ‘women and girls face increased vulnerabilities to all forms of genderbased violence, including conflictrelated sexual violence, human trafficking, child marriage, and other forms of violence’ (UN Women, 2022). Evidence also suggests that climate displacement disproportionately affects women and girls in the Global South (Care, 2020). Not only are girls more likely to be taken out of school to support household duties, if the situation deteriorates, some families might ‘feel they have no choice but to give their daughters away for early marriage, often resulting in early pregnancy’ (Action Aid, 2022). In fact, about 12 million more young girls are thought to have been married off after environmental hazards and weatherrelated catastrophes have been shown to increase sex trafficking by 20 to 30 per cent (Harvey, 2020). Environmental degradation and natural resources scarcity linked to climate breakdown amplify gender inequalities and violence against women and girls (Castañeda Camey et al, 2020). Genderbased violence is increasingly being inflicted on female climate refugees who face extortion, exploitation, rape, sexual harassment, survival sex, forced marriage and human trafficking in transit and/ or in destination countries (Harvey, 2020). In the context of overindebted countries, the lack of fiscal resources makes governments less capable of providing adequate support and shelter for women after a climate event, to secure services for gender violence survivors, or to put policies in place to protect girls from early marriages and trafficking, among other policies to reduce gender violence (Bohoslavsky, 2019). Finally, climate change and its impacts, and environmental degradation, also have differential gender health effects. These can exacerbate women’s and girls’ undernutrition and exposure to diseases such as malaria or anaemia, and negatively impact in accessing health care services, aggravating existing gender gaps and damaging sexual and reproductive health and rights (UN, 2022a). This adds to the impacts of debt distress on public health systems and, consequently, on women’s health and reproductive rights. According to UNICEF, ‘even before the current crisis, one fifth of LMICs spent more on debt service than on education, health and social protection combined’, and increasing debt burdens threaten ‘to crowd out social spending still further’ (UNICEF, 2021). All while at least half of the world’s population still do not have access to essential health services and only half of women in developing countries receive the recommended amount of maternal and reproductive health care (UN, 2020). In conclusion, climate change, as well as debt crises, act as multipliers of existing intersectional genderbased inequalities. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, ‘climate change impacts can be gendered as a result of customary roles in society, such as triple workloads for women (that is, economic labour, household and family labour, and duties of community DEBT AND CLIMATE CHANGE: TWIN CRISES 67 participation)’ (IPCC, 2022). By carrying out climate adaptation measures and diverting their time away from other priorities, women increase their nonpaid domestic and care workload. This increased burden also acts as a barrier to them engaging in community participation and political decision making on measures that directly affect them. Various United Nations (UN) agencies have highlighted that women and men can have different solutions to addressing the same climate impact and these responses can impose higher costs and negative consequences for specific groups, shifting exposure and vulnerability (IPCC, 2022). However, when engaging women in defining solutions, it results in better outcomes for all parts of a community (Achampong, 2022b). Which is why it is crucial that women are involved in decision making, project development and policy implementation processes. Yet, multiple barriers exist for women, including female exclusion norms in society on including women within decision and policy making. This forced removal of their political agency means women’s knowledge and experiences are missing from decision making, which is exacerbated in the context of increasing climate impacts. 5. Debt and climate finance architecture: unfit for purpose The debt architecture and climate finance architecture are not fit for purpose to address the compounded impacts of the twin debt and climate crises on women. The continued absence of a multilateral debt resolution framework that ensures a systematic, rulesbased and timely approach to orderly, fair, transparent and durable sovereign debt crisis resolution is a persisting gap in the international financial architecture (Perera, 2019). Against this backdrop, in 2020 the G20 approved two initiatives to address the debt problems arising from the COVID19 shock. The Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), providing temporary debt payment moratoria to a limited number of countries, and the Common Framework (CF), aspiring to deliver on timely and comprehensive debt treatment for countries with unsustainable debt levels. However, they have proved to be insufficient and inadequate, particularly for climate vulnerable countries and from a development and people’s rights approach. Both initiatives are limited to a list of 73 countries, leaving out quite a number of middleincome countries, both in critical debt situations and very vulnerable to climate impacts. Furthermore, the participation of private creditors in both initiatives is voluntary, and the DSSI experience casts doubts on the capacity of the IMF or the G20 to enforce private sector participation in any debt restructuring or cancellation. Within today’s debt architecture, the only way to ensure participation of private creditors in debt resolution is to stop paying them. However, countries that default on their debt payments risk legal action from private creditors, 68 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT particularly for debt issued under New York or London law. Thus it is crucial to ensure there is adequate finance and legislation to protect defaulting countries against uncollaborative creditors. The uncertainties and lack of clarity regarding the implementation of the CF remains high. Furthermore, participation in the CF is conditional on having an IMF programme. As outlined earlier, such programmes can become a Trojan horse to impose further gendered austerity measures, threatening women’s rights and increasing gender inequalities. This is also because debt restructurings are based on the IMF and World Bank debt sustainability analysis, which determines how much debt is sustainable for a country. However, the preeminent approach to debt sustainability is fairly limited to that of capacity of payment, regardless of the resources available to invest in social protection, public services, gender equality or climate resilience. A new approach to debt sustainability should consider the impact of a country’s debt burden on its ability to meet its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to fight climate change and to create the conditions for the realization of all universal human rights, including women’s rights, overcoming the gender blindness of the existing debt sustainability analysis. In conclusion, the current international financial architecture does not offer an optimal framework or guarantees for a fair, lasting, comprehensive and timely resolution to the debt challenges. Nor does it offer an appropriate approach to debt restructurings considering the climate and gender equality challenges. In parallel, the current climate finance architecture also comes with important challenges to deliver fair and gender just responses. It is a complex and diverse system of different state and nonstate stakeholders very much affected by global economic conditions, such as high inflation, price changes and economic shocks caused by global upheavals. This architecture draws on the development finance model to source solutions, to fill the quantity and quality gap on climate finance. Unfortunately, this has led to the proliferation of lending in development finance to be replicated in climate finance, as 70 per cent of public climate finance in 2020 was delivered in the form of loans (OECD, 2022). Furthermore, public climate finance flows amounted in 2020 to US$68.3 billion, falling short of the existing global, annual US$100 billion climate finance goal, which the OECD predicted would not be met until 2023 (OECD, 2022). Moreover, EURODAD calculations based on OECD data show that the inability to meet the yearly US$100 billion goal has left developing countries at a deficit of US$381.6 billion in bilateral public climate finance and multilateral public climate finance attributable to developed countries between 2013 and 2020 (Achampong, 2022a). In this bleak context of insufficient responses and inadequate debt and climate finance architecture, numerous voices have been pointing at climate for debt swaps as a possible innovative solution. Debtforclimate swaps DEBT AND CLIMATE CHANGE: TWIN CRISES 69 (where liberated funds are invested in climate adaptation and mitigation measures) or debtfornature swaps (where funds are invested in conservation goals) are seen by some as ‘winwin’ solutions that could both relieve some of a country’s debt burden and free up resources at a national level to address the climate crisis. However, historical experience tells us that debt swaps have not been efficient when it comes to reducing debt significantly, particularly in cases of unsustainable debt levels. While welldesigned debt swaps can free up resources for climate resilience investments, there are risks and challenges that should be taken into consideration. For instance, debtor governments can face challenges in mobilizing counterpart resources, particularly if they were unable to repay the original debt in the first place. Traditionally, debt swaps also have high transaction costs and negotiating debt swaps tends to be a lengthy process. When promoting debt swaps, country ownership should always be protected, avoiding any kind of conditionality or tied aid imposed by the donor. People’s rights, including indigenous and other communities’ ancestral rights over land use or use of resources, should be guaranteed. For instance, as Andre Standing has argued, ‘debt swaps can come with a wider set of obligations, including the privatization of fishing rights, advancing blue carbon trading, expanding high end ecotourism and commercial fish farming. These are policies that smallscale fishing communities have often opposed’ (Standing, 2022). To avoid such risks, civil society participation should be a key element in debt swaps, including by women’s and gender minority groups, but in many cases this hasn’t been the case. Finally, climatefordebt swaps should be additional to aid and climate finance commitments. In summary, while progress on debt swaps could help to free up resources for investment needs if well defined, with civil society and women’s participation and substantially scaled up, it should not be seen as a solution for unsustainable debts nor as a substitute for climate finance commitments. The need for adequate and accessible climate finance and finance to address loss and damage that does not exacerbate existing debt problems is vital for countries in the Global South. This was further echoed at COP27, where countries expressed ‘deep concern regarding the significant financial costs associated with loss and damage for developing countries, resulting in a growing debt burden and impairing the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals’ (UNFCCC, 2022b). Also, the possibility of automatic debt payments’ standstills in the aftermath of a climate extreme event would ease the hardship of highly indebted countries when being hit by climate change. Barbados, for instance, is already including climate clauses to its debt issuance to enable a debt service suspension (Cleary Gottlieb, 2020). Lenders such as the InterAmerican Development Bank and the government of the United Kingdom are also exploring this option (Wailhe, 2019; UK Export Finance, 2022). 70 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT Moreover, despite the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) recommending that climate finance providers ‘improve tracking and reporting on genderrelated aspects of climate finance, impact measuring and mainstreaming’, data gaps remain (UNFCCC, 2018). Climate finance reporting tables used under the Paris Agreement do not include space for gender to be tracked, but countries may on a voluntary basis include such data under ‘additional information’ (UNFCCC, 2022a). As we have seen, climate change affects members of communities in different ways, so understanding the gender responsiveness of climate finance is essential to knowing if the differing needs and rights of women, girls and nongendered communities are adequately being accounted for and addressed in climate action (Achampong, 2022a). 6. Exploiting natural resources to repay debts With high levels of debt, and in a context of increasing energy and commodity prices, countries in the Global South have been exploiting their natural resources – including fossil fuels, mining or forests – in order to increase exports and use the revenue in foreign currency to repay increasing debts. We have recently seen, for instance, how countries like Suriname are being pushed by its private creditors to pursue future oil extraction in order to be able to repay its debts (Maki, 2022). Several Pacific Island states are already expanding their mining activities in the face of increasing debts. And in the case of Chad, the country has been denied debt relief on the account of increasing oil prices, and therefore the assumption that oil exploitation needs to be continued or even increased. Some countries can even find themselves in a debtfossil fuel production trap. According to Debt Justice, ‘countries rely on fossil fuel revenues to repay debt, anticipated revenues from fossil fuels are often overinflated and require huge investments to reach expected returns, leading to further debt alongside the environmental and human harms caused by such projects’ (Woolfenden, 2022b). When countries turn to increased exploitation of natural resources, women tend to be more impacted; given, for example, the predominant role they play in firewood collection and engagement in forestry value chains as a supplement to their household income (FAO, 2014). In the end, intensifying the exploitation of natural resources to repay public debts will eventually increase climate vulnerabilities, by generating desertification, soil degradation and an increase in carbon emissions. It also exacerbates the countries’ dependency on commodities, together with the additional debt vulnerabilities that this may bring, as the infrastructures needed are usually debt financed. In many of these cases, the exploitation of natural resources is encouraged by international financial institutions, donors and creditors. According to a report by ActionAid USA and the Bretton Woods Project, in DEBT AND CLIMATE CHANGE: TWIN CRISES 71 over half of IMF’s 105 member countries, IMF policy advice had endorsed, or directly supported, the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure between when the Paris Agreement was signed in December 2015 and March 2021, despite the urgent need to reduce emissions (Sward et al, 2021). A striking example of this is the IMF push for Argentina to exploit its oil and gas reserves in Vaca Muerta in order to reduce its reliance on expensive energy imports and increase their fiscal capacity to be able to repay its debts. ‘Such incentives for fossil fuel expansion contradict the IMF’s advertised climate orientation that centres on aiding countries phasing out of fossil fuel usage’ (Stubbs and Kentikelenis, 2022). Overconsumption of fossil fuels, particularly in the Global North, spurs this dynamic. The hegemony of the Global North distorts the domestic economic priorities of Global South countries, and the extraction of resources to fuel industrialization in the Global North has been a recurring tool to maintain hegemony. Studies on spatial inequality and economic justice show that the economic prowess of richer economies influences other countries’ macroeconomic policies (McKay and Perge, 2015). Specifically, in some cases the higher consumption rates of richer countries affects what poorer countries choose to produce and export (Felipe et al, 2014), which in turn contributes to creating the poor environmental and social conditions under which production is carried out. There is a clear colonial mindset of decarbonizing Global North countries by shifting its fossil fuel infrastructure to developing countries and extracting the resources necessary for building renewable energy infrastructure from the Global South. All in order to maintain the status quo of energy and overall consumption levels in the North, enabling intergenerational wealth accumulation in the Global North and intergenerational inequity in the Global South. Such strategies are actively promoted by multilateral development banks such as the World Bank (World Bank, 2020). This externalization of impacts, often argued for by the need to increase revenue to repay existing debts, not only distorts global power dynamics, but it also increases the risk of severe climate impacts in the Global South, which as we have seen are strongly gendered. 