> Skip to main content

Training/ Workshop: Tax and Gender Inequality in Indonesia

By Indonesia

Aksi! for gender, social, and ecological justice (Aksi!) is an organization whose program, Economic Justice, strengthens the voices of women in the community in the struggle against gender and economic injustice. The country’s economic growth model, which relies on the exploitation of natural resources and labor, foreign debt, and foreign direct investment, is the root cause of the impoverishment process. This model continues to encourage the extraction and exploitation of natural and human resources. Consequently, economic inequality fuels the feminization of poverty in Indonesia.

The feminization of poverty due to structural economic inequality has received little public attention due to the limited information circulation on this issue. Much public attention and discussion are needed regarding this feminization of poverty, one of which is taxes, which generate economic and gender inequality in Indonesia. Aksi! believes that solutions to the economic justice crisis need to involve progressive tax reform to reduce income inequality and increase investment in education and skills training. However, this solution requires a holistic approach and cross-sector collaboration to create a more inclusive and equitable economic foundation.

Aksi! together with Solidaritas Perempuan (SP) had conducted a training/workshop on “Tax and Gender Inequality,” attended by 28 women from 16 provinces in Indonesia. This activity contributed to women’s understanding of taxes as a cause of gender and economic inequality.

portada del informe "Resultados del endeudamiento con el FMI sobre los cuerpos de las mujeres en Ecuador"

The Impact of IMF measures on women in Ecuador

By Economic Justice, Ecuador

Two years after a global pandemic, the measures of austerity have profoundly exacerbated inequalities. The dominant characteristics of austerity, which include inadequate and failed public services in education, health, social protection; income inequality driven in part by regressive taxes; and a skeletal role of the state built by privatization schemes. All this has led to a systematic erosion of the resilience of public systems, as well as of a social contract that safeguards the redistribution of wealth, resources and public goods towards equity and compliance with human rights.

This paper published by CDES examines the dynamics and implications of gender austerity in Ecuador in the context of its 27-month IMF loan program for USD 6,500 million, started in 2019 and redefined at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 (IMF 2021). The fiscal consolidation program attached to the loan includes a wide range of measures. For example: extensive cuts in public spending focused on the health sector, relief measures labor deregulation, elimination of fuel subsidies, restrictions on ability of the central bank to finance liquidity problems in the pandemic crisis and privatization of state companies and public services, among many others.

portada del informe "Resultados del endeudamiento con el FMI sobre los cuerpos de las mujeres en Ecuador"

“When it rains, it pours”: Latin America and the Caribbean facing the consequences of pandemic and war

By Economic Justice, FfD processes

This document was prepared by LATINDADD with the contribution of its member organisation the Center for Economic and Social Rights – CDES.

The objective of this document is to present recommendations based on the studies carried out by these organisations on the context of the region, the analysis of development processes and recommendations in this regard.

Debt management: Fiscal rules, rights and human development in Peru

By Debt Justice, Economic Justice, Peru

Since the early 1990s, the western world and Latin America have been implementing policies that minimize the role of the State in the economy. These policies are fiscal rules that condition the actions of the State in economic policy through rigid legal frameworks. Certainly, in the long term they have been successful in managing debt since their inception. However, these policies have not been the recipe for a broad guarantee of rights and better human development.

“Debt management in Peru: fiscal rules, rights and human rights”, is a new investigation from the Latin American Network for Economic and Social Justice (LATINDADD), produced by Jameson Alejandro Mencías, which seeks to open the door to a different understanding of macroeconomic, fiscal and debt sustainability, focusing on guaranteeing people’s rights.

Illicit financial flows in Peru and their impact on the guarantee of human rights

By Economic Justice, Tax Justice

In a time of multiple crises, it’s urgent that States take measures to recuperate the resources that leak through illicit financial flows (IFF).

This document attempts to estimate the revenue lost through the main source of IFF in Peru, false commercial invoicing, and analysing the way in which the States’s capacity to response to the pandemic and guarantee human rights has been adversely impacted.

How to get to the bottom of a country’s debts?

By Debt Justice, Economic Justice

Debt audits can be a powerful tool to support civil society engagement in citizen assessment of debt impacts but also to increase citizens’ participation in public finance governance, leading to an increase in accountability and transparency and allowing for the identification of illegitimate debts at the national, regional and municipal level.

This briefing is a general introduction to debt audits, what they can contribute and their main characteristics, while also providing references to manuals and articles on debt audits. It is intended to support civil society organisations (CSOs) and government officials that are thinking about promoting a debt audit by providing some initial ideas about how to initiate this kind of process.

The briefing covers:

  • What is a debt audit?
  • What we can expect from a debt audit
  • What is analysed under a debt audit
  • How to start and continue the process
  • Difficulties that can be expected
  • Previous examples of debt audits
  • Resources and more information.