This talk, organized by the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies at the University of Lund, by Dr. Jyoti Sanghera will focus on the two-year experience of the Surge Initiative of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that has recently entered into a partnership with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights at the University of Lund. The aim of the Surge initiative is to connect human rights with macroeconomic analysis and policies with the objective of realizing economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) and the Sustainable Development Goals for all, without discrimination. The shift underscored in this analysis is to explore the human rights pathways to a new social contract by centering a human rights economy.
The talk will discuss the lessons learnt from the Surge’s seeding change country projects to highlight the strengths, opportunities and challenges in engaging with contextualised macroeconomic policies to advance human rights, especially of the groups most left behind during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, through increased investments in social spending, including for the right to health, food and social protection. Issues of inequality, multidimensional poverty, and the cost of structural discrimination will be some of the framing elements of the discussion in this panel. Dr. Sanghera will draw on examples from the Asian region, as relevant.
Find more information about the event, and register here.