7. How to address the debt and climate crises in a comprehensive, systemic and feminist way The world today faces several gamechanging challenges, among which the climate emergency and the rise of new debt crises stand out. As we have seen in previous sections, the intersection of climate change and debt emergencies has resulted in pervasive inequalities, particularly exacerbating gender inequalities. As evidenced, the twin debt and climate crises have a cumulative impact on communities and families, which can be particularly 72 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT devastating for women that experience intersecting inequalities based on class, ‘race’, ethnicity, caste and age . The use of austerity measures and fiscal consolidation to contain debt is affecting the range and quality of public services, increasing unpaid work, and exposing women and gender minorities to more physical climate change and financial vulnerabilities than their male counterparts. These dynamics are made worse by an unfit debt and climate finance architecture that is illequipped to provide fair and lasting solutions to the current twin debt and climate crises. The interplay of these phenomena is putting at risk the fulfilment and advancement of women’s human rights and towards gender justice in the world, particularly in the Global South, and impacting the Global South journey to sustainable development. The international community has so far failed to provide adequate support for Global South countries to be able to deal with the dual and compounded impacts of the climate and debt crises. The unwillingness of Global North countries to reform the existing international financial architecture and to fulfil their climate finance and development assistance commitments are at the core of this failure. By endorsing the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) on the climate crisis, but not fulfilling the climate finance commitments, countries in the Global North are showing that there is no real acknowledgement of the responsibility they have for climate change. They fail to acknowledge the climate debt that the Global North has with the Global South due to their disproportionate contribution to carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions (Callahan and Mankin, 2022). However, the core of the problem is the persisting neocolonial and patriarchal economic dynamics and the fossil fuels and growth obsessions of the capitalist system. Maintaining the current dependency and exploitation of fossil fuels, far from resulting in sustainable development, is a recipe for longterm economic catastrophe, social and environmental disaster, and the exacerbation of existing poverty and inequalities. A fundamental shift in the global economy towards a new model that puts care and people’s rights at the centre, respecting the material and natural limits of the planet and atmosphere, is imperative to avoid further climate change. Furthermore, sustainable development is under threat from the disastrous implications of the climate emergency, dwindling natural resources, changing ecosystems and environmental hazards. A fair response to the multiple crises in the Global South should also address the recognition of climate and other ecological, social and historical debts that countries in the Global North have with them. A debt that started with slavery and colonialism, but that continued with neocolonial resource pillage and unfair trade, financial and political relations that have lasted for centuries. In this historical context, responses to the climate and debt crises should start with the recognition and reparations for climate and ecological debt. DEBT AND CLIMATE CHANGE: TWIN CRISES 73 Global North countries, which have historically contributed the most to climate change, need to live up to their commitments in relation to climate action, which are not completed unless they also contribute with financial support to help address the climate impacts they have caused in Global South countries. Doing so is a reparation for causing irrevocable climate change. In this sense, climate finance represents a redistribution of resources between countries to address historical unequal responsibilities for current ongoing climate change (Achampong, 2022a). Climate finance commitments and debt cancellation should be part of a wider set of structural and financial reparations that should also include ecological restoration, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, ending extractivism and shifting to decarbonized modes of production, distribution and consumption. Beyond the profound change that we need to see in the world and economic system in order to redress the climate emergency and the unsustainable debt accumulation, there is an urgent need to reform the international financial architecture and climate finance architecture. Such reforms should address the need for a fair, transparent and multilateral framework for debt crisis resolution that includes unsustainable and illegitimate debt, under the auspices of the UN and not in lenderdominated arenas. This should include the delivery of unconditional debt cancellation for climate vulnerable countries and other nations in need and a new approach to debt sustainability, but also of equitable, high quality and new and additional climate finance that contributes to sustainable development in developing countries in the Global South. The entire climate finance architecture needs to be reframed to focus not on investments and cost, but on ownership, debt sustainability, economicallyjust climate finance flows, transparency and accountability. Finance to address loss and damage, and an automatic mechanism to halt debt payments in the wake of climate extreme events, must also be enacted. Unconditional debt cancellation and effective climate finance flows can be an opportunity to move away from development models that have prioritized growth, industrialization, trade and the interests of development finance providers. Particularly if social structures that facilitate equal access to finance, decision making and policy development and implementation are available. References Abed, D. and Kelleher, F. (2022) ‘The assault of austerity. How prevailing economic policy choices are a form of genderbased violence’ Oxfam [online] 21 November, Available from: https:// www.oxfam.org/ en/ resea rch/ assa ultauster ity Achampong, L. (2022a) ‘Efficient, Equitable and Effective HighQuality Climate Finance: Recommendations for the Post2025 Global Climate Finance Goal’, Eurodad [online] 12 August, Available from: https:// www.euro dad.org/ ncqg_ 2 022 74 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT Achampong, L. (2022b) ‘How lessons from development finance can strengthen climate finance’, in C. Cash and L. Swatuk (eds), The Political Economy of Climate Finance: Lessons from International Development, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 21– 44. Action Aid (2022) Climate Change and Gender, [online] 27 September, Available from: https:// www.action aid.org.uk/ ourwork/ emer genc iesdisast ershuman itar ianrespo nse/ clim atecha ngeandgen der Bohoslavsky, J.P. (2019) ‘The impact of economic reforms and austerity measures on women’s human rights’, Center for Women’s Global Leadership – OHCHR, Available from: https:// www.ohchr.org/ Docume nts/ Iss ues/ Deve lopm ent/ IED ebt/ Wom enAu ster ity/ UserF rien dlyV ersi onRe port _ EN.pdf Callahan, C.W. and Mankin, J.S. (2022) ‘National attribution of historical climate damages’, Climatic Change, 172(40): https:// link.sprin ger.com/ arti cle/ 10.1007/ s10 58402203387y Care (2020) ‘Evicted by climate change. Confronting the gendered impacts of climateinduced displacement’, [online] 6 July, Available from: https:// carecl imat echa nge.org/ evic tedbyclim atecha nge/ Care (2022) ‘Food security and gender equality: A synergistic understudied symphony’, Care Evaluations [online] 27 July, Available from: https:// www.care eval uati ons.org/ eva luat ion/ foodsecur ityandgen derequal ity/ Castañeda Camey, I.; Sabater, L.; Owren, C. and Boyer, A.E. (2020) Genderbased Violence and Environment Linkages. The Violence of Inequality, Gland, Switzerland: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Available from: https:// port als.iucn.org/ libr ary/ node/ 48969 Chamon, M.D., Klok, E., Thakoor, V.V. and Zettelmeyer, J. (2022) ‘DebtforClimate Swaps: Analysis, Design, and Implementation’ (No. 2022/ 162), International Monetary Fund [online] 12 August, Available from:https:// www.imf.org/ en/ Publi cati ons/ WP/ Iss ues/ 2022/ 08/ 11/ DebtforClim ateSwapsAnaly sisDes ignandImp leme ntat ion522 184 Cleary, G. (2020) ‘Government of Barbados in $774 million external debt restructuring’, Cleary Gottlieb News [online] 21 January, Available from: https:// www.cle aryg ottl ieb.com/ newsandinsig hts/ newslist ing/ gov ernm entofbarba dosin774mill ionexter naldebtrestru ctur ing DRGR (2020) ‘PM Mia Mottley’s Keynote at the launch of the report “Debt Relief for a Green and Inclusive Recovery” ’, Debt Relief for Green and Inclusive Recovery (DRGR) [online] 18 November, Available from: https:// drgr.org/ 2020/ 11/ 18/ pmmiamottl eysspe echatthelau nchoftherep ort/ FAO (2014) ‘Women in forestry: Challenges and opportunities’ (I3924E/ 1/ 07.14), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Available from: https:// www.fao.org/ 3/ i39 24e/ i39 24e.pdf DEBT AND CLIMATE CHANGE: TWIN CRISES 75 Felipe, J.; Kumar, U. and Abdon, A. (2014) ‘How rich countries became rich and why poor countries remain poor: It’s the economic structure … duh!’, Japan and the World Economy, 29: 46– 58. Fresnillo, I. (2020) ‘Out of service: How public services and human rights are being threatened by the growing debt crisis’, Eurodad [online] 17 February, Available from: https:// www.euro dad.org/ outof serv ice Fresnillo, I. and Crotti, I. (2022) ‘Riders on the storm— How debt and climate change are threatening the future of small island developing states’, Eurodad [online] 11 October, Available from: https:// www.euro dad.org/ debt_ in_ s ids Ghosh, J. (2021) Gender Concerns in Debt Relief, London: IIED, Available from:https:// www.iied.org/ sites/ defa ult/ files/ pdfs/ 202112/ 20691i ied.pdf Harvey, F. (2020) ‘Climate breakdown “is increasing violence against women” ’, The Guardian [online] 29 January, Available from:https:// www. theg uard ian.com/ envi ronm ent/ 2020/ jan/ 29/ clim atebreakd ownisinc reas ingviole nceagai nstwomen ILO (2016) ‘Women at Work: Trends 2016’, International Labour Organization [online] 8 March, Available from:https:// www.ilo.org/ gen der/ Infor mati onre sour ces/ Publi cati ons/ WCMS _ 457 317/ lang- - en/ index.htm IPCC (2022) ‘Climate change 2022: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability’. IPCC Working Group II [online], Available from: https:// www.ipcc.ch/ rep ort/ ar6/ wg2/ Jensen, L. (2022) ‘Avoiding “Too Little Too Late” on International Debt Relief’ (Development Future Series Working Papers), United Nations Development Program (UNDP) [ResearchDiscussion Papers] 11 October, Available from: https:// www.undp.org/ publi cati ons/ dfsavoid ingtoolit tletoolateintern atio naldebtrel ief Keeling, A. (2022) ‘Subsidizing global health: Women’s unpaid work in health systems’, Women in Global Health [Policy Report], Available from: https:// womeni ngh.org/ ouradvoc acy/ paywo men/ Maki, S. (2022) ‘Suriname stranded in default as bondholders ogle oil royalties’, Bloomberg [online] 25 July, Available from: https:// www.bloomb erg.com/ news/ artic les/ 20220725/ oildre amsquashdebtdealprog r essaftersurin amesdefa ult McKay, A. and Perge, E. (2015) ‘Spatial inequality and its implications for growth – poverty reduction relations’, in Andrew McKay and Erik Thorbecke (eds), Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in SubSaharan Africa: Current and Emerging Issues, Oxford: Oxford Academic, pp 197– 226, Available from: https:// doi.org/ 10.1093/ acp rof:oso/ 978019 8728 450.003.0007 82 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT and creditors. In section 3, the specific obligations resulting from the earlierdescribed principles are explained, and in section 4 conclusions are offered. 2. International and regional standards General legal framework The development of human rights – mainly economic, social and cultural ones (ESCR) – largely depends on the availability of material resources. Due to the indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights, the availability (or shortage) of resources in turn affects the right to equality and genderbased nondiscrimination in its formal and substantive dimensions (Aldao and Clérico, 2022). Economic policies (including public debt management) may have a deep and longlasting effect on the effective guarantee of all rights, for instance, through the strengthening or weakening of the fiscal space to deploy efficient social policies so as to reverse situations of vulnerability of certain groups of people, which has an impact on the increase or decrease of poverty and inequality levels, and differential effects based on ‘race’, ethnicity, social position, age, national origin, gender and sexual orientation, which are aggravated when those factors are combined and/ or accumulated. In this respect, it is important to consider that, in the field of the economy and human rights, both States and their creditors have international and regional obligations that will be identified and systematized in the following sections. It is worth mentioning that the approach presented in this document is not limited to the strict relation between ‘debt and human rights’, comprising not only the usual financial aspects of loan contracts, but also the broad and growing variety of conditionalities that International Financial Institutions (IFIs), especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (see chapters 9, 10 and 11), usually add to loans, including aspects of fiscal, budgeting, monetary, tax, exchange rate, social, labour, gender and environmental policies (Stubbs and Kentikelenis, 2021). Principles related to borrower States The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees the right not to be discriminated against (Article 2), which was later broadened and specified in the two International Covenants of the international system. In the InterAmerican system, both the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR) and its Additional Protocol of ESCR expressly prohibit discrimination based on sex (Articles 1 and 3, respectively), to which was later added discrimination based on gender, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation (OC24/ 17 on gender identity, p 35). This includes LEGAL STANDARDS ON DEBT AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS 83 equal access to a group of human rights. The InterAmerican Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women guarantees the full exercise of all rights without violence. Moreover, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) requires States to adopt by all appropriate means and without delay a policy towards eliminating discrimination against women (Articles 2 and 3). The CEDAW Committee, which monitors the compliance of this convention, has addressed on several occasions the danger implied by the economic reforms that adopt policies contrary to gender equality. A mapping of the situation shows that globalized macroeconomic and political factors, including the privatization of public assets, the unregulated labour markets, the shrinkage of the welfare state, and the austerity measures that are part of policies of structural adjustment and that are required as a condition of loans, often worsen unemployment and poverty, and result in economically unfair situations that disproportionally affect women. These fiscal contraction policies severely erode the capacity of States to execute social policies that can be used as a basis to eliminate structural inequalities, including gender inequality and violations of women’s human rights in different areas (CEDAW Committee 2020: paragraph 3). Based on this, when making its Final Observations on Ecuador in 2021, this body noted with concern ‘that the austerity measures adopted by the State party in an effort to consolidate public finances have had a disproportionate impact on women in all spheres of life’ (paragraph 9). The Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action of 1995 already proposed an economic agenda of reforms from a feminist perspective. One of its most important strategic goals was to adopt macroeconomic policies and development strategies focused on women and it included a series of specific measures to reduce poverty and economic inequality. Some of those measures targeted multilateral financial and development institutions, including the World Bank, the IMF, and regional development institutions, and others targeted bilateral cooperation (point 59). Furthermore, the recent position document of the XV Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean (2022), the main intergovernmental forum on women’s rights and gender equality in Latin America, emphasizes that the high level of indebtedness of countries is part of the trend towards the financialization of economies, which is translated into the growing indebtedness of people and particularly women, which is called ‘feminization of debt’ (ECLAC, 2022b: 151). It is worth mentioning that in order to achieve sustainable and inclusive development, gender inequality is one of the most important gaps that must be closed, and that the care economy is essential to boost growth dynamics, reduce gender inequalities and facilitate the incorporation of women in the labour market (ECLAC, 2022b: 13). 84 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT Based on this integrated regulatory framework, international human rights law has been developing and consolidating legal standards specifically in terms of economic policies, public debt and its potential impact on human rights. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) sets forth that States shall allocate up to the maximum of their available resources to ensure the progressive development of ESCR and the continuous improvement of living conditions (Articles 2 and 11). Besides, the obligation of progressiveness results in the prohibition of regressiveness, both in terms of the regulatory scope of rights and the results of the public policies that are implemented for its fulfilment. The ACHR and the Protocol of San Salvador offer similar provisions (Articles 26 and 1, respectively). Before continuing, it is necessary to clarify two aspects of the principles recently mentioned when they are construed with a gender perspective. On the one hand, the CEDAW does not refer to the progressiveness of rights; therefore, women’s rights related to equality and nondiscrimination (even when ESCR and the availability of economic resources are at stake) shall be understood as State obligations of immediate compliance (CEDAW, 2010: paragraph 29; CESCR Committee, 2009: paragraph 13); an interpretation reinforced by the pro personae interpretative principle (Pinto, 1997). On the other hand, the standard of continuous improvement of living conditions (Article 11, ICESCR) does not exclusively refer to material aspects, but also to the extraeconomic ones, and the conditions for social reproduction is one of them (Goldblatt, 2021); or, its legal translation: the right to care (Pautassi, 2018). This right, which is key to eliminate one of the decisive factors for women’s oppression, the unfair gender division of work, has been recognized and developed in different international and regional instances, including the Beijing Platform of Action (1995), the Brasilia Consensus (2010), the InterAmerican Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons (2015), the Montevideo Strategy (2016) and, more recently, the Buenos Aires Commitment (2022). In the area of sovereign debt specifically, it is worth mentioning that the principle of debt sustainability exceeds the traditional fiscal criteria such as the ones the IMF and the World Bank use. These agencies focus on achieving a debt rate of change compatible with the expansion of the economy and fiscal resources in order to guarantee the possibility of repayment (whether cancellation takes place or not). However, the debt cannot be considered as sustainable if its repayment requires sacrificing human rights, in particular, the human rights of the most disadvantaged and discriminated social sectors, such as women. This broad principle of debt sustainability has been reflected in a number of official documents passed by political bodies of the UN system, including: the ‘Guiding principles of external debt and human rights’ (paragraphs 48 et LEGAL STANDARDS ON DEBT AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS 85 seq), approved by the Human Rights Council in 2011 (A/ HRC/ 20/ 23); the ‘Basic principles on sovereign debt restructuring processes’ (Article 8), approved by the General Assembly in 2015 (A/ 69/ L.84); and the ‘Guiding principles on human rights impact assessments of economic reforms’ (hereinafter referred to as Guiding Principles) (Article 12), approved by the Human Rights Council in 2019 (A/ HRC/ 40/ 57). It is also worth mentioning that the maximum allocation of available resources limits the options of economic policy. Measures and reforms in the economic field that have a regressive effect on human rights in general (typically, orthodox economic policies – austerity and fiscal consolidation, privatizations, exchange rate deregulation and labour flexibility, among others) and, especially, those with disproportionate effects on women’s rights, even more if there are cumulative and intersectional situations of discrimination and inequality, may be considered, prima facie, as violating the prohibition to discriminate based on gender (Independent Expert on Debt and Human Rights, 2019). In this regard, several treaty bodies have claimed that policies of fiscal adjustment and austerity measures that are often included in IFI loans have a negative and disproportionate impact on women’s rights, both ESCR and civil and political ones. In this context, it can frequently be seen how policies of fiscal adjustment have particularly severe consequences for women in terms of overload of care tasks. In this respect, it is worth mentioning that the reduction of services and social expenditure differentially impacts on women as domestic and care work is mostly done by them. This is a nodal issue because the