A/HRC/44/40/Add.2 Annex Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his visit to Spain I. Introduction 1. The Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, visited Spain from 27 January to 7 February 2020. The purpose of the visit was to report to the Human Rights Council on the extent to which government policies and programmes relating to extreme poverty are consistent with its human rights obligations and to offer constructive recommendations to the Government and other stakeholders. The Special Rapporteur is grateful to the Government for inviting him and facilitating his visit, and its continuing engagement. The present report is submitted in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 35/19.1 2. In the course of 12 days in Spain, the Special Rapporteur visited Galicia, the Basque Country, Extremadura, Andalusia, Catalonia and Madrid, and met with government officials at the municipal, autonomous community and central levels, representatives of civil society, academics and activists, and people affected by poverty in urban and rural areas. He visited numerous community centres and schools, the offices of nongovernmental organizations, a centre for people with disabilities, a social services office, an informal settlement for migrant workers, a privatized housing block, a domestic worker centre and several Roma communities. The Special Rapporteur would like to express deep gratitude to the organizations, communities and families who took the time to meet with him and generously shared information, often quite personal, during and prior to the visit. 3. Spain began 2020 with a new Government, one with high hopes and impressive ambitions, especially in the social sphere, but which confronts daunting challenges. While Spain is thriving economically, half of its population is not. The fourth largest economy in the European Union has enjoyed consistent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) since the economic crisis, unemployment is falling, average wages are increasing and exports are growing.2 But almost half the Spanish people rank unemployment and economic insecurity as their top concerns.3 It has become abundantly clear that the post-recession recovery that has been so good for some has left many people behind and that all too little has been done for most members of that large group. 4. The country has high unemployment, chronic youth unemployment, a housing crisis of stunning proportions, deep and widespread poverty, largely inadequate social protection arrangements, a segregated and increasingly anachronistic education system, fiscal policies that provide far more benefits to the wealthy than the poor and an entrenched bureaucratic mentality in many parts of the Government that values formalistic procedures over the wellbeing of people. 5. If strategic plans and voluminous reports could solve poverty, Spain would be riding high. But in the absence of a meaningful commitment to uphold people’s social rights to housing, education and an adequate standard of living, these grand designs will continue to be as ineffectual as they have been over the past decade. Spain needs innovative leadership at the national level, backed up with resources and the support of the autonomous communities, to achieve far-reaching reforms. With its embrace of social rights and fiscal 1 2 3 2 The Special Rapporteur is grateful for the superb research and analysis undertaken by Bassam Khawaja, Rebecca Riddell and staff of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). National Institute of Statistics: “Quarterly Spanish national accounts: main aggregates. Fourth quarter of 2019” (31 January 2020) and “Economically active population survey (EAPS). Fourth quarter of 2019” (28 January 2020). Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, “Barómetro de enero 2020” available from www.cis.es/cis/opencm/ES/1_encuestas/estudios/ver.jsp?estudio=14482.