Inclusive social development: The next generation of policies for overcoming poverty and reducing inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean

Inclusive social development: the next generation of policies for overcoming poverty...
Chapter I
Recent progress and challenges in social
development in Latin America
and the Caribbean
Introduction
Thanks to favourable economic conditions, positive trends in labour indicators and the policies implemented by the
countries in various areas, millions of people in Latin America and the Caribbean began to enjoy significantly higher
levels of well-being starting in the first decade of the 2000s. However, the progress in social development remains
uneven and inadequate and, most particularly, elusive for certain social groups. There is still a long way to go along
the road towards societies that are free of poverty, fairer and less unequal.
Most of the countries report significant progress in certain areas of social development. Much of that progress has
occurred in areas that were a priority under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), such as reduced poverty,
expanded education coverage, greater gender equality, lower infant mortality and undernutrition and the positive
evolution of labour market indicators (United Nations, 2015). The improvements in those indicators place human
development in Latin America and the Caribbean, on average, at a much higher level than other regions (ECLAC, 2006).
That progress is key in upholding economic, social and cultural rights. Increased life expectancy in most of the
countries over recent decades represents an expansion of the right to life and, in addition, it reflects improvements in
other indicators that also play a key role in terms of social rights, such as increased access to health and education.
At the same time, reduced unemployment, increased formal employment and higher wages, in addition to having
a major impact on reducing poverty, indicate progress in enforcing the right to work, which plays a central role in
social integration and citizenship, in individuals’ construction of meaning and as a privileged sphere for participation
(ECLAC, 2006). Work is also the main source of household income and, consequently, the main link between
economic development and social development, in that it represents the main route of access to the distribution of
the benefits of development.
This chapter offers a summary of some of the indicators of the main progress and the challenges still unresolved
in various areas of social development in Latin America and the Caribbean within the framework of an agenda for
development with equality using a rights-based approach. Some of those topics will be addressed again in chapter IV.
Chapter I
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