unfair division of domestic and care work between men and women is at the centre of the discussion, and keeps and reinforces the situation of oppression and structural discrimination. The CEDAW Committee (2020) has expressed that ‘reduced social expenditure further shifts the responsibilities for basic social services from the Government to women. Those factors reinforce, and are perpetuated by, discriminatory cultural and social norms that engender the oppression of various groups of women’ (paragraph 3). In this same direction, the CESCR (2016: paragraph 2) stated that: reductions in the levels of public services or the introduction of or increase in user fees in areas such as childcare, and preschool education, public utilities and family support services have a disproportionate impact on women, and thus may amount to a step backwards in terms of gender equality. (Articles 3 and 10) Thus States have the obligation to manage their fiscal policies and to adopt economic policies, ensuring they respect, protect and enforce all human rights, including gender equality from an intersectional and intercultural 86 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT perspective (InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights – IACHR – 2017 and 2018). Resource generation and mobilization must come with coherence and consistency among economic, financial, monetary, social and gender policies (Guiding Principle 11) precisely in line with vast case law of the bodies of the international system, as well as the InterAmerican system of human rights, including the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights (ICHR) that particularly protects the rights of people in a situation of structural inequality, including women.1 However, there are economic situations where resource shortage is a fact and where an emergency may force governments to adopt measures to protect resources and assets that in the long term will be used to protect and enforce human rights, but which in the short term are adversely affected. This is typically the argument used to defend policies of fiscal austerity; sacrificing in the present for a more promising future. However, measures that may cause setbacks in the exercise of those rights are only allowed if States can show that those regressive measures are temporary, legitimate, reasonable, necessary, proportional and nondiscriminatory, that they protect the minimum content of social rights, that they are based on transparency and the genuine participation of affected groups, and that they are subject to proceedings of review and accountability (CESCR, 2007, 2012, 2016 and 2018; Guiding Principles, Article 10). This way regressive measures can be compatible with the international framework of human rights only as an exception. Principles related to creditors Both public and private creditors have international and regional obligations regarding human rights that include considerations with a gender perspective and particularly involve the field of sovereign debt. In general, IFIs are selfperceived as being above human rights. However, IFIs are not and could never be above human rights; actually, no State or nonState actor, either national or supranational, could aspire to ignore international human rights law without a negative legal consequence (Bohoslavsky and Cantamutto, 2022). Even when IFIs, under their own statutes, cannot make political considerations in the course of their duties, it would be problematic to claim that the violation of human rights may be part of ‘domestic jurisdiction’ (Article 2[7] of the United Nations Charter). In fact, although it is seldom mentioned, the IMF and the World Bank are specialized agencies of the United Nations and, therefore, they must act in accordance with the UN Charter that recognizes human rights as one of its pillars and, in case of conflict, the obligations imposed by the Charter prevail (compare Article 103). In more general terms, as international agencies, IFIs are clearly subject LEGAL STANDARDS ON DEBT AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS 87 to international law. The CESCR (2016) has highlighted that IFIs and other international organizations are ‘bound by any obligations incumbent upon them under general rules of international law, under their constitutions or under international agreements to which they are parties’. This body also specified that those organizations ‘are therefore obligated to comply with human rights, as listed in particular in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that are part of customary international law or of the general principles of law, both of which are sources of international law’ (CESCR, 2016). Moreover, the ICESCR emphasizes the obligation of the international community to cooperate with the enforcement of ESCR. This way States could not ignore their international obligations by simply creating an international organization that acts on behalf of them. From another perspective, IFIs are formed by States that are obliged to respect human rights and, therefore, they are responsible for the actions taken by the agency (CESCR, 2016). With regards to the obligations of private creditors, and under Guiding Principle 16, when negotiating transactions with States or other public entities, that kind of creditor shall not erode the capacity of States to respect, protect and comply with their obligations regarding human rights (Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, 2011). These creditors shall assess the effects of their own actions and the activities they fund on human rights and gender equality. 3. Specific obligations of debtors and creditors As results of the principles presented in the two previous subsections, here the specific obligations of creditors and debtors are described, which are not suspended in situations of debt crisis; on the contrary, they take special effect in those critical contexts precisely because the imminent threat on human rights is bigger in those extraordinary contexts. First of all, debtor States must adopt a comprehensive and gender equalityresponsive approach when addressing economic and financial policies; this obligation is also in force in situations of financial vulnerability. The CEDAW Committee (2013) recommended Greece that due to the seriousness of the situation and lack of any gendersensitive approach to the current crisis policy within the State party, the Committee recommends that all important policymakers in Greece, including the European Union institutions and the IMF, cooperate in setting up an observatory to fully evaluate the impact on women of the many measures taken during the economic and financial crisis. (CEDAW Committee, 2013: paragraph 40) 88 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT Likewise, as in times of crisis and fiscal restrictions when States often limit social benefits and services, the CEDAW Committee has emphasized the state duty to proceed precisely in the opposite direction, redirecting resources and social investment to avoid damaging and disproportionate effects on women. This body has been consistent in expressing to several countries, including Ecuador (CEDAW, 2021: paragraph 9), Italy (CEDAW, 2017: paragraph 9) and Spain (CEDAW, 2015: paragraph 8), that even in times of fiscal pressure and an economic crisis they must adopt specific initiatives to promote women’s rights, keep and extend social investment and protection, and include a gender perspective in policies and programmes, focusing on disadvantaged and marginalized groups of women, and trying to avoid regressive measures. Likewise, as regards Greece, the CEDAW (2013: paragraph 6) has said that, even in times of fiscal limitations and an economic crisis, special efforts shall be made to respect human rights, keep and extend social investment and protection and use an approach that considers gender, giving priority to women in vulnerable situations. In this context, it is worth mentioning that the principle of maximum resource allocation has a significant implication in the field of sovereign debt and human rights. First of all, it obliges all States to consider if payments made to repay the principal and interest of public debt, as well as related extra monetary commitments (conditionalities), do not negatively affect the exercise of human rights, including the prohibition to discriminate based on gender (CESCR, 1990 and 2017). How much can be paid of a debt to the detriment of other priorities directly linked to human rights, in particular, when effects are disproportionately damaging and regressive for certain social sectors, such as women? An essential subquestion in this discussion is how many available resources of the State, in other words, how much of the content of the ‘basket of resources’, is formed by variables under the domestic control of the State (Kendrick, 2017). It is not the same that the fiscal restriction comes from the unwillingness of other States to comply with the duty of international cooperation through granting debt relief due to debt insolvency if it results from the free implementation of a strategy of debt that affects rights or the implementation of regressive or ineffective tax regimes when it comes to fiscal fraud. In this respect, internal redistribution of resources shall be ensured for social inclusion and gender equality. In terms of proactive measures to be adopted in situations of economic crises and to face resource shortage, the CEDAW Committee has outlined the duty of States to make reforms that imply an internal redistribution of resources so as to avoid affecting rights and cutbacks of public expenditure in sensible areas for women’s rights. Thus it has recommended the State of Ecuador (2021) to enable an LEGAL STANDARDS ON DEBT AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS 89 internal redistribution of resources that can overcome the consequences of the financial crisis, prioritizing initiatives that foster social inclusion and gender equality. It even recommended adopting measures to correct preexisting gender inequalities that place women and girls in the centre of a recovery strategy in accordance with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, focusing on unemployed women and those living in poverty, women from ethnic minorities, indigenous women, elder women, women with disabilities, migrant women, refugee women and those requesting asylum, lesbians, bisexual women and transgender and intersex persons. Likewise, it held that Suriname shall ensure ‘ensure the internal redistribution of its national resources to overcome the consequences of budget cuts and ensure women’s access to social benefits and microfinance and microcredit schemes at low interest rates’ (CEDAW, 2018: paragraph 41; and 2017b: paragraph 38a). This redistribution obligation implies creating progressive tax regimes, that is to say, relying less on consumption taxes and more on direct taxes, and taxing the largest revenues and fortunes, as well as the effective fight against fiscal fraud. Consequently, creditors (and in particular IFIs) shall not promote – let alone request – that client States implement economic policies and measures that violate the principles of human rights of their own populations; otherwise, those creditors would incur accountability for complicity in the violation of human rights. Moreover, States shall develop budgets (that include indebtedness and repayment) with a gender perspective. In this regard, in 2018 the CESCR (2018) specified that Argentina must ‘adopt and implement the national budget while making every effort to avoid retrogressive measures, and ensure that the budget reflects a human rights and gendersensitive approach’ (paragraph C.6.d). An additional requirement of strategic importance is to carry out assessments of debt effects and conditionalities on women’s rights by governments and IFIs (Guiding Principle 15.1) so as to ensure that the capacity of the borrower State to respect, protect and comply with its obligations regarding human rights is not undermined. One of the main elements of the human rights approach is to assess if, how and to what extent economic policies affect women’s rights and the rights of LGBTIQ+ persons. Such assessment shall be carried out assuming the inherent value of gender equality and not with an instrumentalist approach to the services of purely fiscal purposes.2 Likewise, these analyses shall assume the transformative nature of economic policies, instead of a mere compensatory role considering the worsening that those policies replicate on structural gender inequalities. A related obligation consists in ensuring effective participation and access to information. Both States and IFIs must pursue the broadest national dialogue possible with the effective, timely and significant participation of all persons and groups, including the groups in a disadvantaged situation and those who 90 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT are particularly at risk of being affected by the policies to be implemented (Guiding Principle 19.1). Likewise, access to information and transparency must be ensured, as well as the access to justice and accountability (Guiding Principles 20 and 21). As to creditors specifically, the good faith participation in restructuring processes includes debt relief (such as debt forgiveness or swap, debt rescheduling, debt service reduction and late payment interest) that is necessary and proportional to ensure the provision of public services that guarantee the basic human rights of the population. 4. Concluding reflections In the last decade, international human rights law has been addressing in a more or less systematic way the impact of public indebtedness and the related conditionalities on the human rights of populations, especially in developing countries with high levels of indebtedness. Specific principles and standards have been developed and systematized, resulting from the current regulatory framework, that try to regulate the actions of States, creditors and IFIs so as to avoid and address adverse consequences in the field of human rights and debt, including from a gender perspective. Today there is a set of principles and rules of conduct that allocates responsibilities and thus shows a path to be followed, a roadmap to seriously consider human rights with a gender perspective in the field of economy in general and sovereign debt management in particular. Evidently, if the human rights approach is taken seriously, it has the potential to revert and minimize the selective and opportunistic use by financial actors of one of the most important state infrastructures: the legal system (Pistor, 2022). The international system for the protection of human rights is the most developed one in terms of legal accuracies and responsibility allocation, while the InterAmerican system is still significantly underdeveloped in the specific field of debt and human rights. This is an urgent task due to the very high levels of indebtedness after the pandemic that numerous countries of the region have, and the persistent inequalities, including gender inequalities. There exist specific duties both for debtors and creditors. For instance, regarding impact assessments of debt policy on human rights – including the differential impacts by gender and other relevant factors – and the design of genderresponsive budgeting, and the enforceability of proportional debt forgiveness in order not to excessively erode the fiscal space to the point of affecting the capacity of the State to guarantee the basic rights of the population. A pending aspect is the development of more sophisticated gender indicators in the analyses of debt sustainability that enable the promotion of solutions to debt distress and ensure the resources for an equal transformation (ECLAC, 2022b: paragraph 30). LEGAL STANDARDS ON DEBT AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS 91 Besides, States are required to redistribute internal resources through the adoption of progressive tax measures that tax the largest revenues and wealth, and not consumption. In the context of a crisis, adopting regressive measures on rights, including gender equality, will only be valid as an exception. In fact, in those extraordinary contexts, the State duty to strengthen investment in services and social and care benefits reappears, instead of cutting it as is usually the case. More widely, the mainstreaming of the gender approach in macroeconomic policies in general, including fiscal and public debt ones, is essential to prevent women from being the ones that cushion the effects of multiple crises through the intensification of unpaid domestic and care work (ECLAC, 2022b). A challenge in this field is to ensure consistency of policies (economic, social, monetary, genderbased, fiscal and so on), including the public debt policy (Guiding Principles 11.e). For that purpose, it is necessary to create and implement an expansion of the institutionalization of feminist demands toward the field of public finances that guarantees a gender perspective in this area.3 This challenge also includes imposing limits to IFIs, particularly the IMF, which with the socalled ‘gender strategy’ deepens – instead of relieves – public debt profiles that replicate inequalities against women.4 Regarding the deficit of participation of women and LGBTIQ+ persons in the processes of indebtedness and public debt management, this chapter proposes measuring such participation. The CEDAW Committee could develop an indicator to show the extent to which such participation of women and LGBTIQ+ persons is guaranteed (intention) in national legislative branches and what the actual effects (practices) of those rules are, all of which could be perfectly incorporated, and even quantified, in a ‘Gender Legislative Index’ (Vijeyarasa, 2021). Lastly, the need to build broader consensus among countries regarding specific institutional rules in the field of debt rescheduling persists; in particular, it is necessary to resume the decision the United Nations General Assembly adopted in 2015 as to the creation of a multilateral legal framework that regulates the processes of sovereign debt and makes them compatible with the obligations and international rules of human rights, including gender equality (Res. A/ RES/ 68/ 304, 09/ 09/ 2014; see Rossi, 2020). The creation of a widely agreed regime in the field of debt rescheduling constitutes, along with some other structural changes, a part of the necessary feminist reforms in the field of international financial architecture,5 and the equal transformation of societies depends on its existence. