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“Belonging to a nation is not opposed to globalisation”

Latin America: Aiming for social cohesion

An ethics code for judges

Sri Lanka: The glue that keeps people apart


04/2005 		 

Aiming for social cohesion in Latin America

Early last month, Tabaré Vázquez was sworn in as President of Uruguay. He is the first left-of-centre politician to lead the country. A week later, President Carlos Mesa, Bolivia’s moderate president, offered to resign. Mesa will stay in office until the next elections. Both events are, of course, politically unrelated.

Nonetheless, the events do have something in common. The issue of “social cohesion“ is central to both. The gap dividing rich and poor is known to be particularly wide in most Latin American countries. Despite the apparent triumph of democracy in the region, a sense of unease remains – with poverty and deprivation at the root. Last year, the United Nations Development Programme published a study according to which many Latin Americans would prefer authoritarian rule if that were a way to more prosperity. While it is debatable whether such data really indicate an imminent threat of dictatorship, it is clear that democratically elected governments have, in many countries, failed to raise the living standards as had been hoped by their citizens. Today, some 220 million Latin Americans live in poverty, that is almost half of the region’s population.

According to Germany’s Development Minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, poverty is linked to inadequate spending on social issues such as health, education or the provision of safe drinking water. State expenditure must increase in terms of both quantity and quality, she says. Wieczorek-Zeul also stresses that governments must generate adequate tax revenue if they are to invest in vital public services: “10 or 11% of gross domestic product is simply not enough.“

The issue, however, is not only one of adequate tax rates. As long as law enforcement stays poor, tax evasion remains a crucial handicap, argues Luis Cosenza Jiménez, Minister of the Presidency of Honduras. According to him, social cohesion depends on individuals sharing a common vision for the future of their society. No sense of cohesion will emerge if citizens permanently fear for their lives or their property. Political parties, churches, the media and other institutions are vital for fostering a climate of legitimacy in public affairs, according to the politician from Honduras,

That, however, is more easily said than done. In Guatemala, for instance, seven of 12 million inhabitants descend from the Mayas. Making matters more complex, they speak 22 different languages. Eduardo Stein Barillas, the country’s Vice President, points out that ideas on what is right and wrong tend to diverge in multicultural settings. For instance, land use has spiritual connotations for many indigenous groups. Such notions cannot easily be reconciled with mundane property rights and may rule out the extraction of natural resources. Similarly, the constitutional ideas of equality and human rights are not enshrined in traditional cultures.

On top of all this, Stein reports that while his government does attempt to take indigenous perspectives into account, it is also aware of silent opposition of non-indigenous Guatemalans to such approaches.
In this context, some experiences made in Ecuador, seem encouraging. In this country, activists from native communities in the 1990ies started to involve themselves in electoral politics. In 1996, the Pachakutik movement won democratic control of more than 20 municipalities.
The movement has increased its influence since. According to Luz Marina Vega, a health expert from the Pachakutik-run town of Cotacachi, the guiding principle is that participation has to go beyond regular elections. Rather, administrations should involve people in decision making.

She admits that it can be time consuming to debate budget matters with various groups of civil society. Nonetheless, the effort pays and Pachakutik can show off some impressing statistics: While only a third of Cotacachi’s population had access to primary health care in 1996, the share had risen to 85 % by 2003. Almost 50 % of the households had access to sewerage in 2003, the share had more than doubled since 1996.

Indigenous peoples are not the only traditionally marginalised communities in Ecuador. Pachakutik therefore recognises the need to reach out to other groups, Luz Marina Vega reported at a conference hosted by InWEnt, the German Development Ministry and the Inter-American Development Bank in Berlin in January. According to the Ecuadorian physician, alliances with Afro-Ecuadorian groups have been formed. In her view, such coalitions are necessary for “identity-based” development“ (“desarollo con identidad“). The term “inclusion“, on the other hand, makes her uncomfortable as it might imply a loss of diversity.

Identity-based organisations can, no doubt, play a useful role. In order to do so for a nation at large, however, it is indispensible that they be prepared to cooperate and share responsibility with actors from other segments of society. Otherwise, there is a risk of increasing frictions. Henning Reetz of Brot für die Welt, a charity run by the protestant church in Germany, says that youth gangs and organised crime nurture rely on a particular sense of social cohesion. For persons who are excluded from mainstream society, a violent gang may be the only setting in which they feel accepted.

Marco Ferroni of the Inter-American Development Bank agrees. In his view, domestic and street violence are rooted in a lack of general cohesion and youth gangs are linked to unemployment. As the police, on their own, cannot solve such problems, a wider policy approach is needed. According to Ferroni, governments must make redistributive transfers to poor people.

On top of that, they should also supply essential public goods and ensure a fair distribution of incomes and opportunities. The advanced countries of the OECD, Ferroni states, are much better at fulfilling these tasks than is typical of Latin America.

Many experts from Latin America, however, raise other questions concerning their countries’ democracies and their relation to rich nations. For instance, Luz Marina Vega, the health expert from Cotacachi, stresses that Ecuador’s national budget is seriously constrained because the country must service foreign debt. And Minister Cosenza of Honduras says that falling coffee prices have badly hit his country, whereas the cost for fossil fuels has grown. (dem)