Vicente is a policy advocate and researcher with over a decade of experience working to strengthen democratic institutions and make economic systems fairer across the globe.
He currently leads the economic justice programme at the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), where he designs strategies that connect economic and climate governance with deeper questions of democratic legitimacy and accountability. His work has involved high-level influencing at the UN, COP, and Financial Institutions to democratise global economic governance and reform the international tax system.
Vicente has played a key role in building alliances to shift power in global economic negotiations. He has worked to strengthen South-South cooperation and amplify Global South voices in international forums that are too often dominated by wealthier nations. In 2020, he launched GI-ESCR’s Latin America hub, working with partners across the region to connect economic justice with democratic reform. He has led cross-regional coalitions, engaged with lawmakers and civil society leaders, and worked with political actors and donors to turn mobilisation into real policy gains—from constitutional reform processes to legislative influencing and fiscal justice campaigns.
Before joining GI-ESCR, Vicente spent five years at TECHO, a leading Latin American NGO tackling urban inequality. As legal director and advocacy lead, he helped secure housing rights for families living in informal settlements and led legal and political strategies to expand public services for excluded communities.
Vicente holds an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex. He is completing an MSc in Inequalities at the London School of Economics as an Atlantic Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute. His academic research focuses on how tax and climate policy can be used to rebuild democratic legitimacy, particularly in contexts marked by high inequality and eroding public trust.
Selected publications include ‘The Impact of the Right to Housing to Addressing Vertical Inequalities’, published in ‘Human Rights and Economic Inequalities’ (Cambridge, 2020) and 'Social Rights and the Constitutional Moment: Learning from Chile and International Experiences' (Hart, 2022).
What drives me is the urgency of this political moment. Rising inequality, democratic backsliding, and the spread of populism aren’t isolated trends—they are symptoms of systems that no longer deliver for most people. I’m inspired by the chance to collectively reimagine new alternatives. Securing democracy today means more than defending institutions—it means rethinking how power and resources are distributed in society. This moment calls for sharper ideas, stronger alliances, and the courage to rewrite the rules, not just patch them.Vicente Silva Didier