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Julieta Levín (a lawyer graduated from the University of Buenos Aires and an assistant of the course International 98 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT We would like to underscore the importance of the IMF prioritizing the adoption of a fully genderresponsive strategy which would require integrating goals and methods of work that take into account not only systemic biases and the disadvantages that they produce but also the ideologically motivated backlash against gender equality at the heart of which lies an attempt to enforce gendered roles, which are unfortunately often reinforced by gender blind economic policies. In this regard, the COVID 19 pandemic has increased the effects already observed by the Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt in the reports to the Human Rights Council and General Assembly as restriction over protection policies against genderbased violence, daily care policies, and the public health sector during the COVID pandemic response and aftermath affected women and girls directly. For example, cuts to contraceptive supplies in the public sector could increase unintended pregnancy and trigger unsafe abortion. Likewise, austerity measures that affect social housing, and shortcuts in programmes that provide shelter to escape domestic violence, exacerbate the constraints women face for autonomy. (see A/ 73/ 179). An IMF gender strategy that includes a human rights approach should recognize and address the differentiated roles of women and girls in our societies and the constraints they face because of their sex and gender. Women’s role as unpaid caretakers is reflected in the kind and quality of employment they access. Women are generally segregated to the lowerpaid jobs and the informal economy. Also, jobs that are dominated by women, like domestic workers, are largely overrepresented in the informal sector. As a result, when social insurance schemes are tied to workrelated criteria, women often do not qualify as beneficiaries; contributory pension schemes, for example, have a differentiated impact on women. In addition, consumption taxes, especially VAT, have a regressive impact on lowincome households, which often include femaleheaded households. This information should be considered when recommending tax measures, such as increases in VAT and other sales taxes, that could further shrink women’s available income and reduce their purchasing power (see A/ HRC/ 34/ 57). Therefore, as stressed by the Independent Expert in these reports, austerity measures and other restrictive policies on public expenditure affect women and girls disproportionally because of a wide range of socioeconomic reasons that could not be explained and analyzed only in terms of macroeconomic results or disparity in opportunities. Vulnerability and economic disadvantage for women are exacerbated by macroeconomic policies that increase inequalities and reduce social protection floors. This is clearly visible in periods of economic crisis, particularly when governments adopt austerity measures. Although LETTER FROM UN SPECIAL PROCEDURES TO THE IMF 99 the specific effects of crisis differ by context, the overall picture is one of disparate impact on women, with deepening economic insecurity, an increase in precarious employment and a heavier burden of unpaid care work. Nonetheless, economic crisis merely accentuates existing structural economic disadvantages for women. Therefore, addressing the crisis provides an opportunity to tackle patterns of gender inequality and discrimination entrenched in the economic status quo and shape new gender equality responses. Alternatives to austerity have been applied successfully in some countries. Grounding development priorities in women’s human rights is not only a legal and moral imperative but can also enhance effectiveness and accountability (A/ HRC/ 26/ 39). For these reasons, as stated by the Independent Expert on Foreign Debt, the IMF should ensure that loan programmes are agreed upon only after human rights with a precise gender dimension have been conducted and that any potential deficiencies are remedied; and that risks of negative impacts on women’s human rights resulting from conditionalities, are monitored, and an alternative policy mix are proposed if adverse gendered implications are identified (see A/ HRC/ 40/ 57). In the same line, the Special Rapporteur on the right to development has recently stressed that tax policy advice and conditions issued by multilateral development banks and development finance institutions to States, and in particular to developing countries, should be reviewed to take into account their impact on women’s income and work, including unpaid labour and unpaid care work, and property and assets ownership (A/ 75/ 167, para 60) and that in the framework of COVID recovery measures, the publicprivate partnerships promoted through loans, projects and other financing arrangements involving multilateral development finance institutions should be subject to independent reviews of their development outcomes, including a thorough examination of their human rights and environmental impacts (A/ 75/ 167, para 62). The Guidelines and Recommendations on the practical implementation of the right to development stress that international financial institutions should conduct systematic human rights impact assessments and monitor and evaluate their policies. In particular, human rights impact assessments should be conducted on austerity measures, structural adjustments, securities and trade and investment agreements; (A/ HRC/ 42/ 38 para 131). Furthermore, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights establishes that States should ensure the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights by using the maximum of their available resources. Likewise, the Committee on the 100 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT Elimination of Discrimination against Women has clarified that those measures should aim to accelerate the achievement of gender equality and address “the structural, social and cultural changes necessary to correct past and current forms and effects of discrimination against women, as well as to provide them with compensation”. We would like to reiterate that the IMF gender strategy should support the full enjoyment of all women and girls’ human rights. In the current context of persistent gender inequality and rollbacks which are being exacerbated by rising fundamentalisms of all kinds, coupled with political populism, unchecked authoritarian rule, disproportionate focus on corporate profits over human rights and most recently the devastating impact of the COVID19 pandemic, the IMF gender strategy should ensure that it does not contribute to further retrogressions in progress made by women and girls in the last decades. We think that our various reports briefly referenced in this letter could support your gender mainstreaming efforts. In this regard, we remain available to continue engaging with the IMF and to engage into a constructive dialogue which could support the genuine and comprehensive inclusion of women and girls’ rights in the strategy and throughout your work. In terms of the current consultation process undertaken, the IMF should ensure public access to information and ample consultation in developing the strategy. In this regard, we welcome the online consultation opened by the IMF on 10 February, but we think that the timeframe proposed might be too tight for various concerned stakeholders to provide substantive contributions, in particular if the strategy is supposed to be presented to the IMF board this spring. In addition, to guarantee transparency, accountability and meaningful and informed consultations, a draft of the gender strategy document should be made available to allow for civil society, women organizations, and other actors to participate in the process. The IMF could also establish an accountability mechanism to inform and promote the participation of women, girls and stakeholders during the development and implementation of the gender strategy. In conclusion, and without prejudging the current process that the IMF is undertaking to develop its gender strategy, according to the responsibilities of our mandates, and on the basis of the reports mentioned above, we would be grateful for your observations on the following matters: 1. Please clarify how the gender strategy will ensure that all IMF programmes will benefit from a human rights impact assessment with a precise gender dimension and that any potential deficiencies are remedied. LETTER FROM UN SPECIAL PROCEDURES TO THE IMF 101 2. Please clarify how the gender strategy will address the risks of negative impacts on women’s and girls’ human rights resulting from conditionalities, monitoring the effect of subsequent reforms and proposing an alternative policy mix if adverse gendered implications from the proposed conditionalities are identified. 3. Please clarify how the gender strategy will ensure that public investment, including in social and physical infrastructure, is guaranteed so that it supports the realization of women’s and girls’ human rights. 4. Please clarify how the gender strategy will address taxation and ensure that measures and mechanisms lead to more effective redistribution of resources between women and men. 5. Please clarify how the gender strategy establishes a transparent accountability mechanism to guarantee that the strategy is consulted, monitored, and evaluated with all interested parties’ participation. We would like to inform you that this communication will be made public via the communications reporting website after 48 hours, as well as any response received from your institution. They will also subsequently be made available in the usual report to be presented to the Human Rights Council. Please accept, Ms. Georgieva, the assurances of our highest consideration. Attiya Waris Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights Saad Alfarargi Special Rapporteur on the right to development Olivier De Schutter Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Melissa Upreti ChairRapporteur of the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls 102 7 Impact of Debt on Women’s and Girls’ Human Rights – Introduction to the 2023 Report of the UN Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls, ‘Gendered Inequalities of Poverty: Feminist and Human RightsBased Approaches’ Dorothy EstradaTanck Introduction to the UN Working Group’s work. The report in context In order to put the relevance of an official report addressing debt and women’s human rights into perspective, this short note will present what the Working Group does and its role in the international human rights protection system, a holistic understanding of poverty and inequality through a gender lens and the deep gender implications of debt. The baseline is that women and girls everywhere are still subject to significant disadvantage as the result of discriminatory laws and practices. Full equality has not been achieved in any country in the world, and several pledges to eliminate discrimination have not been fulfilled. In this context, the establishment of the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls (WGDAWG)1 by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council in 20102 was a milestone on the long road towards women’s equality with men. It is based on the recognition that while there IMPACT OF DEBT ON WOMEN’S HUMAN RIGHTS 103 have been many legal and policy reforms to integrate women’s human rights fully into domestic law over the years, progress remains insufficient. Discrimination against women and girls persists in both public and private spheres – in times of conflict and in peace. It transcends national, cultural and religious boundaries. It is often fuelled by patriarchal stereotyping and power imbalances which are mirrored in laws, policies and practices. The WGDAWG is composed of five independent experts of balanced geographical representation, working collectively as a group, and producing work in the name of the mandate.3 The Working Group, in establishing its conceptual framework and working methods, stresses that the elimination of discrimination against women in law and in practice requires a comprehensive and coherent human rightsbased approach. This approach ensures that women are at the centre of efforts to hold States accountable for implementing international standards guaranteeing civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.4 The elimination of discrimination against women and girls in all fields is addressed by the WGDAWG from the perspective of States’ obligations to respect, protect and fulfil women’s human rights. It emphasizes that national, regional and international human rights mechanisms, as well as grassroots activists, play critical roles in ensuring the full enjoyment by women and girls of their human rights. For legal guarantees to benefit all women, implementation frameworks and strategies must be responsive to the intersections of genderbased discrimination with other grounds of discrimination. Indeed, the work of the Working Group covers all women, acknowledging that women are not a uniform group. Nevertheless, there are shared aspects of discrimination against women that persist in all cultures, although with differing levels of intensity and differing impacts. Furthermore, there is a need to constantly reiterate, even within the human rights system, that women are not just another vulnerable group, as they are often treated by some. They are half of the world population and often the majority of each of the vulnerable groups, hence eliminating persistent discrimination and backlashes against women’s rights should be addressed both as a standalone goal and as a mainstreaming issue. To this end, the Working Group engages in constructive dialogue with member states, civil society stakeholders, UN entities, human rights mechanisms and different actors relevant to the realization of women’s and girls’ human rights. It does so by making full use of a common set of tools available to UN special procedures mandates, namely, communications,5 annual thematic reports6 and country visits.7 In recent years, the content of the annual thematic reports has also been displayed in an interactive, summarized and more practical and user/ childfriendly version, including graphics, in the Working Group’s microsite (in English and Spanish).8 104 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT The Working Group also holds an interactive dialogue at the Human Rights Council during the June session on its thematic and country visits reports. It reports orally to the General Assembly in October/ November and participates in the Commission on the Status of Women in March each year. Additionally, the WGDAWG undertakes other initiatives, including public statements,9 amicus briefs,10 position papers,11 participation in events12 and contributions to the work of others in the UN human rights machinery or UN entities. During 2023, the WGDAWG is Chair of the EDVAW Platform – the Platform of Independent Expert Mechanisms on the Elimination of Discrimination and Violence against Women. The EDVAW Platform was launched in March 2018. It is composed of seven UN and regional independent expert mechanisms dedicated to addressing discrimination and violence against women and girls, promoting accountability, and advancing their human rights.13 The 2023 annual thematic report of the WGDAWG builds on the previous thematic focus developed by the Working Group of advancing equality in rights and opportunities for women and girls in all areas, namely family and cultural life, economic and social life, political and public life, and safety and health, including sexual and reproductive health. It also reiterates the Working Group’s calling, made since 2018,14 for concerted efforts to counter rollbacks and the increasing attacks against the universality of women’s human rights, and reasserts women’s and girls’ fundamental right to substantive equality, including socioeconomic equality. It is also in line with the arguments made and questions posed in the letter submitted in 2022 by the WGDAWG and other special procedures mandate holders to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) regarding its socalled ‘gender strategy’.15 As such, in its 2023 report to the UN Human Rights Council, ‘Gendered inequalities of poverty: feminist and human rightsbased approaches’,16 the WGDAWG focuses on poverty and socioeconomic inequality as outcomes of systemic failures (at the core of which is found to be debt) that violate multiple human rights of women and girls. It analyses the crosscutting conditions of gendered socioeconomic inequality and examines the structural discrimination and drivers within political, economic, cultural and social systems that cause, perpetuate and deepen women’s and girls’ experiences of poverty and inequality. It draws attention to the deficiency of dominant economic models and methods for understanding, measuring and addressing poverty and inequalities to accurately capture their impact on the substantive equality of women and girls, and it highlights promising alternative approaches. The gender implications of debt cancellation are specifically analysed. Recommendations to States, and to international organizations and corporations, insist upon the urgency of reframing poverty and inequality within and between countries as issues of global concern that necessitate IMPACT OF DEBT ON WOMEN’S HUMAN RIGHTS 105 integrated responses informed by intersectional feminist and human rightsbased approaches.17 Derived from this focus, this piece will concentrate on the parts of the 2023 report which primarily address the intersections of women’s and girls’ human rights with fiscal and debt policies. It will review the cumulative effects between both gender and socioeconomic inequalities and the heightened risks this creates for women and girls. Based on this examination of the causes of structural discrimination against women and girls, it will illustrate the way in which macroeconomic policies, including debt policies, at the international and national levels generally lack a human rightsbased approach and a gendered perspective, for example, ignoring the highly feminized activities of unpaid care work and domestic work, while lacking a methodology for the articulation of such policies that integrates women in decisionmaking; and it will also highlight the particular and often disproportionate impact on women and girls of orthodox economic policies that too often come with overindebtedness. Lastly, the text will include the recommendations of the WGDAWG’s report to States and international and regional economic, financial and monetary institutions in relation to their multiple human rights obligations. A number of recommendations address, specifically, both sovereign debtors and their creditors. These concrete obligations must be understood under the ‘umbrella’ duty of such international and regional institutions, and their member states, to contribute to the creation of an enabling economic and financial environment for the promotion and protection of all human rights for all persons, in the spirit of Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, legally binding on the entire UN international system, and an essential cornerstone for human dignity, social justice and substantive equality for all women and girls. WGDAWG Report on ‘Gendered inequalities of poverty: feminist and human rightsbased approaches’ (selected paragraphs): A. Contextual framework 12. The strengthened neoliberal turn of the last forty years, reflected in the policies of international economic institutions and national governments, has demonstrably increased poverty and inequality both between and within nations.18 These inequalities, underpinned by patriarchy, slavery, racism, colonialism, militarism and environmental destruction, have been exacerbated by orthodox macroeconomic prescriptions, including structural adjustment and austerity measures19 designed to offset crippling national debts,20 the liberalisation of global 106 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT trade and the financialization of capital markets,21 investment, monetary and fiscal regimes,22 the privatization and commodification of public goods and the retreat of the welfare State.23 While it is beyond the scope of this report to analyse these phenomena, it is important to highlight that rampant global socioeconomic inequality, characterised by the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people (the majority men), corporations in a limited number of countries, and developed States, has diminished the resources available for policies, services, and programs to advance women’s rights and gender equality.24 … 15. Dominant approaches to security in times of crises, including economic crises, have also been narrow in scope, human rights being set aside, and disproportionately affecting women and girls. Understanding security integrally as grounded in human rights law,25 would prioritise preventing and addressing aggravated risks of poverty and inequality for women and girls. In this respect, alongside its role in exacerbating existing inequalities, the Covid19 crisis has also prompted a reevaluation of mainstream economic ideologies, including recognition of the central role of care in our societies, as called for by feminists for years, as well as revaluing the State’s position (visàvis the market) as an actor in defining and resourcing public policies. The current moment, therefore, presents an opportunity to revisit concepts of unlimited economic growth, often based on deeply embedded forms of structural discrimination, transnational economic inequality, failure to fulfil international solidarity obligations of assistance and cooperation, and inexistent or insufficient networks of social protection and public services to guarantee universally recognized human rights such as health, water, housing, food and nutrition, education, a clean and healthy environment and access to justice. 