Efficiency/effectiveness Treaty monitoring bodies144 and special procedures145 have increasingly addressed issues of resource allocation efficiency and effectiveness. As human rights experts identified in 1987, and have since reiterated,146 ‘the obligation of progressive achievement exists independently of the increase in resources; it requires effective use of resources available’.147 In this regard, treaty bodies have sometimes recommended that states expand certain ministries’ capacities to ensure effective resource-allocation.148 The CESCR now regularly urges that states improve tax-collection effectiveness in order to increase resources available for economic, social and cultural rights.149 The Special Rapporteur on health has recommended the state ‘administer the existing budget efficiently and mobilise additional resources, which may include, for example, changes to the State’s taxation policy or smart incurrence of debt’.150 The Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty has stressed the importance of improving tax-collection efficiency, including by improvements in tax administration151 and by reconsidering ineffective tax loopholes, exemptions and waivers that disproportionally benefit society’s better-off segments152 (see section 3.4 below). Cooperation Human rights monitoring bodies increasingly recognise that, when dealing with resource mobilisation, certain states, in particular low-income states and states with high debt levels or loans, have limited discretion to act; wealthy states and international financial institutions, as well as transnational corporations, constrain their actions.153 Particular attention has been paid to the limited discretion that states have to effectively address competitive tax incentives, tax evasion, tax abuse and other illicit financial flows. Therefore, special 144 See, eg, CRC, General Comment No 19, para 11; Concluding Observations Maldives CRC/C/MDV/CO/3 (2007); Concluding Observations Armenia E/C.12/ARM/CO/2-3 (2014); Concluding Observations Democratic Republic of Congo E/C.12/COD/CO/4 (2009). 145 See, eg, ‘Report of the Independent Expert on poverty, Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona’ (2011), UN Doc A/HRC/17/34, para 80; ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on health, Anand Grover’ (2014) UN Doc A/69/299, para 20. 146 ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on water and sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque’ (2011) UN Doc A/66/255; ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on education, Kishore Singh’ (2011) UN Doc A/66/269; see also, Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, The Nature of Obligations under the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (Intersentia 2003). 147 Limburg Principle 23. 148 Concluding Observations Armenia E/C.12/ARM/CO/2-3 (2014). 149 See, eg, CESCR, Concluding Observations Paraguay (2015) UN Doc /C.12/PRY/CO/4. 150 ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on health, Anand Grover’ (2014) UN Doc A/69/299, para 20. 151 ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on poverty, Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona’ (2014) UN Doc A/HRC/26/28, paras 56 and 57. 152 ‘Report of the Independent Expert on poverty, Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona’ (2011), UN Doc A/HRC/17/34, para 81. 153 ‘Report of the Independent Expert on foreign debt, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky’ (2016) UN Doc A/HRC/31/60, para 64. December 2017   The Obligation to Mobilise Resources: Bridging Human Rights, Sustainable Development Goals, and Economic and Fiscal Policies 47