A/HRC/31/60 did not complete their whole prescriptions owing to rising costs.87 In a case study on Greece, Oxfam reports a strong impact of increased poverty and inequality on crime and suicide rates.88 In Spain, meanwhile, a harsh set of austerity measures has driven a dramatic uptick in unmet health needs among the poor, wage precariousness, income inequality and poverty, especially among children.89 52. Similarly, several United Nations bodies have identified the social impact of debt crises and related structural adjustment programmes.90 Studies by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have demonstrated that debt-servicing obligations diverted cash from social welfare programmes with adverse consequences on human development. 91 Austerity measures have exacerbated the negative social impact for disadvantaged groups such as women, children, person with disabilities, older persons, people with HIV/AIDS, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, migrants, refugees and the unemployed, as documented in a report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2013.92 Overall, adjustment plans without consistent debt reliefs have proven to be detrimental to human development and human rights, at least in the short term. Alternatively, substantial debt relief has allowed targeted countries to scale up “povertyreducing” expenditures.93 IV. Conclusions and recommendations A. Conclusions 53. The present report demonstrates that there are manifold linkages between inequality, private and sovereign debt and the occurrence of financial crises. Although economic research only recently has turned to this field and many aspects still need to be examined, a number of important outcomes appear to be established at this stage. First, there are strong indications that inequality may substantially contribute to and exacerbate the emergence and the course of financial crises, even if other factors, in particular financial deregulation, obviously also play a crucial role. Inequality erodes States’ tax base, thereby impacting sovereign revenues. Inequality also appears to prompt increased levels of private credit, which in turn may adversely affect sovereign debt and stability of the financial markets. This phenomenon is mainly explained by rising credit demand and credit supply. Aggregate underconsumption in conjunction with corresponding low interest monetary policy may be a contributing factor to an increased credit supply. 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 See T. Cavero and K. Poinsasamy, “A cautionary tale: the true cost of austerity and inequality in Europe”, Oxfam briefing paper (2013). See G. Cavero, “The true cost of austerity and inequality in Europe – Greek case study”, Oxfam case study (2013). See “Visualizing rights: a snapshot of relevant statistics on Spain”, Centre for Economic and Social Rights fact sheet No. 14 (2015). See E/C.12/ESP/CO/5; E/C.12/GRC/CO/2; E/C.12/PRT/CO/4; A/HRC/25/Add.1; UNICEF, “Austerity measures threaten children and poor households”, working paper (September 2011); UNICEF, Children of the Recession: The impact of the economic crisis on child well-being in rich countries (New York, 2014); and ILO, World Social Protection Report 2014-15 (Geneva, 2014). See G.A. Cordia, R. Jolly and F. Stewart, Adjustment with a Human Face, Vol. II, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1988). E/2013/82. See A/HRC/23/37. 17