16. Crucially, poverty and inequality are not inevitable. They are the result of structural discrimination that is reflected in the design of laws and policies which have facilitated present and historical injustices.26 Social movements advocating for transformative change from the perspective of feminist political economy and human rights, particularly economic, social, environmental and cultural rights, have highlighted the feedback loops between global poverty and inequalities and they have drawn attention to the existence of alternatives to unjust economic and social policies and institutions.27 These rightsbased feminist approaches to inequality and poverty provide key insights, tools, accountability measures and remedies that would enable the structural determinants of poverty and inequality to be identified, challenged and overcome. IMPACT OF DEBT ON WOMEN’S HUMAN RIGHTS 107 … 23. Several social movements are championing a feminist and decolonial Global Green New Deal which would entail a redistribution and revalidation of labour, and investments in the care sector as well as reimagining global public commons and goods so that they are used equitably and sustainably.28 Feminist workers’ alliances are also engaged in the development of alternative economic policies that would promote climate friendly jobs, including those in social care; fundamental rights at work that emphasise adequate wages and maximum hours of work; universal social protection with a global social protection solidarity fund; an emphasis on substantive gender, race and socioeconomic equality; and an inclusive agenda for peace and sustainable development.29 D. A feminist human rightsbased economy: substantive equality, solidarity, socioeconomic and environmental justice … 48. The right to be free from poverty cannot be realised in isolation from individual and collective rights to substantive equality.30 The meaningful participation of diverse groups of women and girls in conceptualising, implementing, and monitoring socioeconomic policies, norms and strategies is a core part of this process. The challenge is to move from nondiscrimination as a vehicle for the protection of individual rights towards the realization of the relational and redistributive obligations that are also an integral but, as yet largely unrealised, part of international human rights law.31 49. The right to substantive equality requires resource mobilization and redistribution within and between countries. The obligations incumbent on States under the ICESCR, particularly its Article 2, and other human rights guarantees to realize economic, social and cultural rights ‘to the maximum of their available resources’ incorporates positive duties to progressively achieve the implementation of human rights and to seek external resources for that purpose.32 The current moment of overlapping crises provides an opportunity to examine the human rights impacts of prevailing systems of global economic governance. The commitments made by States under Articles 1.1, 1.2, 5.1, 22 and 23 of the ICESCR, the Declaration on the Right to Development and within the framework of SDG 10, require wealthy countries to assist lowincome countries in the realization of economic, social and cultural rights for everyone without discrimination and to cooperate to reduce inequalities between and within nations.33 114 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT 34 J.P. Bohoslavsky and F. Cantamutto (eds) (2021) ‘The IMF and Human Rights: Interviews’, LSE Human Rights. 35 A/ 77/ 169. 36 Global Alliance for Tax Justice (2021) ‘Framing Feminist Taxation’. 37 A/ HRC/ 29/ 31 and A/ HRC/ 26/ 28. See also R. Balakrishnan, J. Heintz and D. Elson (2016) Rethinking Economic Policy for Social Justice: The Radical Potential of Human Rights, New York and OxonRoutledge. 38 For example, AMwA (Akina Mama wa Afrika) (2021) A Feminist Tax Justice Handbook for Women in the Informal Economy. 39 Debt Justice (2022), ‘The growing debt crisis in lower income countries and cuts in public spending’. 40 A/ 75/ 164. 41 J.P. Bohoslavsky and F. Cantamutto (eds) (2021) ‘The IMF and Human Rights: Interviews’, LSE Human Rights. 42 Views expressed during the Working Group’s consultations. 43 I. Grabel (2022) ‘Global Financial Governance and Progressive Feminist Agendas’, International Journal of Political Economy, 51(4): 331– 45; IMF (2022) ‘IMF Strategy toward mainstreaming gender’. 115 8 Debt and Human Rights in the World and Regional Conferences on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean Marita Perceval and Mariana Rulli 1. Introduction Since 1975 at a global level, and since 1977 at a regional level, Conferences on Women organized by the United Nations (UN) have been taking place. In these conferences, States – through the socalled Mechanisms for the Advancement of Women (MAW) – as well as women and civil society organizations, along with specialized agencies of the UN system, negotiate and establish agreements in relation to the gender agenda and recommendations to move forward in the path towards equality, which are embodied in political declarations and action plans. By reading these official documents, the way States have addressed sovereign debt, related economic policies and their differential impacts on the human rights of women can be traced, reconstructed and analyzed from an historical perspective. The goal of this chapter is to address the agreements embodied in the official documents of world and regional conferences on women that took place in the context of the UN related to sovereign debt and its consequences for gender inequalities. For that purpose, a systematization, a periodization and a qualitative analysis is made of a corpus composed of 20 official documents of the four world conferences1 and the ones produced during the 15 regional conferences held in Latin America and the Caribbean until 2022.2 This research aims at contributing to the lack of feminist literature on the systematization and interpretation of the official documents produced by world and regional conferences on women with a focus on debt and human rights. 116 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT The structure of this chapter is as follows. After this introduction, section 2 analyzes the official documents produced in world conferences on women, proposing a periodization. The first stage was marked by more general discussions among developed and developing countries, which are framed within the debates around the ‘New International Economic Order’ (NIEO). The second stage was marked by a more explicit and direct recognition of the threat that debt poses for women’s rights simultaneously with the deepening of the Washington Consensus. In section 3, the historical progression of the official documents and commitments made during regional conferences is presented, proposing the following three stages: the first stage covers the first to the third conference, which highlighted that the underdevelopment of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean was a consequence of the unfair global economic system, and warned about the impact on the inequalities women suffer. The second stage starts with the fourth conference held in Guatemala (1988) and begins to point out that the problems of the economic, financial and external debt crises, in line with adjustment programmes, had a negative impact on the living conditions of women. Finally, the third stage begins with the Montevideo Conference (2016) and ends with the Buenos Aires Conference (2022), which, without reducing the emphasis on the debt problem and its differential impact, included an approach based on human rights to assess the impact of economic measures on women. In section 4, the main findings are summarized and the conclusions of the research are presented. 2. From Mexico to Beijing: debt in world conferences on women Although the Commission on the Status of Women was created in 1946 as a commission dependent on the Economic and Social Council, shortly after the creation of the UN, as the main global intergovernmental body exclusively devoted to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women, since 1975, four (until now) world conferences on women and one World Conference on Human Rights have taken place, where a number of consensuses among member states have been adopted, which are analyzed in this section. These four conferences are studied here considering two different historical periods. The first one, which starts with the First World Conference on Women held in Mexico (1975) and also includes the Second World Conference in Copenhagen (1980) and the Third World Conference held in Nairobi (1985), is marked by debates around the socalled NIEO,3 which brought together the demands that the ‘underdeveloped’ countries (as they were called at that time) posed to industrialized countries, focusing on the postcolonialist functioning and the structure of the international WORLD AND REGIONAL CONFERENCES ON WOMEN 117 economy that perpetuated the inequalities and poverty situation in periphery countries. The political ideas linked to the NIEO proposed to refound a new international economic order based on rules that enabled a balanced and fairer order, including alleviating the burden of external debt and facilitating that more developing countries participate in the International Monetary Fund. Thus, during the first period, in 1975, the First World Conference on Women was held in Mexico, in the context of the International Women’s Year, where an Action Plan was adopted and the General Assembly proclaimed the ‘United Nations Decade for Women 1975– 1985’. Although the conference had a declaratory nature in general (it did not discuss how different rights would be guaranteed or how violations would be addressed), it was very important from the viewpoint of women’s human rights as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was approved afterwards in 1979 (Facio, 2011). Apart from being important for the evolution of women’s human rights that were included in the CEDAW, it is worth revisiting some of the discussions and tensions that took place in the context of the first conference between two different blocks: between women from rich countries and women from ‘Third World Countries’ (mainly from Latin America). A significant aspect was that although the official framework in which the delegations of States negotiated was anchored during the conference in the drafting of the World Action Plan, it was in the socalled framework of the ‘Tribune’ (a meeting of nongovernmental organizations) where the differences among women according to their country block of origin were clearly evident. On the one hand, there was the position of women of the ‘First World’, linked to personal topics, the defence of body individuality and freedom: the main demands were related to sexuality, individual freedom, salary equality and equality within family. And, on the other hand, there was the position of women of the ‘Third Word’ that considered as political problems those linked to the economic disadvantages they experienced in their countries, compared to industrialized countries. The ‘Third World’ perspective explicitly linked women’s problems to the need for a world reordering, making claims in that same direction (Fuentes, 2014). It is worth highlighting that the document of the Action Plan that arose from the first conference already mentioned the link between inequalities between women and men (and among women), and the political, economic and social structure dimensions and the level of development of each country (paragraph 7). Moreover, the determinant function of social services and the fact that women are unequally affected compared to men in the stages of development and industrialization were already recognized (paragraph 154). The Second World Conference on Women took place in Copenhagen in 1980, and, unlike the previous one, it had an evaluative nature and States proposed an Action Plan for the second part of the Decade for Women that 118 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT would end in 1985 (Facio, 2011).4 Even though the main topics were related to education, work and health, in a special section the States advanced the theory that inequalities were the cause of the lack of access to resources and the political participation of women. The document of the conference included a special section on the origin of women’s inequalities relating to the unequal participation of men and women in the development and impact of the international economic context. Thus, paragraph 12 explicitly mentioned that women’s inequalities derived from the underdevelopment of countries that in turn was a byproduct of imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism and unfair international economic relations. The Third World Conference on Women took place in Nairobi in 1985 and, although the progress and obstacles of the Decade for Women were assessed, it had a strategic nature due to the fact that States signed a document containing the strategies for the advancement of women with a vision until the year 2000 (Facio, 2011). Even though this conference put special emphasis on respecting economic, social and cultural rights, it still talked about women’s rights and not about the human rights of women. The second stage of the periodization that is proposed in this chapter starts with the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in 1993 (even though it was not a specific conference on women, it was very important because there women’s rights were recognized as human rights) and ends with the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995, where the Beijing Platform of Action (BPA) was drawn up, which is considered as the most progressive one to promote the rights of women. This stage took place in an economic context marked by the deployment and deepening of the Washington Consensus and the rise of neoliberal ideas, which were embodied in the implementation of structural reforms and greater public indebtedness and orthodox economic conditionalities that came with this higher debt, particularly in the countries of the Global South, which had a deep and negative impact on living conditions and women’s human rights. The substantive and progressive advance of the World Conference on Human Rights of Vienna (UN, 1993) (with its corresponding action plan and declaration) can be seen in three victories of the feminist movement, activists and advocates of women’s human rights: first, violence against women was considered as a violation of human rights. Second, it was agreed that women’s human rights5 should be included in all the activities of the UN and a special call was made to strengthen the CEDAW and to create an Optional Protocol that allows for individuals’ requests. Third, which in turn is the most important aspect for this research, women human rights activists managed to have social and economic rights recognized as being of the same importance as civil and political rights, recognizing the interdependence and interrelation of all human rights (Facio, 2011). WORLD AND REGIONAL CONFERENCES ON WOMEN 119 In 1995, the Fourth World Conference on Women took place in Beijing, where after having determined that there were still obstacles in the way of achieving equality as to opportunities and women’s rights, States adopted the BPA. Apart from the advances made in Vienna, the Beijing Conference is considered as a conference with a ‘binding’ nature because it connected through its platforms the measures that were proposed for the States to adopt with the legal obligations that were already established in the CEDAW (Facio, 2011). Furthermore, in the BPA, the unequal impact (based on gender) of external debt, the economic difficulties and the human rights of women are explicitly linked, as well as the resulting need to provide financial relief and to allow the convenience to develop techniques of debt swaps to be applied to programmes and projects of social development. It was highlighted that debt burden and policies of structural adjustment have had a harmful effect on social development and had an impact on poverty, and that: As a result of the debt burden and other economic difficulties, many developing countries have undertaken structural adjustment policies. Moreover, there are structural adjustment programmes that have been poorly designed and implemented, with resulting detrimental effects on social development. The number of people living in poverty has increased disproportionately in most developing countries, particularly the heavily indebted countries, during the past decade. (Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 1995: paragraph 13) In line with this, paragraphs 18, 37 and 47 explicitly included the disproportionate consequences for women of the thencalled ‘mundialization’ in the countries with external debt burden that have implemented adjustment programmes. The paragraphs of the Platform for Action also point out that the negative consequences of these policies have worsened the feminization of poverty and that: There is a greater acceptance that the increasing debt burden faced by most developing countries is unsustainable and constitutes one of the principal obstacles to achieving progress in peoplecentred sustainable development and poverty eradication. For many developing countries, as well as countries with economies in transition, excessive debt servicing has severely constrained their capacity to promote social development and provide basic services and has affected full implementation of the Platform for Action. (Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 1995: paragraph 38) Moreover, the importance of an equal participation of women in the revision and modification process of macroeconomic policies is mentioned 120 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT (paragraph 54), as well as the fact that a genderbased perspective must be included in the analysis of ‘integrated macroeconomic and social policies and programmes, including those related to structural adjustment and external debt problems, to ensure universal and equitable access to social services, in particular to education and affordable quality healthcare services and equal access to and control over economic resources’ (paragraph 54). Furthermore, specific recommendations related to the international financial institutions (IFIs) are made: ‘Invite the international financial institutions to examine innovative approaches to assisting lowincome countries with a high proportion of multilateral debt, with a view to alleviating their debt burden’ (paragraph 59.d). Although the Beijing Conference was the last world conference on women, in the year 2000, the UN General Assembly6 approved the carrying out of a review and fiveyear assessments of the BPA implementation, as well as to undertake studies related to new initiatives, while the Commission on the Status of Women was placed in charge of performing those studies. Since that year, assessments have been made every five years. In the assessments carried out in the year 2000, two documents were adopted: a political declaration7 and a report, where measures and initiatives were agreed for the implementation of the BPA, and the ones achieved in Beijing were kept.8 In the document Beijing + 5, where new measures and initiatives were included for the implementation of the declaration and the Beijing Platform for Action, the following issues related to debt were included, among others: ‘implement macroeconomic and social policies and programmes, inter alia, through an analysis from a gender perspective of those related to structural adjustment and external debt problems, in order to ensure women’s equal access to resources and universal access to basic social services’ (Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 1995: paragraph 74.c). In 2005, the Commission on the Status of Women made another followup assessment of the BPA and indicated that its goals were crucial for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. In 2010, another assessment was performed and a declaration was elaborated, where the advances achieved as to the BPA were indicated and new measures to attain its comprehensive application were adopted. In 2015, the revision of the BPA was marked by an assessment of the advances made and their connection with the development agenda after 2015, where member states agreed to guarantee the financing for sustainable development through the Third International Conference on Financing for Development9 in Addis Ababa in July of the same year. This conference was very relevant since the need for development financing with a gender perspective was raised. Finally, in 2020, the last revision was made 25 years since the adoption of the platform. WORLD AND REGIONAL CONFERENCES ON WOMEN 121 Likewise, it is worth mentioning that the voting pattern of the most relevant resolutions as to sovereign debt and human rights (with several references to women’s rights) passed in the last 15 years by the main political bodies of the UN10 continue to reflect, in general, the geopolitical division as to the global economic governance that has existed since the discussion of the ‘New International Economic Order’ in the 1970s, with G77+ China promoting these initiatives and highincome countries opposing the fact that finances and human rights can be related, and thus can be included in official documents. 