Partnerships And Networks

We work with partners, globally and locally, to further social and economic justice and catalyse change from the local to the global, back to the local.

GI-ESCR's work is grounded in partnerships. We believe that effective advocacy for economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights requires building collective power and breaking down silos between disciplines, types of organisations, and working cultures. Partnerships are at the core of GI-ESCR’s methodology and theory of change and to a world that increasingly enjoys human rights.

Together with organisations, advocates, human rights defenders, social movements and grassroot communities at local, national, regional and international levels, we monitor and expose ESC rights violations and inequalities, craft advocacy strategies, mobilise constituencies to challenge vested interests, abuses of power and social injustices. We also connect local advocates and victims of ESC rights violations with national, regional and international human rights mechanisms and policymakers, so that they can directly contribute to shaping ESC rights standards and narratives.

We, for instance, facilitated the strategic engagement of national partners with UN human rights mechanisms and regional mechanisms such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in order to set human rights standards and support local, grassroot mobilising work.

We also brought together organisations, trade unions and movements from the development, tax justice, development finance, and human rights spheres, as well as UN human rights Special Procedures mandate holders to discuss privatisation and renewed strategies for the public provision of services related to ESC rights such as health, education, water sanitation and housing.

We worked together with organisations demanding housing rights in the context of climate change, urbanisation and environmental degradation, in El Salvador, Cameroon, the Philippines, Peru, Nigeria and Chile. We raised awareness about ground-level experiences and highlighted how community-led initiatives can protect communities and build their resilience to both the climate and environmental crises and pandemics.

We strategised with climate change litigators across the world who are bringing human rights-based claims in national courts to challenge States’ inaction on climate change. Together we identified key concepts, themes and countries where international human rights norm development and State monitoring can support national climate campaign objectives and undertook legal advocacy to support those objectives, for instance, pressing for human rights scrutiny of Japan’s funding of coal-fired power plants in other countries.

Over the years, we have engaged actively in several networks, notably:

• ESCR-Net, as a member of

  • the Steering Committees of the

    • Strategic Litigation Working Group

    • Women and ESC Rights Working Group

  • Advisory Group of the Networkwide Project on Environment and ESCR

  • the Economic Justice Working Group

• Bringing Human Rights Home, as a member of the ESC Rights Working Group

• ETO Consortium, as a member of the Steering Committee

• Geneva Climate Change Consultation Group  

• Geneva Gender Network

• Group of Friends of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR) in Geneva

• The NGO Network on the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies (TB-Net )

• Privatisation in Education and Human Rights Consortium

• Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors

• Réseau francophone contre la marchandisation de l’éducation 

• Nuevo Pacto Social (Chile)

• Climate Justice Network (Mexico)

• The International Advocates Working Group

• People’s Vaccine Alliance (PVA)