Suchergebnisse

Most indicators of human development in Latin America improved considerably until the early 1980s. Unfortunately, the debt crisis which hit most countries in the region during the 1980s badly dented the social record. Not only did it increase the number of people living in poverty but it led to a profound change in the nature of the development model. Neo‐liberal economic thought and the lessons of the debt crisis convinced one Latin American state after another that it should follow a different development path.Economic stabilization and structural adjustment had a profound effect on poverty in the region. Most families became poorer, particularly those living in the cities. Structural adjustment and the new economic model also modified the role of the state. Increasingly, Latin American governments stopped giving general subsidies and introduced a strategy of targeting subsidies at the poor. In places, the new strategy will no doubt provide an adequate safety net, but in others it will fail to provide sufficient help for the poor. All we can predict is that poverty will long remain regrettably common in most parts of Latin America. In places, economic growth will undoutedly reduce poverty but it is not at all easy to predict where it will be reduced. In this respect Latin America is very much like the rest of the world. Globalization has opened up local economies to international competition and offered them the prospect of selling local goods to foreign markets. How many Latin American economies will benefit from the new situation will determine how the poor will fare. Unfortunately, the state's ability to deal with any subsequent poverty has been greatly reduced. That, too, is part and parcel of the process of globalization.

Bogota is seemingly a positive example of what restructuring and sensible macroeconomic policy can bring to Latin America. Despite liberalisation and a vast increase in the number of people seeking work, unemployment rates have fallen. Large numbers of new jobs have been created, principally in the informal sector. There seems little real doubt that since 1970 poverty in Bogota has become both less common and less serious. However, if there is less poverty, it is principally because of demographic change: adults form a larger proportion of the labour force, and more of those adults are working. Poverty has been cut by the huge rise in labour participation. Fewer people are hungry, but people are also a great deal busier. Nor has the degree of income inequality been reduced.