3. From Havana to Buenos Aires: debt in regional conferences on women in Latin America and the Caribbean Since 1977 in Latin America and the Caribbean, a total of 15 regional conferences on women have taken place, which will now be analyzed according to the following proposed periodization. A first period that begins with the first conference held in 1977 and ends with the third conference held in 1983. The official documents of these conferences, and in line with the considerations of the first two world conferences, linked the underdevelopment of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to the unfair global economic system, emphasizing its impact on the inequalities women suffer. Thus, in the First Regional Conference on Women held in Havana in 1977, it was highlighted that the condition of women could not be dissociated from the development process. It explicitly mentioned that ‘the question of inequality of the vast majority of the Latin American female population is indeed closely linked to the problem of underdevelopment, which exists not only because of inadequate internal structures, but also as a result of a profoundly unjust world economic system’. Therefore, it suggested that governments should ‘make structural, economic, political, and social transformations in Latin America’ so as to enforce the NIEO (Regional Plan of Action for the integration of women into Latin American economic and social development: paragraph 2, page 6). The outcome of the regional conference held in Havana was that the States of the region agreed upon a Regional Action Plan for the Integration of Women in the Economic and Social Development of Latin America, as the first roadmap of the region with the aim to advance towards the active incorporation of women in economic, political, social and cultural life, and make the obstacles they face visible so as to improve their situation regarding multiple inequalities. The Second Regional Conference held in Venezuela (1979) still mentioned the situation the world was going through, particularly in developing countries, warning that the serious economic crisis affected ‘mothers and 122 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT children with greater intensity’ (resolution 1, page 27). Likewise, the Third Regional Conference held in Mexico in 1983 still highlighted that the crisis in the region, linked to international economic problems, seriously affected the participation of women in the integration towards development. The second period starts with the conference held in Guatemala (1988) and ends in 2013, during which it was mentioned that the problems of the economic, financial and external debt crises, including the related adjustment programmes, had a negative impact on the living conditions of women, particularly in the Mar del Plata conference held in 1994 as a preparation event towards Beijing. In 1988, the Fourth Regional Conference on Women took place in Guatemala, where significant advances were made regarding the impact of external debt on the living conditions of women, as it was mentioned that ‘the financial, economic and social crisis in the developing world has caused the situation of broad sectors of the population to deteriorate steadily, the effect on women being proportionally greater than that on men’ (Report of the Fourth Regional Conference, 1988: paragraph 2, page 24). In particular, it was mentioned that ‘adjustment programmes have become counterproductive in so far as the economies of some countries of the region are concerned, and the policies that flowed from many of the external debt agreements that were negotiated have not yielded the expected positive results’ (Report of the Fourth Regional Conference, 1988: paragraph 3, page 25). Moreover, it was pointed out that ‘the external debt cannot be paid in the current conditions and without sustained economic development’ and that ‘a political dialogue between creditors and debtors and for the establishment of a new international economic order can no longer be postponed’ (Report of the Fourth Regional Conference, 1988: paragraph 4). It is worth mentioning that paragraphs 3 and 4 were not accepted by the US government ‘because they were considered as inaccurate and extraneous to the issue of the incorporation of women into the economy’ Report of the Fourth Regional Conference, 1988: foot note page 25). Finally, it was mentioned that the crises and the debt have had a ‘particularly dramatic effect on the living conditions of women’ and resulted in a significant reduction of the funds used to finance social policies (Report of the Fourth Regional Conference, 1988: paragraph 5). Along the same lines, in the Fifth Regional Conference held in Curacao in 1991, it was indicated that the deep transformations made in many countries of the region, due to the economic crisis of the 1980s, translated into higher levels of poverty that especially affected women (Report of the Fifth Regional Conference, 1991: paragraph 19). Furthermore, the importance of avoiding a social and economic regression in the status of women was highlighted while it was recommended to ‘adopt a genderbased approach which takes into account the strategic and practical needs of women in recognition of WORLD AND REGIONAL CONFERENCES ON WOMEN 123 the severe social and economic impact of structural adjustment measures on the situation of women.’ (Report of the Fifth Regional Conference, 1991: paragraph 3(e), page 42) With the Washington Consensus at full power in Latin America and the Caribbean, and a strong and sustained public indebtedness in the countries of the region as a background, in the Sixth Regional Conference on Women held in 1994, the Regional Action Programme for the Women of Latin America and the Caribbean was agreed on and a preparatory regional instance was created for the world conference that would take place in 1995 in Beijing. The Action Programme was very explicit as to references to the external debt problems, their connection with neoliberal policies and their impact on the women’s human rights – even before the fourth world conference. Therefore, in the background and in several sections of the Mar del Plata Programme, the persistence of poverty in the region as well as the increase of productive and reproductive work of women were linked to the huge burden of the external debt and the structural adjustment policies that countries faced: The persistence of poverty and extreme poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean is linked to the enormous debt burden in many of its countries and territories, which has propelled them into formally or informally adopting structural adjustment policies with stringent conditionalities. This has impacted negatively on the region’s capacity to invest adequately in the human development and institutional resources needed to confront the spread of poverty. For women, the combined effect of the debt burden and adjustment measures has also been to increase their productive and reproductive work, with deep implications for their economic, physical and social wellbeing. (Mar del Plata Programme, preambular paragraphs) Besides, some of the recommendations for States are ‘to review, modify and integrate macroeconomic and social policies, especially in those countries where debt servicing and structural adjustment policies exist, in order to promote growth and social equity, though, among other actions’ (Mar del Plata Programme, Strategic Goal III.1). And international cooperation agencies are urged to ‘support the conduct of a critical analysis of the structural causes and the effects of poverty among women, with a view to reorienting and channelling resources to help achieve the objectives of the Regional Programme of Action’ (Mar del Plata Programme, Strategic action VIII.b). 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Available from: https:// www.un.org/ deve lopm ent/ desa/ disab ilit ies/ con vent ionontherig htsofpers onswithdisab ilit ies/ con vent ionontherig htsofpers onswithdisab ilit ies2.html World Bank (2021) ‘Actuemos ya para proteger el capital humano de nuestros niños. Los costos y la respuesta ante el impacto de la pandemia de COVID19 en el sector educativo de América Latina y el Caribe’, [online], Available from: https:// openkn owle dge.worldb ank.org/ han dle/ 10986/ 35276?loc aleattrib ute= es PART V Gender Impact Analysis: Frameworks and Experiences 231 15 Debt Sustainability Analysis: Life After Capital – A View from Feminist Economics Patricia Miranda and Verónica Serafini Geoghegan 1. Introduction The return of the debt in most countries of the Global South while a crisis of social reproduction and care is deepening has evidenced the need of feminist economics to address the analysis of the connections between both processes; plus the challenges related to the climate crisis, with differential impacts on women and historically unprotected groups, and the effects of the war between Russia and Ukraine on the prices of food and energy at a global level, which have also affected the increase of the interest rate to control inflation, which has resulted in the increase of the cost of debt. Indebtedness and its resulting crises had significant consequences in the past for the life of people, even putting survival and welfare at risk during the whole vital cycle. Women were particularly affected by this phenomenon because they are at a disadvantage in almost any field, mainly as to the unpaid work resulting from the gender division of work. This chapter analyses debt sustainability in the light of the assumptions of feminist economics. Countries that receive financing and technical advice from financial agencies, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), have driven analysis frameworks and tools for debt management that prioritize capital flows and their return in the name of financial and macroeconomic stability over human rights and the wellbeing of people. From the view of feminist economics, this represents a contradiction with the goals of economic performance, whose main concern should be to maintain and reproduce life. Although the calculation of debt sustainability 232 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT is made using a number of economic assumptions from the neoclassical school in order to provide a technocratic veil, its consequences extend to an ethical– political field as their clear purpose is to favour capital over life. This chapter presents a critical look at the debt sustainability analysis from feminist economics. Following this introduction, the second section presents the analytical categories of feminist economics that are useful for this debt analysis. The third section presents the theoretical structure of the economic orthodoxy to address debt sustainability and its consequences for the population and particularly for women. Finally, the last section presents the conclusions. 2. Life sustainability: feminist economics ‘Life sustainability is understood as a historical process of social reproduction, a complex, dynamic, and multidimensional process of need fulfilment in continuous adaptation of individual identities and social relations’ (Carrasco, Borderías and Torns, 2011: 60). According to Bosch, Carrasco, and Grau (2005: 2), this process not only refers to the actual possibility that life continues – in human, social, and ecological terms – , but to the fact that such process implies developing acceptable life levels, life standards, or life quality for all the population. This sustainability then implies a harmonic relation between humanity and nature, and between sisters and brothers. In the idea of ‘sustainability’, feminist economics is part of the criticism to the economic orthodoxy, the use of analytical categories that characterizes this approach to analyze the condition of women, the intersectional look, and the multidisciplinary wealth for its interrelation with other disciplines, such as the environmental ones. The emphasis put on maintaining life can be explicitly found in the classical authors of economics, such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo and even Karl Marx, who propose the need of a subsistence salary that includes the costs of maintaining life considering social needs. Smith recognizes the role of women in social reproduction through the care and upbringing of children that then will be ‘productive’ workers and will contribute to the ‘wealth of nations’. This author also refers to the existence of needs that arise from culture and customs, so they go beyond biological reproduction. This is not a minor aspect as it has consequences for the subsistence salary in the microeconomic field and, at a macroeconomic level, production should provide the ‘necessary and convenient’ things for life. However, classical authors do not refer to the value of social reproduction work or include in their analysis the existence of inequalities between men DEBT SUSTAINABILITY ANALYSIS 233 and women in the labour market and different salaries based on sex that are not explained by the market, productivity or specialization. With the arrival of the neoclassical school, which was the prevailing paradigm both among scholars and in the international economic agencies during the 20th century, social reproduction work disappears from the theoretical structure of the economic sciences. This fact invisibilizes an important proportion of the effort made to guarantee the economic results generally measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), national revenue or wealth in an economy. The focus of neoclassical or marginalist scholars became the mechanism to determine efficiency prices through the balance between supply and demand. With this approach, social relations and needs disappear, and any possibility to include social reproduction work is lost. This doctrine divides the economic activity in dichotomic areas – public/ private fields, market/ family, productive/ reproductive work – that do not connect with each other; the first ones are the object of study, where the monetized economy prevails. The private/ family/ reproductive areas are kept subordinated and their content is undervalued. When they are considered, the analysis uses the same assumptions and theories as in the private sector; therefore, it does not recognize or explain the problems that affect women or inequalities. The theorem of the ‘representative economic agent’ or ‘homo economicus’, on which the neoclassical structure is based and that aims at explaining market relations, is also assumed in the family with some changes that recognize the existence of different conducts; however, in essence the idea of profit maximization remains. For instance, women ‘choose’ combinations of time to work and leisure, goods and services based on prices and opportunity costs defined in the market. The inequalities resulting from the gender division of work or the inequalities generated by the market and that are not explained by supply and demand are not considered, against the definitions of neoclassical theories. This way, spaces, activities, economic flows and production where women participate are invisibilized. The work considered is the one that goes through the market and is paid. The existence of a ‘representative’ agent whose main interest is to optimize her budget restriction hides inequalities and the consideration of social needs. Even though this representative agent is supposed to have neutral characteristics in terms of gender, she actually takes the role socially assigned to men as providers in a family, with a woman devoted to domestic and unpaid work. At a macroeconomic level, adding the maximization of profits (consumption) and benefits (production) generates income flows that ignore the effect of unpaid (domestic and care) work that happens in households 234 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT and communities in economic aggregates. Social reproduction work, as it is largely done for free, is not included in the costs or in salaries. Feminist economics, with the contributions of Antonella Picchio, Nancy Folbre, Cristina Carrasco and Susan Himmelweit, among other economists, incorporates social reproduction work, extending the income flow as the amount of work included in economic activities increases. The working population includes those who perform unpaid work, regardless of what they do in the labour market or if they receive remuneration, and the concept of welfare is expanded to go beyond education and health – components of human capital for the neoclassical school – and to include daily care. With the incorporation of social reproduction in the theoretical structure, feminist economics reshapes the microeconomic and macroeconomic analysis, forcing the redefinition of the analytical and indicator categories, and the epistemological and methodological transformations of economics. This alternative approach enables us to understand reality and influence on proposals of change that contribute to an emancipatory economy for women. Not only does feminist economics challenge the assumptions of the ‘representative economic agent’ that do not distinguish differences between men and women, but it also assumes the existence of differences among women, many of which become inequalities when social class, ethnicity, sexual orientation and nationality, among others, are considered. One example is domestic and care work. The hiring of these services by persons or households is marked by inequalities among women. Migrant, Black and rural women are the ones hired for these occupations, generally with lower salaries and in precarious conditions, both in their own communities or countries and when they participate in the socalled global chains of care. In this respect, the idea of ‘accumulation for dispossession’ proposed by David Harvey (2005), to which Silvia Federici (2010) adds dispossession ‘of the reproduction work’, helps to understand the process by which capitalism maintenance is supported with the appropriation of the free work of women both within countries and among them. Country indebtedness, especially in Latin America, took place to guarantee growth models that mainly benefited private capital. The lack of interest in benefiting work and salaries is reflected in the unequal access to assets, such as land, forests or water, the appropriation of retirement funds, the precariousness of the labour market and the persistence of poverty, the subordination conditions of women, the migrations generated due to the removal of farmers and indigenous people from their original territories, and unfair tax structures. In debt crises, these problems are deepened and other problems are added, such as the liberalization of markets or the privatization of public or common DEBT SUSTAINABILITY ANALYSIS 235 goods, measures that ended up being beneficial for capital and aggravating the unpaid work of women. The gender division of work implies not only exclusion from the labour market or inclusion with many obstacles, but also a subordinated social position due to the devaluation of unpaid work. According to Federici (2010), women were forced to chronic poverty, economic dependency and their invisibility as workers, while for male workers, their product, the labour force, was devalued (Federici, 2010). Thus ‘the invisibility of housework hides the secret of all capitalist life: the source of social surplus – unwaged labor – must be degraded, naturalized, made into a marginal aspect of the system’ (Caffentzis, 1999: 14). The divergent paths of life sustainability and debt sustainability are understood by analyzing the capital– life conflict in the context of the capitalist development. Ensuring life sustainability requires focusing on social reproduction due to its importance for the life of people and for being a determinant factor of capital accumulation possibilities. Ensuring debt sustainability – from the orthodox perspective – requires focusing on capital and the accumulation requirement; one of its mechanisms is the dispossession of social reproduction work. In the following section, the meaning and the way of calculating debt sustainability frequently used by credit international institutions and governments are presented so as to evidence the contradiction between both goals and the need to include deep changes in the conceptual and methodological framework of the debt analysis. 