Monday 01 December 2008, San José, Costa
Rica
DEVELOPMENT
LATIN AMERICA:
Solutions from Below
By Darío Montero
MEDELLÍN, Colombia
(IPS) - The global
financial crisis has not
demoralised those
involved in community
projects throughout
Latin America and the
Caribbean who took part
in ECLAC’s fourth social
innovation fair, which
ended Friday in this
city in northwest
Colombia.
Optimistic based on her
lengthy experience
evaluating sustainable
development plans,
Colombian economist
Norah Rey de Marulanda
said the countries of
the region have learned
their lesson and will
not reduce spending on
education, health or
other social areas, "at
least not drastically,
as some predict."
Nevertheless, Rey de
Marulanda, a member of
the Committee of
Notables that selected
the finalists in the
Experiences in Social
Innovation contest
organised by ECLAC
(Economic Commission for
Latin America and the
Caribbean) with support
from the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation, says "the
global crisis will
affect the region,
without a doubt."
"Private philanthropy
funds will be reduced,
because companies will
cut back on their
funding as the profit
margins of their
investments shrink," she
said at the three-day
fair in Medellín.
"However, I believe the
same thing will not
happen in the case of
non-governmental
organisations that
through different
channels receive funding
from governments, from
Europe for example,
because governments have
budgets and obligations
that they have to live
up to," she said.
In a conversation with
IPS during the fair, Rey
de Marulanda, a former
Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB)
manager of integration
and regional programmes,
expressed her conviction
that the governments of
Latin America will be
much more cautious now
when it comes to cutting
social spending, even if
they do limit it
somewhat.
"A lesson was learned
from the crisis of the
1980s," when public
spending was drastically
reduced, she said.
"Unlike at that time,
there are democratic
governments in all of
Latin America today, and
this is a question of
governability.
"If poverty rates rise,
there will be protests,"
and the social pressure
will function as an
antidote, "because it
has been seen that
governments can fall if
that kind of problem is
not addressed," she
said.
"That is one of the big
advantages of
democracy," Rey de
Marulanda added.
"Problems could occur,
however, in countries in
the region which already
have very low levels of
social spending, in some
cases as low as 50
dollars a year per
person. That is
insufficient to start
with, and if it is cut
by 10 dollars, it’s
almost as if it
disappeared completely,"
said the expert.
Concurring with that
view, ECLAC recommends
keeping social spending
levels steady, because
"otherwise poverty will
grow substantially once
again, and in five or 10
years, social problems
will become acute, and
governance will be
affected."
The first line of
defence against a crisis
like the current one,
which originated in the
United States, is often
communities themselves,
because of their
potential to organise
people and come up with
creative solutions, no
matter how isolated and
plagued with problems
they are.
As ECLAC Commission
Secretary Laura López
said, economists must
not forget that
solutions to problems
can come from
communities themselves.
And that is the point of
the Experiences in
Social Innovation
contest that the U.N.
regional agency and the
U.S.-based W. K. Kellogg
Foundation have held
every year since 2004.
The response has been
fruitful for the 12
finalists of the
2007-2008 edition, as
well as for the steady
flow of visitors
Wednesday through Friday
to the installations set
up in the central square
of the University of
Antioquia, which was
selected to host the
fair.
The finalists chosen
from 874 applicants are
12 projects from eight
countries in Latin
America and the
Caribbean: Argentina,
Belize, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador
and St. Lucia.
The initiatives come
from a wide variety of
communities, including a
slum neighbourhood in
Chile, the Cuban
countryside, and
indigenous communities
in Colombia and Ecuador.
They represent
innovative ways of
improving education,
health, environmental
conservation, nutrition,
income-generating
capacity and gender
equity, and include
youth and social
responsibility
programmes.
According to ECLAC, "All
of these initiatives
have contributed
effectively to the
social development of
communities and to
reducing poverty and
exclusion. They all have
in common their
creativity, active
citizen participation
and reasonable costs."
The five prize-winners
will receive, in
descending order,
30,000, 20,000, 15,000,
10,000 and 5,000 dollars
from the W. K. Kellogg
Foundation, as well as
technical and
institutional support
from ECLAC, which will
monitor the projects and
provide backing in their
relations with
governments and public
bodies.
"The important thing
here is not the funds,
which of course are a
help, but the backing
received and the
credibility gained from
a positive evaluation by
the regional U.N.
agency," one of the
heads of the "A Roof for
Chile" project, which
works in a slum
neighbourhood in
Santiago, told IPS.
"We are seeking a
sponsor who will
understand how
professional we are, in
order to combat
erroneous beliefs that
those who work with the
poor are allowed to
build mediocre housing,"
he said.
That is what the
applicants are seeking:
visibility, to show that
solutions to problems,
no matter how serious,
are more sustainable and
substantial if they
arise from and include
the communities
themselves.
The finalists say their
projects are
sustainable, despite the
crisis.
Cuban Professor Nelson
Valdez is a delegate,
along with farmer
Agustín Pimentel, of a
project that contributes
to ecological balance on
small farms in the Cuban
province of Pinar del
Río.
"We are carrying out a
number of ecological and
productive measures to
restore production
levels in degraded
ecosystems, and to
recover biological,
agricultural and forest
biodiversity and improve
the living standards of
farmers," Valdez, an
agricultural researcher,
explained to IPS.
The Cuban innovative
community development
experience "began over
two years ago and has
been replicated in other
rural parts of the
country, with very good
involvement and guidance
by the state.
"But we have practically
funded the project out
of our own pockets,
those of the researchers
and the farmers
themselves," said
Valdez, who added that
the prize money, as well
as the support from
ECLAC, would be very
welcome.
He said "this initiative
breaks with the scheme,
given the case of Cuba,
of a vertical state
where everything is done
according to guidelines
based on a preconceived,
planned concept of
development.
"Represented in this
project are the national
forest ranger corps, the
central coordinator
board of the mountain
plan, a unit of the
Ministry of Science,
Technology and the
Environment, and local
farmers, who have
created a participative
atmosphere in which
everyone wins," he said.
The idea of the
participating university
researchers is that the
farmers will eventually
run the project on their
own.
Pimentel admitted that
the project got off to a
rocky start. He said it
was originally conceived
of for just 10 families,
but today involves
around 2,400.
"At first, there was
little comprehension of
what the project was
about, and it was hard
going," said the farmer.
"But now we are
respected and accepted,
as indicated by the fact
that we are here with
authorisation from the
state."
All 12 finalists have
already won, just by
making it to Medellín,
where they have been
able to draw attention
to their innovative
social initiatives with
active community
involvement -- thus
showing that communities
from vastly distant and
different places can
come together to
contribute solutions.
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