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Spotlight on Financial Justice Understanding Global Inequalities to Overcome Financial Injustice

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Spotlight on Financial Justice Understanding Global Inequalities to Overcome Financial Injustice Spotlight on financial justice Understanding global inequalities to overcome financial injustice Funded by the European Union 1 Front cover image: Change Finance stunt outside the Bank of England on 15 September 2018, marking the 10-year anniversary of the financial crisis.Photo credit: Matti Kohonen. This content was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Citizens for Financial Justice and do not necessarily reflect Funded by the the views of the European Union. Individual chapters were produced by the authors and European Union contributors specified and do not necessarily reflect the views of all Citizens for Financial Justice partners, although all partners share the broad concerns and principles presented. Who we are Citizens for Financial Justice Informing, connecting and empowering citizens to act together to make the global finance system work better for everyone. We are a diverse group of European partners – from local grassroots groups to large international organizations. Together, we aim to inform and connect citizens to act together to make the global financial system work better for everyone. We are funded by the European Union and aim to support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by mobilizing EU citizens to support effective financing for development (FfD). citizensforfinancialjustice.org twitter.com/financing4dev Authors and contributors This report was compiled by Citizens for Financial Justice partners and other contributors, coordinated by Flora Sonkin and Stefano Prato, Society for International Development (SID); Ida Quarteyson and Matti Kohonen, Christian Aid; and Nicola Scherer, Debt Observatory in Globalisation (ODG). Overview: Flora Sonkin and Stefano Prato, Society for International Development (SID); with support from Matti Kohonen, Christian Aid. Food and land: Philip Seufert, FIAN International. Health: Nicoletta Dentico, Society for International Development (SID). Women’s rights: Rosana Miranda and Marcos Lopes Filho, Christian Aid; Renata Moreno and Miriam Nobre, Sempreviva Organização Feminista (SOF); and Janice Førde, KULU - Women and Development. Housing: C.J. (Kees) Hudig, Globalinfo; and Éilis Ryan, Financial Justice Ireland; with contributions from Zsófia Miklós, DemNet. Infrastructure: Xavier Sol, Counter Balance; and Nicola Scherer, Debt Observatory in Globalisation (ODG); with revisions from Aleksandra Antonowicz-Cyglicka, Polska Zielona Sieć /Polish Green Network; and Elena Gerebizza, Recommon. Report published: September 2019 potlight on financial ustice understanding global ineualities to overcome financial inustice 4 Contents Executive summary 6 Overview 8 Reframing development challenges: tackling multidimensional inequalities as a new guiding star of policy pathways Chapter 1 Food and land 22 From food production to investment opportunity: the financialization of land Chapter 2 Health 31 Making health a global bankable project Chapter 3 Women’s rights 39 The financialization of women’s rights Chapter 4 Housing 47 Financialization and the right to housing Chapter 5 Infrastructure 54 Financialization of infrastructure: a means to an end or end in itself? 5 potlight on financial ustice understanding global ineualities to overcome financial inustice Executive summary Rising inequalities between the global North development debates.4 The 2030 Agenda recognized and South, the economically privileged and the addressing their multiple facets (economic, political, marginalized, between different genders and racial social) as one of its Sustainable Development Goals identities, have been historically reproduced and (SDGs), signalling the international community’s intensified across generations, and are defining commitment to reducing inequalities. features of our times. For instance, while global challenges such as climate change and environmental To take advantage of this momentum, understanding degradation undoubtedly affect all of us as humans the main contemporary drivers of inequalities and living on Earth, they certainly do not affect us all finding common strategies to address them are equally. Differences in geographic location, economic necessary steps towards systemic socio-economic status, gender, age, all come into play if we look at the transformation and social justice. Looking at our groups who are systematically suffering from climate current challenges through the lens of inequalities change’s harsh consequences. offers then a remarkable transformational potential: tackling inequalities in their multidimensional This is because the current rules of our global character – social, political, economic, spatial and economy reproduce a vicious circle of inequality: intergenerational – can become a sort of guiding star growing economic inequality and wealth in a complex world, an overarching goal to advance concentration increase political inequality by sustainable development and address the root causes expanding the ability of corporate and financial elites of marginalization. As part of this effort, this report to influence policy-making and protect their wealth tackles the inequalities question by looking at one of its and privileges. Higher levels of inequalities are then main current drivers, the financialization of our global passed on to the next generations, culminating economy, as well as at its counterpart, financial justice. in long-term disparities and unfairness felt by marginalized groups.1 Through five thematic chapters – 1) food and land, 2) health, 3) women’s rights, 4) housing and After the 2008 global financial crisis hit, the 5) infrastructure, the report shows that rising governance structures and economic (de)regulations inequalities, and the overexpansion of the finance that got us there, especially the unchecked expansion industry as one of its key contemporary drivers, have of the financial sector over the rest of the economy been created and reproduced by skewed and unfair or ‘financialization’, finally raised enough red flags. rules of the game. There is therefore an urgent While major banks were bailed out by taxpayer’s need for peoples’ movements to converge around money, states neglected their basic human rights a common agenda for taking back our economies, obligations by turning to austerity measures, creating reclaiming public services, and protecting our pervasive impacts on people’s lives around the globe. common natural resources. Through this report it Consequences include reducing communities’ access becomes evident that local level resistance to financial to common natural resources2 and restricting the actors’ penetration is extremely important, but that delivery of basic public services such as healthcare confronting the drivers of inequality which are now and housing to the most disadvantaged groups.3 global, such as financialization, requires concerted efforts at higher levels of policy-making as well. Four In recent years, a significant increase of disparities main pillars for action are proposed: within and between countries has finally put inequalities under the spotlight within international 1 https://www.2030spotlight.org/en/book/1730/chapter/1-increasing-concentration-wealth-and-economic-power-obstacle-sustainable#footnote10_ utsqgho 2 See case of Brazil, Chapter 1. 3 See case of Greece, Chapter 2; see also Chapter 4. 4 https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg10 6 Executive summary • Promote shared understanding and ongoing evolving financial actors, and can bring finance questioning of the dynamics of financialization: back into democratic accountability and control. It is essential to raise people’s awareness around This calls not only for building convergence on the very real impacts of financialization on existing proposals regarding critical new pillars of their lives and to provide fresh analytical tools a democratized economic governance ecosystem, to question current dynamics. Challenging the such as an intergovernmental tax body and inequalities problem and how the multiplicity sovereign debt workout institution under the aegis and expansion of financial actors and services is of the United Nations, but also for addressing contributing to the problem can avoid unintended the institutional vacuum in regulating financial complicity, particularly given the insidious and actors, mostly though not exclusively the asset overly covert manner in which these dynamics management industry. Such measures could infiltrate multiple domains of life; translate in enhanced transparency, participation, and public oversight of domestic and global tax, • Resist ongoing attempts to shift decision- fiscal and financial policy-making. making away from legitimate and democratic policy spaces, often in the name of ‘financing opportunities’ to advance progress: At the local The time is ripe for acknowledging people’s struggles and national levels, supporting social movements’ to resist the multiple facets of the process of resistance to harmful projects, policies and other financializaton, and for converging strategies to interventions backed by global financial actors can address multiple dimensions of inequality to reach create tangible wins and can put a face and shape financial justice. The time for financial justice activism onto a struggle that can so often feel immaterial is now! and hard to grasp; • Reaffirm national sovereignty to re-establish healthy boundaries to financial liberalization and provide critical financing to achieve the Sustainable
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