LATIN AMERICA: Poverty and Exclusion Unbalance the Region

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Yanory Obando and Tito Drago

SAN JOSE and MADRID, Jan 29 1997 (IPS) - The poverty galloping over Latin America needs to be tackled by fair wealth distribution and the re-incorporation of the poor if regional societies are to be stabilised, concluded a meeting of experts in Costa Rica.

Some 250 million of the 1.2 billion poor in the world today live in Latin America, said specialists from the United Nations Education Science and Culture Organisation, the University of Utrecht, the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and Costa Rica’s government.

These delegates attending the international conference on “Poverty and Social Exclusion” in San Jose called on the “economic and political elites” to incorporate the marginalised and excluded sectors of society into their productive schemes.

FLACSO secretary general, Wilfredo Lozano, said poverty could not be combatted without social equality, even if a framework of economic sustainability is established.

“Poverty is the result of an unfair income distribution, of the backwardness of our productive system and of the inabilities of our economies to absorb the workforce productively,” said Lozano.

The expert added that it is necessary to create an income redistribution policy in favour of the dispossessed and convert them into active subjects in overcoming poverty.

Celina Monterrosa, of the Regional Council of Civil Initiative for Central American Integration (ICIC), criticised the “neoliberal” economic model for disallowing citizen participation in public affairs.

Meanwhile, Edgar Chamorro Marin, of the Permanent Secretariat for the General Central American Economic Integration Treaty (SIECA) said this was the region where “the rich are richest, and the poor poorest” – a situation which shuts out great masses of the population and endangers integration and political and social stability.

“If corrective measures are not applied by the State, the social inequalities will deepen,” added former Spanish ambassador to Mexico, Juan Pablo de la Iglesia – one of the leading mediators between the government and guerrilla in Guatemala.

Thus, the delegates agreed, a political pact must be drawn up where social equity goes hand in hand with sustained growth and economic modernisation.

The phantom which is scouring Latin America consitutes a serious political, social, moral and human problem, said Lozano.

“In earlier times, they talked of the marginalised urban people, of the landless rural people, of the “shirtless ones,” and the rhetoric isn’t much different today,” he said.

Lozano said it was vitally important to include a reflection on the political dimension of the issue, as “development is directly linked to poverty.”

Meanwhile, Rafael Menjivar, director of the FLACSA associate in Costa Rica, said a new worryig factor was that poverty was once again affecting regions and countries which appeared to have overcome it.

“It is growing in Asia, expanding in Africa, exploding in Eastern Europe, it is present in Latin American and is already affecting the rest of Europe and North America,” said Menjivar.

He stressed the interest of the organisers was also to maintain the principle of Agenda 21, the agreement drawn up at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

Menjibar also highlighted the concepts of the Central American Alliance for Sustainable Development, approved in 1994 by the presidents of the area in Managua.

Although globalisation and the economic programmes have generated an “impressive increase in wealth” in the last years of the century, “a poverty free world is still a far off ideal,” he said.

However, the delegates were forced to agree the integration process – a necessary factor in order to achieve a better position in the world economy – was progressing well in the region.

The European Union’s Latin America director, Jose Miguel Anacoreta, stressed this bloc’s commitment to the Central America in both trade and co-operation based on a European Council declaration of 1982.

This bloc provides 55 percent of international co-operation funds for the region, contributing to projects to strengthen the State, modernise public administration and support social policies and the integration process.

Meanwhile, Josette Altman, the first lady of Costa Rica, said poverty requires more “careful” attention from the governments of the world and Latin America in particular.

Altman said the indigenous people, children, senior citizens and women are the most vulnerable social sectors, affected by the shortfalls in education and health and their premature incorporation into the work market.

She stressed Costa Rica’s historical interest in strengthening social welfare programmes and implementing the “process of the universalisation of the social policies,” where health, education and social security have been the kingpins.

“Peace and justice can only be maintained when no citizen is excluded for any of the reasons which lead to poverty,” concluded Altman. (FIN/IPS/tra-so/yo/sm/97)