3. Debt sustainability: the economic orthodoxy Debt sustainability has a positive meaning in terms of economic performance from most of the economic doctrines, and even using common sense. Being against debt that is sustainable is very difficult. However, if the principles used for the calculation and the measures involved in ensuring a positive outcome are analyzed, the costs in terms of welfare and human rights of people end up with a negative balance. Capital over people The concern over the analysis of debt sustainability became stronger in the debate at the beginning of the new millennium after recurring crises and in an international context where globalization forecasted an increasing economic unpredictability. Debt management from the economic orthodoxy, as indicated by the IMF and the WB, is based on the analysis of the costs and risks of the loan portfolio, whose main goal is to ensure the ability to pay the public debt. 242 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT • Some countries have as a rule a debt or deficit ‘golden rule’ only for physical investment, as human capital investment is considered in the national accounts as a current expense (Truger, 2016), which would also include care. De Henau and Himmelweit (2020), and Himmelweit and Perrons (2006) reject this assumption stating that investment in care has high levels of return, even higher than physical investment due to the effect on the expansion of labour opportunities for women. • The return of the investment on human capital and care is not considered in GDP or the tax system, but international agencies (IMF and WB) do include the incorporation of women to increase GDP (without taking into account the excess of hours they already have) and reduce the debt burden. • As no fiscal rules are incorporated on the side of revenue and as rules are stated on the side of expenditure or balance, the basic principles of human rights, such as progressiveness, nondiscrimination or the use of the maximum available resources are not guaranteed and the ‘austerity’ goal is placed as a priority. • The rules applied in Latin American countries – as well as in the rest of the world – are designed to limit social expenditure and promote austerity: • Expenditure rules: Peru, Paraguay, Grenada, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, the Bahamas, Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil, Mexico and Jamaica. • Debt rules: Argentina (subnational), the Bahamas, Brazil (subnational), Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Jamaica, Peru, Panama and Uruguay. • Balance rules: Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, the Bahamas, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Mexico, Chile and Colombia. • Revenue rules: El Salvador. • Dondo and Oliva (2021) propose other types of rules, such as: • When the budgets for Health and Education do not reach at least 4 per cent of the GDP, or show annual increases lower than 0.25 per cent of the GDP, the government will automatically charge an extraordinary tax to large fortunes. • When certain sectors have extraordinary profits, an additional tax rate will be automatically applied to their income tax, which could have a specific allocation. • To limit tax expenses (resources that the State stops collecting when it grants any preferential tax treatment). For instance, the tax expense generated by the subsidies and benefits granted to large economic groups cannot exceed 1 per cent of the GDP. 4. Debt sustainability: life after capital The debt process is part of a system that includes all the economic sectors (real, monetary, public and external) where women are invisibilized or considered as an instrument. Indebtedness is part of the fiscal policy; DEBT SUSTAINABILITY ANALYSIS 243 therefore, it cannot be separated from the other components, such as expenditures or the tax system. The analysis and the calculation of debt sustainability are not gender neutral and threaten life sustainability by prioritizing capital interest over the rights and needs of the population. Debt sustainability is a political fact, more than a technical and economic calculation, as it implies to value and then decide over whom falls the burden of the financial and fiscal consequences. This decision focuses on women as the main responsible ones for the social reproduction of life and as generators of flows of material and symbolic resources that contribute to guarantee sustainability. Budget restrictions that result from the need to reduce deficit or guarantee debt repayment prevent the financing of policies that ensure rights and satisfy women’s needs. These same restrictions do not affect capital because they enable increasing debt to continue to keep the conditions its continuous accumulation requires, such as through investment in infrastructure (that often includes care infrastructure). The priority given to the financial protection of the interest of financiers over the interest of the population of the borrower countries, including women, deepened a condition and position that was already subordinated prior to indebtedness or the debt crisis. The consequences of ensuring debt sustainability from an androcentric perspective promote a greater pressure over the work of women, either paid or unpaid. The shrinkage of the State in public services generates indebtedness of households and overloads women with work, aimed at providing these services in a private or family way. Thus, debt sustainability is based on the selfexploitation of families and women that are part of them, deepening the social reproduction and care crisis. Not including the debt impact on women’s rights in the analyses of debt sustainability is not a universally valid technical criterion, but a political decision with deep legal implications: it is a way of creating the conditions to perpetuate the violations of the human rights of women. Acknowledgements The authors thank Rodolfo Bejarano, Daniela Berdeja and Carola Mejia for their feedback. Note 1 Risk rating agencies were the target of criticism and even lawsuits and fines after the 2009 financial crisis due to their role in favourable ratings that generated excessive indebtedness of families and companies, and that finally ended up in default, which caused the global financial crisis. The conflicts of interest generated were the main focus of criticism, because certifications are hired by the same parties to be rated. Besides, under an oligopoly, risk rating agencies may have simultaneous access to the information of the public and private 244 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT sector, in other words, information about creditors and debtors. With the informational advantage (information asymmetries), benefits and incentives are generated that may distort ratings (as in 2008– 09). Criticism has already led to the proposal that these private risk rating agencies disappear and that public ones are created. References Blanchard, O. 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(2016) ‘Reviving fiscal policy in Europe: towards an implementation of the golden rule of public investment’, European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, 13(1): 57– 71. 246 16 Measuring and Managing Gender Equality: The Case of Gender Budgeting in Austria Ulrike Marx 1. Introduction Numbers are powerful. They determine who holds power, they operate as diagnostic instruments within liberal democracies, they make modern modes of government both possible and judgeable, and they are crucial techniques for modern government and therefore are indispensable to the complex technologies through which government is exercised (Rose, 1999). However, numbers are not merely technical achievements: quantification carries a form of political rationality (Alonso and Starr, 1987; Rose, 1991; Hopwood, 1992; Porter, 1996; Rose, 1999; Desrosières and Naish, 2002; Porter, 2004). Previous research has demonstrated a constitutive relationship between numbers and politics: the exercise of politics depends upon numbers, but the very act of social quantification is itself political in two ways. On the one hand, ‘political judgements are implicit in the choice of what to measure, how to measure it, how often to measure it and how to present and interpret the results’ (Alonso and Star, 1987: 3, cited in Rose, 1999), so that our political imaginary is shaped by statistical representation. On the other hand, numbers create the appearance of a neutral, depoliticized judgement because quantification appears to act as an automatic, technical and objective mechanism for prioritizing problems and allocating resources (Rose, 1991). This is nowhere clearer than in the rise of the New Public Management (NPM), where quantified performance indicators have come to dominate in the delivery and governance of public services (Mennicken and Espeland, 2019). This quantification and economization of political MEASURING AND MANAGING GENDER EQUALITY 247 decision making and the allocation of resources, often through quasimarketized mechanisms concerned with economic value, has resulted in a fundamental shift ‘from “government by democracy” towards “governance by numbers” ’ (Mennicken and Salais, 2022: 1) that simultaneously embeds a political agenda and renders that agenda invisible by giving it the appearance of a politically neutral technology and objectivity. In this sense, quantification is not bad but dangerous. It can be powerful as a way of ‘counter accounting’ (Gallhofer et al, 2006), for example, ‘counter accounting is here constituted by information and reporting systems employed by groups such as campaigners and activists with a view to promoting their causes or countering or challenging the prevailing official and hegemonic position’ (Gallhofer et al, 2006: 681). Thus, quantification and the development of, for example, indicators are always already political (1) in the priorities (what is counted and made visible); (2) in that when we create visibilities that draw attention to specific priorities we always create invisibilities to other aspects at the same time (we can never represent everything in its complexity); (3) as quantification is performative (Chiapello, 2008) so it does not just ‘represent reality’ but ‘creates’ reality. For example, Chiapello (2008) argues that ‘accounting helps to make economics performative, being one of the instruments through which economics can make the world conform more closely to its descriptions’ (Chiapello, 2008: 12). And finally, (4) research in accounting as practice often show limits of quantification to represent complex relations, for example, in practice people count what is relatively easy to count. Therefore, work on debt sustainability and its implication on human rights will benefit from previous research in social studies of accounting beyond uncovering political bias. This chapter discusses a related example, namely the emergence and implementation of gender budgeting during an NPM reform in Austria.1 Gender budgeting is an internationally recognized strategy for implementing gender equality, especially in governmental and public organizations. The concept is based on the idea that gender relations influence the economic and social reality of women and men. These gender relations are understood as social constructions that are fundamentally changeable but assign different social and economic roles to men and women (Sharp, 2000). Thus, Sharp (2000) argues, women and men are affected differently by budget policies of the State. Gender budgeting initiatives, which have emerged worldwide since the 1990s, essentially pose the question of the distribution of financial resources and their impact on gender equality (Elson, 2002), thereby promising to make visible the political and gendered implications of seemingly neutral and technical matters of budget allocations. Gender budgeting initiatives develop and use a variety of different tools to assess the impact of public revenue and expenditure on gender relations, as well 248 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT as strategies to ensure a genderequitable distribution of resources (Sharp, 2003: 3). They thereby promise to make the political visible through a counterquantification process that highlights the gendered nature of a seemingly neutral technology. In this light, it was an apparently radical move when gender budgeting became part of a budgetary law reform in Austria. As a result, all public institutions were required to implement gender budgeting and develop equality indicators to governmental policies and practices. However, the implementation of gender budgeting is anything but a straightforward process. Gender budgeting can rather be understood as a hybrid of different discourses (such as discourses on human rights, gender equality, modernization of public service delivery or value for money) and technologies (Kurunmäki, 2004; Kurunmäki and Miller, 2006; Miller et al, 2008; Kurunmäki and Miller, 2011). In previous work (Marx, 2019) I have argued that the discourse of gender budgeting in Austria was characterized, on the one hand, by a radical feminist critique of the State and national budgets that made the political nature of budgeting more visible. On the other hand, it simultaneously depoliticized gender by operationalizing gender equality through technologies of performance such as key performance indicators (KPIs), audits and impact assessments that rendered ‘gender’ as a matter of calculation based on binarysexed bodies, thereby closing off any space for a broader political discussion of gender. As such, the practice of gender budgeting can be understood as embodying the contradictory processes outlined earlier: simultaneously making political inequalities visible, while depoliticizing the actual construction of core political categories, and the ways in which those categories can enter into political debate, by delimiting the space of appearance of gender as a political category to numbers. This chapter extends our understanding of gender equality initiatives by theorizing this ambivalent relationship between feminist politics and accounting. In feminist political discourse, calculative practices like cost/ benefit calculation, performance evaluation and the quantification of difference are a matter of political concern. While quantification is understood to depoliticize feminism, translating political demands into matters for technocratic management (Budgeon, 2011), we should not lose sight of the fact that quantification is a powerful way to make feminist concerns visible and give them a form of political legitimacy (Bergmann, Gubitzer et al 2004, Klatzer, 2008). Over the past decades, gender equality has moved from the margins to the centre of political debate, partly because of the visibility given to it by quantification and techniques like gender pay gap analysis. I will discuss the link between feminism and ‘managing by numbers’, drawing upon governmentality studies to theorize the emergence and implementation of gender budgeting in Austria between 2009 and 2012. The remainder of the chapter is structured as follows: first, I will briefly MEASURING AND MANAGING GENDER EQUALITY 249 review how gender budgeting and gender mainstreaming are localized in a feminist discourse, then I will briefly introduce governmentality studies with a particular focus on numbers, quantification and accounting. Afterwards, drawing on governmentality studies as a conceptual framework, I will discuss the ambivalent character of numbers in the emergence and implementation of gender budgeting and show how gender budgeting was linked to an NPM reform where a reliance on SMART indicators (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timebound) became a suggested solution to questions of gender equality. In this case, I take up the feminist critique of gender budgeting as a neoliberalization of feminist agendas into a topdown technocratic management concept, and thus a dedemocratization and domestication of feminism (Squires, 2005; 2007; McRobbie, 2009; Budgeon, 2011). 