Draft first regional report on the implementation of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development

Chapter III
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
2. The situation regarding the priority measures
in the chapter
(a) Priority measures relating to the general welfare of children,
adolescents and youth
Priority measure 7 of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development establishes a number of
dimensions relating to welfare, living conditions and exercise of rights for children, adolescents and youth. Some of
them are included in other priority measures of the Montevideo Consensus, and almost all can be measured by a
variety of indicators, some of them from other agendas, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
More broadly, a number of countries have taken measures to protect and support the development of children,
young people and adolescents by way of laws, policies, plans, programmes and specific institutions, among other
steps, in fulfilment of priority measure 7. 19 On a more specific level, combating poverty and reducing poverty
indices are among the foremost aspirations of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development,
fully shared with other instruments. In the case of children, adolescents and young people, two factors make
this aspiration all the stronger: (i) this group presents particularly high levels of poverty, as mentioned in the
previous chapter and confirmed recently by ECLAC (2018a, figure II.7), largely because overall fertility remains
considerably higher among the poor (Rodríguez, Di Cesare and Páez, 2017, table 2); and (ii) there is an academic
and political consensus that experiences during the early stages of life are critical for the rest of it, particularly
when it comes to interrupting the intergenerational reproduction of poverty. 20
The macroeconomic context and general employment and wage policies influence poverty levels in the
reference group, as these depend <strong>first</strong> and foremost on family employment and wages (in the case of young
people, the relationship between poverty and employment conditions is even clearer). Second, the group’s
poverty levels also depend on the scope and scale of social protection for their families, including income
transfers, and this protection is not unaffected by macroeconomic factors (ECLAC, 2017a, p. 41). The actions
undertaken in the region’s countries, in the form both of countercyclical policies (ECLAC, 2017a, p. 43) and
of transfers, employment and wages (ECLAC, 2017a, section III.E), seem to have at least partly offset the
macroeconomic headwinds of the reference period as discussed in section III.A of this <strong>report</strong>. According to
the official indicator of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), poverty among workers aged 15 to 24 did
not increase between 2013 and 2016, but actually fell slightly from 3.8% to 3.7%. According to the most recent
ECLAC estimates, however (see figure III.5), <strong>regional</strong> poverty increased in this age group, mainly because of
the influence of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Brazil. In the group aged 0 to 14, the increase was
small (from 46.2% in 2012 to 46.7% in 2016), which could suggest that the impact of the crisis was contained
to some degree by conditional transfer programmes and other contingent support measures. Even so, poverty
in this group is considerable and a great cause for concern, given the effects it is having and will have in future
on today’s children and the region as a whole. Meanwhile, the increase in poverty among adolescents and
young people was more marked, as it rose from 27% in 2012 to 31% in 2016 (see figure III.5). This suggests
that the policies and programmes aimed at them were much less effective at containing it. Nonetheless, the
rising proportion of household income provided by conditional transfer programmes and other transfers did
serve to cushion the effects of the adverse business cycle (ECLAC, 2018a, p. 97) and meant that poverty
reduction could continue in many countries, if not in the region as a whole.
19
As shown by the information on laws, policies, plans and programmes included in countries’ national <strong>report</strong>s. Some examples are: Law No. 548, the Children’s
and Adolescents’ Code in the Plurinational State of Bolivia (2014) (see [online] http://www.derechoteca.com/gacetabolivia/ley-no-548-del-codigo-nina-nino-yadolescente-vigente-y-actualizado/);
Law No. 9220 on the National Children’s Care and Development Network of 2014, the National Agenda for Children and
Adolescents 2015-2021 and the Public Policy for Young People and its Plan of Action 2014-2019 in Costa Rica; the 2014 creation of the National Children’s Council
in Chile; the National Policy of Comprehensive Protection for Children and Adolescents (PNPNA), the National Action Plan of the National Policy of Comprehensive
Protection for Children and Adolescents 2014-2017 and the National Youth Policy 2010-2024 in El Salvador; the General Law on the Rights of Children and
Adolescents (LGDNNA or General Law) passed in Mexico in December 2014; the National Strategic Plan for Children and Adolescents in Panama (2015); the
ongoing implementation and enhancement of the Uruguay Grows with You programme since 2012; the National Plan for the Comprehensive Protection of Children
and Adolescents 2016-2019 in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela; the National Strategic Plan for Pre-adolescents and Adolescents 2011-2016 in Jamaica; and
the National Youth Policy adopted by the Guyanese National Assembly in 2016.
20
Although total fertility has fallen in all social groups and there is somewhat of a trend towards reproductive convergence (ECLAC, 2014, section B.4).
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