This post is a summary of the book with the title above, published in 2019 at https://www.thedialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/unfulfilled-promises-english-new.pdf
In 1992, in commemoration of the 500-year anniversary of Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas, Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes penned one of the most notable essays ever written on Ibero-American history entitled "The Buried Mirror". Yet it is fair to say that the image of that unfinished building continues to be the most accurate depiction of Latin America reality. Our inability to carry out plans and objectives, our difficulty in finishing tasks, our propensity to improvise continue to be the signs of our predicament. These problems are not exclusive to Latin America, but we can think of few other places where there is such s strong sense of wasted opportunities. Latin America is a region identified with unfulfilled promise, untapped potential, and unfinished business. Throughout history, some Latin America countries have stood at the threshold of success. Argentina by the first two decades of the 20th century ranked among the 10 richest nations in the world. But the most visible and tragic example of economic and social decline is Venezuela. By 1970, this country had become the richest in Latin America and it was among the 20 richest in the world. In contrast, today, with a inflation of one million percent and a GDP growth rate of -15% for 2018, Venezuela is suffering a humanitarian crisis of severe shortages of food, medicine, medical supplies, and thousands of Venezuelans flee the country daily. This erratic trajectory of some countries in the region is evident not only in our economic performance but also in our political development. Periods of stability and institutional consolidation have been interrupted by episodes of authoritarian rule, repression and human rights violations. Regarding the economy, we must admit that something positive that has happened is the consolidation of macroeconomic and fiscal responsibility in most L.A. countries. Economic growth was also impressive by the beginning of the current century. Between 2003 and 2011, overall per capita income rose by 3% and our share in the world economy rose from 5% to 8%. However, since 2013 the tide has turned. Ever since L.A. boom came to a end, some countries have struggled to avoid negative GDP while others have faced minimal growth. The most visible reasons behind this downturn were external: prices for primary goods and commodities dropped and demand went down and external financing conditions became scarce and expensive. However, there were certainly more reasons behind the downturn such as low productivity and lack of competitiveness of our economies. Analyzing the response to corruption helps determine the health and maturity of the rule of law. In December 2016, following the remarkable progress made by Brazilian prosecutors, the U.S. department of Justice revealed that from 2001 to 2016 Odebrecht paid some US$788 million in bribes across 10 Latin American countries. Brazil and Peru have prosecuted and convicted prominent politicians and businesspeople. But in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Venezuela, impunity has been the rule. The checked progress made in the anti-corruption fight shows how much remains to be done to fully guarantee court independence and transform the political culture. Moreover, some politicians under investigations are using their clout to escalate polarization and question the justice system. Latin America's violence problem is the subject of considerable global debate. Latin American states and cities routinely rank among the world's most murderous. The regional homicide rate is at least three times the global average, and citizens routinely list insecurity among their top concerns. 43 of the 50 cities with the highest homicide rates on the planet are found in Latin America. Criminal violence is multifactoral: several variables influence the scale and dynamics of lethal and nonlethal violence in Latin America. Among these are poverty and inequality, unemployment, low-quality education, high impunity rates, and social norms condoning violence against women and girls. Other homicide triggers include rapid unregulated urbanization, the penetration of gangs, drug trade, and access to alcohol and illicit firearms. In Brazil, the rate of convictions to homicides is 8 in 100. The abundance of unlicensed firearms are also associated with the region's disproportionately high burden of gun violence. Transparent civilian oversight of the region's law enforcement and justice institutions is a precondition for restoring their credibility and legitimacy. Positive outcomes will require enlightened leadership and robust citizen engagement. The successes have arisen when policies are sustained across multiple electoral terms and are genuinely owned by local populations. What is driving the sustained increase in labor income in Latin America? Recent trends show that the wage gap between low- and high-skilled workers is becoming smaller. The average gap between college-educated workers and workers with only primary schooling declined from about 330% to 240% since 2003. First, and foremost, is the expansion in educational achievement. Second, during the period 2005-2015, there were significant widespread improvements in real minimum wages, which rose an average of 42%. The Andean countries experienced the highest increases, followed by those of the Southern Cone. Third, many countries also implemented labor policies designed to improve youth's skills and foster women's labor participation. At the same time, itt has a wide gap between the pool of available skills and those skills that economies and businesses require. In Latin America, around 50% of formal firms do not find employees with the skills they need. This is a particularly pressing issue in countries such as Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. Another big issue concerns the behavioral and political changes needed to dismantle exclusions. Citizens security and violence challenges have not abated with the booming economic growth. While there is much work to be done on changes in social and cultural norms will need to match the magnitude of the challenge. A common theme of the past 15 years has been pushing the frontiers of social policy beyond social transfers. Labor, productive and industrial policy are part of the ecosystem of policies that create incentives for human capital. The socioeconomic landscape of Latin America is evolving, but so are the policies that affect the shape of its landmarks. The first decade of the 21st century brought new hope with an economic boom in South America, fueled by China's appetite for commodities. This expansion allowed governments to increase public spending, create social programs, and preside over a reduction in poverty and even inequality in some countries. At the time of publishing this book, however, most of Latin America is once again grappling with frustations and a sense of lost opportunities. Between 2003 and 2013, governments were focused on responding to pressing social demands and, blinded by their own electoral success, acted as if the boom were going to last forever, rather than being a temporal and unique opening. Most Latin America countries did not implement reforms to improve productivity, diversify exports away from raw materials, or increase the efficiency of the state apparatus. Again Latin America sacrificed its future on the altar of the present. On the rule of law, Catalina Botero reminds us of the progress Latin America has made in leaving behind a tragic cycle of military dictatorships, internal conflicts, and human rights violations. Today, most countries in the region are democracies, and two of them, Costa Rica and Uruguay, are among the most robust democracies in the world. Anti-corruption movements in many countries have had mixed effects on Latin America democracies. On the one hand, judicial work against corruption, in part connected to the lava jato case in Brazil, has proven the strength of rule-of-law institutions. On the other, the endless succession of scandals has eroded the legitimacy of democratic rule in the eyes of their citizens. In Latin America countries, state institutions are concentrated in main cities, virtually ignoring the millions who live outside these "islands." Moreover, the concentration of power in the executive branch limits the ability of governments to reach meaningful consensus with civil society. Only by building efficient, decentralized, legitimate, and inclusive institutions will Latin American countries to be able to strengthen the rule of law and restore their citizens' trust in democracy, contain violence and crime, reduce socioeconomic inequalities, implement forward-looking policies, and design mechanisms to deepen regional and global integration.
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