Latin America has often been described a region persistently plagued by two characteristics: high levels of violent crime and persistently high levels of inequality. If there’s evidence to suggest that the challenge of the former has grown in recent years, the struggle against the latter might just be one of the region’s most important success stories.
On a national level, Tina Rosenberg, in a long opinion at New York Times Sunday, sings the praises of Latin American experiments with conditional cash transfers (CCTs). Brazilians (Bolsa Familia) and Mexicans (Oportunidades) have long debated who deserves credit for first implementing such programs in which regular payments are delivered to the poor in return for a variety of social promises from heads of households (making sure children go to school, get regular medical check-ups, etc.). But no matter, the success of CCTs has been undeniable over the last decade plus. Rosenberg on Brazil and its fight against both poverty and inequality – particularly the impact of Bolsa Familia:
“Today…Brazil’s level of economic inequality is dropping at a faster rate than that of almost any other country. Between 2003 and 2009, the income of poor Brazilians has grown seven times as much as the income of rich Brazilians. Poverty has fallen during that time from 22 percent of the population to 7 percent.”
In stark contrast inequality in Latin America’s northern neighbor, the US, continues to rise. “In fact, says Rosenberg, “if current trends continue, the United States may soon be more unequal than Brazil.” What’s more, in age of micro-solutions to issues of poverty, inequality, and social exclusion, CCT programs have come to represent something that’s decidedly macro. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) recently estimated that 113 million individuals (50 million families) – or 19% of the population in Latin America and the Caribbean – today benefit from CCT-style programs. In Brazil, the expansion of Bolsa Familia under Lula da Silva’s watch now means some 50 million Brazilians are recipients. And according to Rosenberg, families in “extreme poverty” have are todoay provided $40/month unconditionally.
Key to Rosenberg’s argument is the fact that CCT programs have hit both poverty and inequality in places like Brazil. But for those are who skeptical about the latter, other innovative programs have received new attention across Latin America as well. CEPAL, which made the struggle for equality its principal objective in 2010, has floated the idea of a basic, unconditional universal income, or “citizen’s income,” to fight durable income inequalities in the region. The Commission says Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Costa Rica – and perhaps soon Brazil – could quickly be in an economic position to experiment with just such an initiative. A new December 2010 CEPAL paper looks at the possibilities for a basic regional income in Central America.
Less quantifiable, but no less noteworthy, has been Latin America’s push for equality and parity on a global level. The Wall Street Journal yesterday looks at Brazil’s new, independent role in pressuring China on currency manipulation issues while remaining its critical position vis a vis the US for printing an excess of dollars to lower long-term interest rates. EFE reports on record levels of intra-regional trade between South America’s two largest economies, Brazil and Argentina ($32.95 billion in 2010). In the Santiago Times this week, former finance ministers from Colombia, Peru, and Chile add their voices to those like Brazil who have been demanding greater equality and small-state participation in reworking the international financial architecture. And the Financial Times this week features on-going work in Ecuador to begin the country’s Yasuni experiment in which international financing would be provided to the Andean country to leave its most valuable natural resource, oil, in the ground. Such a proposal has come embody an alternative vision of international cooperation which could both secure the Global South’s “right to development” and account for environmental concerns stemming from heavy industrialization.
In other stories:
· The Wall Street Journal reports on politics in Venezuela this morning as a new National Assembly prepares to be sworn-in today. As the paper notes, the governing PSUV still retains its majority in the new Assembly– albeit a significantly smaller one than before. The Journal says the new body was partially “defanged” in the final days of 2010 by the passage of an enabling law that gives President Hugo Chavez special decree powers for the next 18 months. Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue says “it's very, very hard to talk about a democracy when you have elected officials [in a legislature] that can't exercise their authority.” Even so, Kevin Casas Zamora of the Brookings Institute says the opposition finds itself in a “better position now than they were before [the election].” The paper also gives a brief recap of some of the contentious legislative actions taken by the outgoing Assembly – among them a new media law which some believe opens the door for internet censorship (RESORTE) and new legislation that could restrict foreign funding for NGOs working on “political rights” issues. Also approved: a new legal framework to extend “popular and public planning” through local communal councils and new financial measures which will make banking a “public service,” thus obligating contributions to the country’s social economy. Interestingly, the Chavez government backed down on two its most contentious lame-duck proposals Tuesday. As El Universal reports today that Chavez used his veto powers to reject the “Ley de Educación Universitaria” – heavily criticized by Venezuelan students because of limits its would have placed on university autonomy. A proposal to raise the value-added tax was also pulled at the last minute by the PSUV. BBC Mundo has more, calling both actions major “surprises.” El Nacional has the breakdown of PSUV – opposition chairmanships on Assembly committees in Venezuela’s new congress.
