IPS-English LATIN AMERICA: And Now For Some More Ambitious Anti-Poverty Goals Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:13:01 -0800 Daniela Estrada SANTIAGO, Nov 16 (IPS) - Sixty-eight percent of the time available for reaching the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG), which is to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, has expired, and Latin America has gone 87 percent of the way towards achieving it. Countries that have advanced the most should now work on halving total poverty, ECLAC says. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), 36.5 percent of the total population of the region, or 194 million people, were poor in 2006. Of these, 71 million people, or 13.4 percent, were extremely poor, that is, living on less than a dollar a day. Fifteen million people escaped poverty in 2006, and 10 million overcame extreme poverty. In proportional terms, total poverty fell by 3.3 percentage points with respect to 2005, and extreme poverty dropped two percentage points. In spite of this improvement, the region is still nowhere near its 1980 figures, when the number of poor people was 136 million, of whom 62 million people were indigent. In absolute numbers, though not as percentages, there are more poor and extremely poor people in the region today than there were 27 years ago, said ECLAC Executive Secretary José Luis Machinea at the launch of the report ”Social Panorama of Latin America 2007”, in the Chilean capital Thursday. The countries that have made the most progress in reducing poverty and extreme poverty since 2002 are Argentina, where the levels have fallen by 24.4 and 13.7 percent, respectively, and Venezuela, with reductions of 18.4 and 12.3 percent. According to ECLAC's projections, in 2007 the regional poverty level will fall to 35.1 percent (190 million people), and the level of extreme poverty to 12.7 percent (69 million people), or 9.8 percentage points lower than the 1990 baseline rate of 22.5 percent. This result is equivalent to achieving 87 percent of the first MDG -- halving the proportion of indigent people -- in 68 percent of the time agreed for the goal's fulfilment, the document says. This positive result is mainly because the two most populous countries in the region, Brazil and Mexico, have already met the first MDG, as have Chile and Ecuador. The eight MDGs were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000, and are to be fulfilled by 2015, based on 1990 levels. As well as halving the proportion of people living with hunger and in extreme poverty, the goals include achieving universal primary education, reducing child mortality and maternal mortality rates, promoting gender equality and combating HIV/AIDS. While on average the region is well on its way to meeting the first MDG, differences between countries are great, Machinea stressed. Colombia, El Salvador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela have made progress equal or greater than the expected 68 percent. However, Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Uruguay have not yet covered 50 percent of the distance towards the goal, the document says. With respect to the issue of total poverty, rather than extreme poverty alone, Chile is the only country in which poverty has been reduced by over half, falling from 38.6 percent in 1990 to 13.7 percent in 2006. Ecuador, Mexico and Panama have advanced more than 68 percent towards halving total poverty, while countries like Bolivia and Uruguay have progressed less than 10 percent of the way. Machinea urged the countries that have advanced the most in terms of poverty reduction to set themselves the more ambitious target of halving total poverty by 2015. One of the factors explaining the downwards trend in poverty in the region is sustained growth in per capita gross domestic product (GDP) over the last four years (2003-2007). At over three percent a year, the rate of per capita GDP growth is higher than it has been since the 1970s, helping to reduce unemployment, said the head of ECLAC. In addition, the dependency rate (the number of economically inactive persons dependent on each job-holder) has fallen, and social policies have been implemented that involve more spending, but are more effective. In the case of some Central American countries, the increase in remittances sent home by emigrants has also contributed. The rise in workers' incomes seen in only a few countries did not contribute substantially to poverty reduction. In 2004-2005, average public social spending in Latin America stood at 15.9 percent of GDP, 3.1 percentage points more than in 1990-1991. According to Machinea, social spending by governments should switch from being procyclical (spending more during economic booms and less when GDP has shrunk) to being countercyclical, in order to keep in place a safety net for the most vulnerable people. This also means saving more in periods of strong economic growth. The ECLAC report also says that spending on education has become more progressive, that is to say, it is being distributed more equally between different social sectors. In contrast, social security remains highly regressive due to the prevalence of contributory systems. To identify target areas for social policies, ECLAC recommends that countries take the phase they have reached in their demographic transition into account. Some countries urgently need to tackle child mortality and malnutrition, while in others the main challenge may be higher education or health systems, Machinea said. As for the fiscal pact within the social contract, Machinea told IPS that ”on average, tax revenue should be increased in the region, by reducing exemptions and exonerations for taxes on profits, as these tend to benefit the most powerful groups.” Measures should also be taken against tax evasion, he said. Asked by IPS about the quality of poverty measurements in each country, after internal criticisms have arisen in many of them, including Chile, Machinea said the problem is that many of the methods used are based on out-of-date statistics. ECLAC is currently updating its poverty line, using data from the latest household surveys. The indicators will be available in 2008, said the Argentine economist, who hopes that countries in the region will follow suit. The Social Panorama of Latin America 2007 also has chapters on the quality of education, information on internal migration of people within their own countries, and an assessment of health policies and programmes for indigenous peoples in the region. ***** + DEVELOPMENT: Latin America Ahead on MDGs - Except for Poverty (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38408) + DEVELOPMENT: Uneven Results Forecast for Millennium Goals (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38399) + More IPS News on Millennium Development Goals (http://ipsnews.net/new_focus/devdeadline/index.asp) + Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, ECLAC (http://www.eclac.org/default.asp?idioma=IN) (END/IPS/LA IF HD DV MD PR CS/TRASP-VD-SW/DE/07) = 11162239 ORP011 NNNN