CEPAL proposes states in Latin America return to role of protagonists
Monday, May 31st, 2010Inequality in distribution of wealth results from debt payments and decrease in social spending
[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for May 30.]
by Roberto González Amador
The financial crisis has dealt a serious blow to the social progress of the past few years in Latin America. The region has come to occupy the position of the most unequal in the world: the average income per person in the wealthiest layer is more than 17 times that earned by the 40 percent in the poorest homes. That is the problem and the solution, according to the Comisión Económica para América Latina (CEPAL – Economic Commission for Latin America, an organ of the Untied Nations) is to redress the way the state has been excluded from economic decisions in the past three decades.
The report, which beginning this Sunday will be discussed during the annual CEPAL sessions in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, stresses the “necessity for a strong role for the state,” to which it assigns the position of “prinicpal actor in reconciling the policies of stability and economic growth, of productive development, job promotion and greater social equality.” (more…)