The Hernán Santa Cruz Dialogues: 2025 video podcasts

The 2025 Dialogue Series focuses on the Human Rights Economy (HRE), a framework that places people and the environment at the centre of economic, social, and environmental policies. The HRE aims at ensuring that development, economic, industrial and trade laws and policies, investment decisions, consumer choices, business models and business operations are firmly guided by human rights. The series is delivered through a set of video podcast dialogues with invited experts, which aim to raise awareness about the HRE concept and its practical application in different areas of economic and social policy making, facilitate cross-sectoral engagement, and empower stakeholders to advocate for inclusive policies that protect human dignity, particularly for marginalized groups. By fostering discussions, the series will contribute to provide guidance on steps that policy makers and other stakeholders can take to building economies that not only respect human rights but actively promote them through practical, rights-based frameworks.

The 2025 Dialogue Series focuses on five themes: International financial architecture reform, maximum available resources and debt management, domestic taxation, care and support economy, and the right to social security.

Reforming the international financial architecture

This Dialogue discusses how the reform of the IFA can proactively support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and the realization of human rights. The dialogue explores how to strengthen the IFA’s capacity to support developing countries more effectively and equitably particularly during crises, including through different initiatives to increase sustainable development finance for countries most in need. The Dialogue also discusses how enhanced representation of developing countries in decision-making in global international economic and financial institutions would deliver more effective, credible, accountable and legitimate international financial system and institutions.

To learn more, watch the video podcast featuring H.E. Patricia Hermans, Permanent Representative of the Bahamas to the United Nations Office in Geneva, who shares insights on advancing human rights through international financial architecture reform.

Maximum available resources and debt management

In the current environment, securing sound and sustainable debt management is a critical to mobilising resources - both domestically and externally. This Dialogue will explore the interaction between State’s human rights obligations, including to take steps to the maximum available resources for the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights, and debt management. The dialogue will serve as a platform to promote how States can best use the macroeconomic tools at their disposal avoiding reliance on austerity measures, and how human rights can be better protected through sound and sustainable domestic debt management.

Further reflections on these issues are provided in the video podcast with Yuefen Li, former Independent Expert on Foreign Debt and Senior Fellow at the South Centre.

Domestic taxation

The dialogue on domestic taxation offers practical insights for national policymakers and other stakeholders on how to design and implement tax policies that are grounded in human rights principles. These principles, include non-discrimination and equality (ensuring tax systems do not disproportionately burden marginalized or disadvantaged groups) and transparency, participation and accountability. It also identifies how alignment of the UN Framework on International Tax Cooperation with human rights can help to better development and human rights outcomes for both developed and developing countries.

To explore these perspectives in more depth, watch the video podcast featuring Fernanda Cimbra Santiago, Special Advisor to the Minister of Finance of Brazil.

Care and support systems anchored in human rights

Care and support economy, as a part of the human rights economy concept, seeks to deliver for the rights of both those providing and requiring care and support and reduce inequalities in provision and access to care and support. These dialogues discuss the concept of care and support systems anchored in human rights. Furthermore, they provide guidance on how States can develop human-rights based care and support systems that deliver for the rights of those providing and requiring care and support, how macroeconomic frameworks should work for care and support systems to reduce gender equality and how care and support systems can advance disability inclusion.

Hear more about these issues in the video podcasts featuring Laura Pautassi (Universidad de Buenos Aires), María Ángeles Durán (Spanish National Research Council – CSIC), and Maria Ní Fhlarata, who discuss care and support systems from human rights and feminist economic perspectives.

The right to social security

The dialogues on the right to social security serve as a platform to exchange views, understand and learn from experience and share ways to address the gaps in social protection coverage. They further help identify rights-based measures that States can take to address a range of systemic issues, including weak legal and institutional frameworks, insufficient coverage for informal workers, fiscal constraints, and the complexity of existing systems that disproportionately disadvantage vulnerable groups. These dialogues serve as a platform to build constituencies across various stakeholders on the importance of strengthening universal social protection systems with nationally determined floors, grounded in human rights norms and standards.

To learn more, watch the video podcast featuring and Shahra Razavi, Director of the Social Protection Department at the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Dr. Chan Narith, Secretary General of the National Social Protection Council, Cambodia.