· Internationally, a diplomatic crisis between Venezuela and the US that broke out over the US’s insistence to seat ambassadorial nominee Larry Palmer in Caracas may already be thawing. EFE says a Venezuelan source reported Chavez and US Sec. of State Hillary Clinton briefly discussed the row in Brasilia over the weekend. Chavez is reported to have told Clinton he had no plans to completely cut off diplomatic relations with the US because of the incident. And on Tuesday, Chavez publicly welcomed DOS’s suggestion that a new individual be nominated for the Caracas post. A few of Chavez’s favored choices: Oliver Stone, Sean Penn, Noam Chomsky or even Bill Clinton. The Venezuelan president continued: “We would be very ... pretentious if we were to think it's a sign of weakness, that we've defeated (the U.S.). No. They have their interests and we have ours.”
· While I discussed reports of rising regional violence in 2010 yesterday, InSight offers evidence of that trends uneven nature. In Colombia, the website writes, “the government has not had a difficult time presenting the year as a success in terms of security gains.” Some numbers on drug eradication, the FARC, and crime provided as evidence of positive developments in the realm of citizen security.
· Also on Colombia, the AP on Monday reports on new charges being brought against an army major and four Colombian soldiers for their role in killing three innocent civilians and then presenting the bodies as those of slain guerilla fighters. The murders occurred in 2002 in Antioquia state. The AP says at least 272 soldiers have been convicted and 58 have been absolved in similar “false positive” cases since 2008.
· Incoming Brazilian Human Rights Secretary, María do Rosario, says she will push for the creation of a national truth commission as Dilma Rousseff’s top human rights official. A similar proposal during the Lula administration drew the ire of the military and sectors of the Catholic Church, Argentina’s Pagina 12 reports, but nearly five decades after many of the worst forms of state terrorism, do Rosario says it’s time to confront the past “with objectivity” to be able to “turn the page.”
· Also re: human rights, El Faro reports on reforms to the criminal code in El Salvador – an attempt to bring national legislation in line with international treaties on forced disappearances, torture, and crimes against humanity. The changes will include increasing sentences for all three crimes.
· In Haiti, a presidential run-off is being delayed at least one month, the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) announced Tuesday. A 12-member OAS team is still working on its review of the vote and doesn't expect to present a report to Haitian officials before Sunday, OAS Assistant Secretary General Albert Ramdin told the Associated Press Tuesday.
· A “pay-to-play” scandal has rocked the 2011 presidential race in Peru. As Reuters reports, frontrunner Luis Castaneda’s campaign has taken a major hit after accusations that a possible running mate for the former Lima mayor paid 500,000 soles – what the paper calls “a relative fortune” – to be one of Castaneda’s two choices for two VP slots. The news outlet Peru 21 says evidence of the scandal came by way of taped phone calls between the accused Carmen Rose Nunez de Acuna and Castaneda’s National Solidarity Party.
· The LA Times with an editorial calling on the Obama administration to give the ATF new authority to require gun dealers near the Mexican border to report multiple purchases of high-powered rifles as a means of stopping gun smuggling.
· Finally, two former Lat Am presidents with two opinions. Brazil’s Fernando Henrique Cardoso writes in Colombia’s El Tiempo on regional drug policy and the recommendations he, former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria, and former Mexiacn president Ernesto Zedillo offered through their High Commission on Drugs and Democracy two years ago. The first objective, Cardoso writes, remains continuing to chip away at the taboo on talking about serious drug policy reform. Meanwhile, Costa Rica’s Oscar Arias, in the new issue of Foreign Affairs, presents his views about Latin American development. Those who study the topic Arias discusses might find some of the former president’s views about “underdevelopment” more than a little outdated. For example, much of this diagnosis:
“The key is accepting that four regional cultural traits are obstacles that need to be overcome for development to succeed: resistance to change, absence of confidence, fragile democratic norms, and a soft spot for militarism.”
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