Remarks summarizing this recent evidence and interpreting its policy implications before the UN Human Rights Council’s 61st session, Geneva, March 5, 2026. Entitled Domestic Resource Mobilization and Fiscal Space in the “Human Rights Economy”: The Macroeconomic Dynamics of Progressive Realization.
The macroeconomic payoff from investment in universal economic and social human rights
By Rick Samans
Evidence is accumulating that the GDP and even tax revenue multipliers of increased public investment in the material sufficiency, agency and dignity of people underpinned by human rights are often strongly positive over 5 to 10 years. The budgeting and borrowing practices of governments and international financial institutions need to catch up and treat investment in social infrastructure, such as social protection systems, more like that in physical infrastructure, i.e., scored dynamically and partially amortized over a medium to long term budgetary window.