2. Organizing feminism and the emergence of gender budgeting Feminism is organized in diverse forms. In her analysis of third wave feminism, Budgeon (2011) points out that feminism is characterized by diversity, fragmentation and internal contestation, which produces a series of historically unique contradictions. One the one hand, third wave feminism is characterized by a movement of feminist values and practices into mainstream social institutions and popular consciousness, leading to a broad acceptance of gender equality and empowerment in practice as well as in theory. Walby (2011) points out that contemporary feminism has gone beyond protest and is now embedded in different organizational forms including projects in civil society, where they shape political discourse and social goals, and in governmental programmes, where they are institutionalized as sets of policies in governmental departments and ministries. She argues that feminism is no longer only a protest movement but is now organized within, as well as outside, the State and is therefore increasingly embedded in institutions. Such institutionalized forms of feminism are often not recognized as feminist, because the dominant understanding of feminism is narrowly limited to protest and popular culture. ‘Feminism can be less visible but no less significant when it forms coalitions with other social forces and joint projects, which are not explicitly labelled feminist’ (Walby, 2011: 24). One domain where the institutionalization of feminism is proceeding is the economy. In contrast to the situation of the 1970s, when feminist strategies often involved separate women’s committees to give women an independent voice, feminist strategies today have shifted from women’s issues to an analysis of gender power relations. In 1995, governments across the world signed the Beijing Platform for Action. Along with their endorsement of the Plan of Action went a commitment to achieve gender equality and the empowerment 250 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT of women. Gender mainstreaming was identified as the most important mechanism to reach this ambitious goal. It is defined as: Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality. (Moser and Moser, 2005: 12) Despite concerns that institutionalization may lead to feminists ‘abandoning their original radical ideas and demands’ (Walby, 2011: pos. 501), feminism has become increasingly influential through stronger coordination via coalitions and networks. With the mainstreaming of feminist aims, gender equality has become widely accepted as a social good and has been institutionalized through quotas, State strategies and equality acts, and has become a symbol of modernity (Budgeon, 2011). Radical feminists are concerned that gender equality is increasingly framed as central to the realization of both modernization and economic efficiency and its achievement is presented as a key to good governance (Squires, 2007). Before gender budgeting entered the Austrian political discourse it emerged in broader debates in global economic governance discourses. For example, Çaǧlar (2009) shows how ‘gender’ was framed in relation to ‘the economy’ through two different story lines in discourses on global economic governance. The first story line asked how economic measures impact women specifically, and often disadvantageously when compared with the impacts on men. The second story line explored how asymmetrical gender relations negatively impact economic growth and therefore women’s integrations into the labour market become a major economic and political objective. This focus on the economic impact of gender inequality has two effects, according to Çaǧlar (2009). First, it creates a desire to measure impact to create ‘correct facts’ and more accurate economic measures. Second, gender relations become an object for political intervention, to address the problems that these ‘more accurate’ measures render visible. On the one hand, reproductive labour becomes economically relevant and the care economy is recognized; on the other hand, women are discovered as economic subjects who should be relieved from their care responsibilities. In both cases the result is a marketization of care, and the incorporation of social reproduction ever more into the formal (or often informal) economy, albeit with significant inequalities structured through class and race (Ehrenreich and MEASURING AND MANAGING GENDER EQUALITY 251 Hochschild, 2002). Thus, different combinations of economic and gender knowledge lead to different rationalizations and different forms of gender responsive global economic governance. In other words, gender equality approaches such as gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting have made equality become part of governance structures which are organized through the normalization and institutionalization of a neoliberal economic agenda. In Austria, the concept of gender budgeting was first taken up by a group of economists and social scientists (BEIGEWUM, 2002). They fundamentally criticized State budget policy and budgeting practices, arguing that: (a) budgets are instruments of domination that obscure patriarchal power structures; (b) this obfuscation is facilitated by the apparent technical neutrality of budgets; and (c) budgeting is a technology of exclusion that systematically excludes lay people, that is, citizens, from the budgeting process (BEIGEWUM, 2002). At the beginning of the 2000s, therefore, the social and economic effects of the State budget on the reproduction of gender relations were the focus of attention in the context of gender budgeting. A discourse analysis (Marx, 2019) has shown that gender budgeting was understood as an emancipatory strategy concerned with distributive justice, transparency, accountability and participation. Accordingly, specific technologies for the implementation of gender budgeting ideals were proposed, which aimed at the critical datasupported economic analysis of the effects of politics on gender relations, and on strategies to activate women (and men) and enable them to participate in budgeting processes, thereby opening up the scope for political action (BEIGEWUM, 2002). However, these critical feminist concepts of gender budgeting were not implemented in this form in Austria. They failed in an almost paradoxical way because of the success of feminist politics. In 2009, equality between women and men gained constitutional status as a central objective of the Austrian State budget (Article 13, paragraph 3 BVG). It is therefore binding for all local authorities and the Confederation. The budgetary law reform came into force in 2013 (Article 51, paragraph 8 BVG) and makes ‘equality’ an integral part of the principle of ‘impact orientation in financial management’. All public institutions in Austria are thus obliged to develop and apply instruments that enable an analysis and management of genderrelated effects in budgeting. Thus, gender budgeting in Austria seems to be an extremely ambivalent phenomenon. On the one hand, it is enshrined in the Austrian federal constitution, on the other hand, its practice seems far removed from the radical feminist ideas that inspired it. Critics of gender mainstreaming raise concerns that this approach is a topdown technocratic advocacy (McRobbie, 2009) that translates gender equality into technocratic processes, reducing ‘feminism’ to a series of procedures, such as impact assessments, that eschew both political participation and normative contestation in their reliance upon professional expertise and 258 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT Kurunmäki, L. and Miller, P. (2011) ‘Regulatory hybrids: Partnerships, budgeting and modernising government’, Management Accounting Research, 22(4): 220– 41. Marx, U. (2019) ‘Accounting for equality: Gender budgeting and moderate feminism’, Gender, Work & Organization, 26(8): 1176– 90. McKinlay, A. and Pezet, E. (2017) Foucault and Managerial Governmentality: Rethinking the Management of Populations, Organizations and Individuals, New York, NY: Taylor & Francis. McRobbie, A. (2009) The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, London: Sage. Mennicken, A. and Espeland, W.N. (2019) ‘What’s new with numbers? Sociological approaches to the study of quantification’, Annual Review of Sociology, 45: 223– 45. Mennicken, A. and Salais, R. (2022) The New Politics of Numbers: Utopia, Evidence and Democracy, Cham: Springer Nature. Merry, S.E. (2016) The Seductions of Quantification: Measuring Human Rights, Gender Violence, and Sex Trafficking, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Miller, P. (1991) ‘Accounting innovation beyond the enterprise: Problematizing investment decisions and programming economic growth in the U.K. in the 1960s’, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 16(8): 733– 62. Miller, P. (1994) ‘Accounting as social and institutional practice: An introduction’, in A. Hopwood and P. Miller, Accounting as Social and Institutional Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 1– 39. Miller, P. and Rose, N. (1990) ‘Governing economic life’, Economy and Society, 19(1): 1– 31. Miller, P.; Kurunmäki, L. and O’Leary, T. (2008) ‘Accounting, hybrids and the management of risk’, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 33(7– 8): 942– 67. Moser, C. and Moser, A. (2005) ‘Gender mainstreaming since Beijing: a review of success and limitations in international institutions’, Gender & Development, 13(2): 11– 22. Porter, T.M. (1996) Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Porter, T.M. (2004) ‘The culture of quantification and the history of public reason’, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 26(2): 165– 77. Rose, N. (1991) ‘Governing by numbers: Figuring out democracy. Accounting’, Organizations and Society, 16(7): 673– 92. Rose, N.S. (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sharp, R. (2000) ‘The economics and politics of auditing government budgets for their gender impacts’, Hawke Institute, University of South Australia. Sharp, R. (2003) Budgeting for Equity: Gender Budget Initiatives within a Framework of Performance Oriented Budgeting, New York: United Nations. MEASURING AND MANAGING GENDER EQUALITY 259 Squires, J. (2005) ‘Is mainstreaming transformative? Theorizing mainstreaming in the context of diversity and deliberation’, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 12(3): 366– 88. Squires, J. (2007) The New Politics of Gender Equality, Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Walby, S. (2011) The Future of Feminism, Cambridge: Polity. Yeatman, A. (1994) Postmodern Revisionings of the Political, New York, NY: Psychology Press. 260 17 Rights, Gender and Progress Indicators: The Debts of Democracy Flavia Marco Navarro and Laura Pautassi 1. Introduction The lack of a genderbased approach on core issues, such as public and private indebtedness, and its consequences for people, appears over and over again as the effects of such lack become evident in our lives. This chapter analyzes the intrinsic and instrumental value of a genderbased approach in the field of financial obligations of States (public debt) and of women and sexual diversities (private debt), as well as in relation to the standards and principles connected to the protection of persons and their relation with the development and implementation of progress indicators. These indicators are a solid tool from a number of aspects (design and assessment of policies of the three branches of the State, international supervision and monitoring, citizen empowerment and the disclosure of public information among several State agencies), and, at the same time, as long as they are incorporated into the set of State actions, they will enable greater institutionality and guaranties for exercising the rights of women and sexual diversities. Particularly, in relation to the impact of public and private indebtedness, in section 2 of this chapter we focus on some elements that have characterized the economic processes in Latin America that, far from being neutral, have clearly had gender biases. In section 3, progress indicators are presented that are used in current international monitoring mechanisms in the region and their potential to measure State obligations linked to debt with a genderbased approach is considered. In section 4, the economic autonomy of women is addressed as a category of explicative and aspirational content, RIGHTS, GENDER AND PROGRESS INDICATORS 261 which at the end creates a fiction, where both deficits in the exercise of rights and the different impacts of public policies are evidenced, including those related to debt and the access to loans by citizens. In section 5, final conclusions are presented that highlight the need to promote the recognition of a life free of indebtedness that enables women and sexual diversities to have economic autonomy in all its dimensions. 2. Incorporating approaches in indebtedness Among the many contributions that feminism has made, the concept of ‘approach’ can be found, which relates to the claim of power asymmetry that structures societies and considers sexual differences and identities as pillars of hierarchization, and caused the incorporation and implementation of the powerful formula of gender mainstreaming. The concept summarizes one of the main strategies in the field of public institutionality, which is the idea of transversality. That is to say, the only way to transform structural inequalities requires going through all the areas of society that produce and reproduce them. This methodology challenged State theories, the economy, politics and subjectivities with a very important development at a global, interdisciplinary and regional level that enabled the visualization of the asymmetric relations between genders and to determine when a different treatment is legitimate and when it is discriminatory. Precisely the genderbased approach produced a paradigm change as it developed a set of ideas, methodologies and techniques that questioned and analyzed the ways through which social groups have created and allocated responsibilities, activities and conducts to women, men and sexual diversities. This is not only a concept, but also an intervention strategy. It is worth remembering that, as early as in the 1990s, the feminist movement raised at a global level, but particularly in Latin America, that the effects of the macroeconomic policies implemented in the context of the structural adjustment in peripheral countries (today the Global South) have not been neutral in terms of gender. The emphasis was on the fact that the macroeconomic policies applied in the region in the last decades of the 20th century did not clearly recognize the implications of gender relations; even further, women were considered as an economic resource (Birgin, 1992). First, in the diagnoses before the application of neoliberal policies, the existing relation between productive sectors, linked to the traditional economy, and residual or unproductive sectors, where essential services were included, particularly all care activities, whether paid or unpaid ones, was shown. Second, shortterm austerity measures were implemented that aimed at maintaining added demand under control to lower inflation and reduce fiscal deficits. Also, longterm policies were implemented in order to liberalize trade, deregulate and privatize, considering the effects of 262 FEMINISM IN PUBLIC DEBT macroeconomic policies in the lives of women as they received the impact of the adjustment by working harder inside and outside households (Birgin and Pautassi, 2001). The inequality pattern is transformed into a structural pattern, and its approach, far from being a goal of public policies, was systematically invisibilized in the governmental agendas of Latin America. It is worth mentioning that the pioneering contribution of feminism, along with the activism of women’s movements, achieved its incorporation in the Platform of Action of the World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995) and, at a regional level, in the Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean.1 In each one of the countries of the region, transversality has been a direct mandate for the mechanisms for the advancement of women (from ministries or undersecretariats) that generally plan their actions considering national plans for equal opportunities and treatment. However, transversality did not reach the ‘hard’ areas of State decisions, such as the economy, budget, treasury or institutional affairs, and in general there have been few times when women heads of ministries have been regularly integrated into presidential cabinets, much less been included in the debate on public indebtedness in these institutional areas.2 At the beginning of this century and in this context, the Millennium Declaration (2000) included the human rights approach as a core strategy, which consisted of highlighting the bonding nature of the State obligations contained in international covenants and treaties of human rights and how these rules must go through the action of the State in all its areas, jurisdictions, rules and actions (Pautassi, 2021). Without explicitly recognizing that this is a feminist strategy, the implementation of the human rights approach involved a significant scene change, especially for social policies at a regional level, and it provided an important action framework for many of the political leaders at the beginning of this century in Latin America (Abramovich and Pautassi, 2009). The principles of universality, equality, interdependence and indivisibility of human rights, as unavoidable guiding principles on human rights, are included as action standards for States, accordingly. Both approaches (gender and human rights) thus include transversality as their pillar of action and empowerment of persons as objective. In the case of Latin America, sectors of the feminist movement claim emancipation as a collective process (Lamas, 2020). The actual implementation of this approach does not end in a political declaration, but it creates a methodology for the implementation of public policies with territorial implications and in all the levels of public institutionality. In particular, although a gradual achievement of rights content is included in international covenants and treaties, especially considering the restrictions resulting from the limitation of the available resources, its fulfilment is unavoidable. Furthermore, the human rights approach imposes numerous obligations with an immediate effect that RIGHTS, GENDER AND PROGRESS INDICATORS 263 are related to the connected standard of using the maximum of available resources,3 the standard of progress and the standard of nonregressiveness. In fact, when States ratify international instruments on human rights, States commit to make periodic reports before treaty bodies on the progressive measures to ensure the compliance of committed obligations. It should be asked if among those mandates gender equity is included as a core element for accountability or if it is included through a narrative path. In other words, how much has been introduced in specific indicators that reflects if and how debt affects women and dissidences in a disproportionate way, and thus if measure scales have been established to determine the connection between public indebtedness and the achievement of equality and nondiscrimination standards, especially with respect to the economic autonomy of women. As it will be explained in the following sections, the genderbased approach is not part of the approaches on debt yet. 3. Progress indicators: obligation on data The accountability process is remarkably useful from a rightsbased approach as it enables and requires the State to make diagnoses of the situation, identify implementation deficits, establish pending agendas and produce updated information that enables society to control State actions. This is how monitoring systems were introduced at the level of the system of United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights (HCHR, 2012) and the Organization of American States (OAS) based on progress indicators for monitoring the Protocol of San Salvador by the Working Group for the analysis of national reports contained in the Protocol of San Salvador (WGPSS, 2015) and the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI, 2015). Progress indicators have the particularity that when measuring the obligations contained in human rights they include quantitative (structural, process and result) indicators, as well as qualitative indicators or qualitative progress signs. In fact, the importance of introducing quantitative data and information, but mainly qualitative ones, is justified by the fact that these approaches assume that persons and their rights must be at the centre of the policies that the State creates, and, therefore, it would be a contradiction to assess or monitor policies with this approach without listening to the very beneficiaries of rights (Abramovich, 2021). Likewise, it has been warned that while the feminist and human rights perspectives are not included in the production of indicators for decision making and economic policies, it would be impossible to make progress on structural inequalities (Bohoslavsky, 2018). The particularity of these type of indicators is that, unlike socioeconomic data that accounts for the development level achieved, progress indicators measure if the fulfilment of what was committed to for each right has [Document text truncated for crawler view.]