A/HRC/45/28 the design and membership of such a grievance mechanism.40 Communities should always feel comfortable when reaching out to accountability mechanisms in general. B. State responsiveness to the needs of the population 1. Maximum use of available resources 41. During the Human Rights Council intersessional seminar on the role of good governance in the promotion and protection of human rights and best practices in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the member of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, who was on the panel, linked good governance to the obligation of States parties under article 2 (1) of the Covenant to take steps, to the maximum of their available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of all economic, social and cultural rights (A/HRC/43/34, para. 23). This is an overarching obligation under the Covenant, but States parties may find themselves in a position where they are not able to comply with it owing to the retrogressive measures that they are compelled to take, dictated by loan conditionalities imposed by international financial institutions. These measures include privatization and deregulation, as well as austerity measures, which require substantial reductions in public spending and/or tax increases in an effort to control public sector debt and enable economic growth. As a result, such measures can have – and indeed have had – a detrimental impact on the enjoyment of a whole set of rights covered by the Covenant, including the right to work (article 6), the right to just and favourable conditions of work (article 7), the right to social security (article 9), the right to an adequate standard of living, including the right to food and the right to housing (article 11), the right to health (article 12) and the right to education (articles 13 and 14). 42. As stressed by the Committee, among those disproportionately affected by austerity measures in the form of job cuts, minimum-wage freezes and cutbacks in social assistance benefits are low-income families and workers with the lowest qualifications. Similarly, women bear a disproportionate cost when austerity measures affect childcare or family support services (E/C.12/2016/1, para. 2). Other disadvantaged and marginalized groups disproportionately affected include children, persons with disabilities, older persons, people with HIV/AIDS, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, migrants, refugees and unemployed persons (E/2013/82, para. 49). 43. The adverse effects of austerity measures on the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights have been well documented by human rights mechanisms and civil society. For instance, the Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights, in his report to the General Assembly in 2019 on the responsibility for complicity of international financial institutions in human rights violations in the context of retrogressive economic reforms, presented a series of compelling examples highlighting how the conditions attached to loans by such institutions have hindered the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights for the population, including a number of disadvantaged and marginalized groups. The examples were taken from some of the country visits undertaken by that Independent Expert, as well as the doctrine and jurisprudence of United Nations treaty bodies (A/74/178, paras. 45–55).41 The former Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, in his 2017 report to the General Assembly on the impact of the conditionality of loans from IMF on development and human rights, studied several country cases (A/72/187, paras. 31–54). He called on IMF and the World Bank to embrace new so-called 40 41 Submission received from the Coalition for Human Rights in Development. See also Isabel Ortiz and Matthew Cummins, Austerity: The New Normal – A Renewed Washington Consensus 2010–24 (New York, Initiative for Policy Dialogue; Brussels, International Trade Union Confederation; Ferney-Voltaire, Public Services International; Brussels, European Network on Debt and Development; and London, Bretton Woods Project, 2019). 11