An end-of-year message from our Executive Director, Dr. Maria Ron Balsera.
Wherever in the world you are reading this from, we share a belief: people and the planet should be upheld over power and profit. And even when change is slow, uneven, or hard to see, it is worth fighting for.
2025 has seen an increase of fragmentation, violence, and backlash. It unfolded in the brutality in Gaza, took shape in the prolonged wars in Ukraine, Yemen, and other regions scarred by conflict. It became evident in the deepening debt crises, such as in Zambia or Sri Lanka, and in the sharp cuts in aid and public budgets across the Global South, all while climate change exacerbated inequalities within and between countries. The richest individuals also continued to amass wealth and capture democratic institutions.
These crises tested the limits of our resilience, but they also revealed it. People came together: in protest, in mutual aid, in calls for justice that refused silence. We continue to call out injustices, unearth the root causes, find actionable solutions, and join forces to change course. As we look back at 2025, we must remember not only what we endured, but what we built. Not only what we mourned, but what we achieved.
This year showed that sustained advocacy, careful analysis, and strategic alliances shape global agendas even in constrained conditions. At the 30-year anniversary of the Beijing Declaration, CSW69 in New York culminated in a six-priority action agenda whose impact will depend on how it is financed and implemented. The negotiations for a UN Framework Tax Convention advanced in New York and Nairobi, overcoming attempts to derail a fair and inclusive process. At FfD4 in Seville, civil society created new momentum for rights-based fiscal reforms. In Johannesburg, inequality was finally recognized as a global emergency in the first G20 report on the issue, while movements from around the world united to demand a more just international order.
CESR helped connect these milestones with the transformative proposals advanced under Brazil’s G20 presidency last year, helping to secure a legacy that can withstand future backlash. At COP30 in Belém, we also deepened our climate justice work, challenging false solutions and exposing how climate finance must shift from market logic to redistribution and reparation. Across all these arenas, we defended a renewed multilateralism grounded in equity, rights, and collective action.
Turning these openings into lasting change requires connective infrastructure: spaces for alignment, analysis, and solidarity. At CESR, we believe in and practice cross-movement mobilization. We build bridges between grassroots organizations, international civil society, academia, and decision-makers. We use our expertise to develop tools to unravel complex issues, provide timely analysis, break silos, and convene spaces for joint strategizing.
This year, we contributed tools to make a Rights-Based Economy a reality, including resources on climate finance, gender justice, financial flows and climate-resilient development, and a joint explainer on what defines a Human Rights Economy. We also shared strategies to influence G20 reform, and contributed with technical insights on taxation and feminist, environmental, and decolonial tax approaches. These contributions reflect the trust placed in CESR to translate bold visions into grounded strategies.
Beyond official headlines, another story is being written: one carried by those who keep showing up, organizing, building, and imagining. That story, and the collective memory of what has been built, not just what has been broken, will shape and sustain our direction in the years to come. It is in these stories of persistence and convergence that we find our direction, and the reason our work must continue, with renewed clarity and resolve as we enter the year ahead.
If you share our vision for a fairer and more sustainable global economy, we invite you to support our work. As a lean organization, your donation (no matter the size) goes a long way in strengthening our ability to conduct cutting-edge research, advocacy, and movement-building to advance economic and social rights.
Best wishes,
Maria.