Inclusive governance, a lever for eradicating poverty

"Give me a lever big enough, a fulcrum, and I will move the world". The meaning of this phrase, attributed to the scientific genius Archimedes of Syracuse, illustrates the complexity of the challenge faced by the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to lift 172 million people out of poverty, 66 million of whom do not even have enough income for a basic subsistence basket.

This challenge is part of the global commitment that the countries of the world made on September 25, 2015, at the Sustainable Development Summit of the United Nations General Assembly, to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030, through the fulfillment of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

But things are not going well, neither for the world nor for the region. The 2023 report on meeting these commitments showed that the covid-19 pandemic and the triple crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution are having devastating and long-lasting impacts globally and for the region.

Progress for more than 50% of the SDG targets was rated as weak and insufficient, while 30% of these remain stagnant or have regressed, including poverty, hunger and climate issues. "If we fail to act now, the 2030 Agenda could become the epitaph of the world that it could have been," the report warned.

The situation is that it is not just those who are already poor. One in five people in the world are at high risk of falling into poverty. "In Latin America, 90 million people are at risk," said Luis Felipe López Calva, global director of poverty and equality at the World Bank.

An alliance is agreed

Faced with this crossroads, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and CAF -development bank of Latin America and the Caribbean- have agreed to form an alliance to be a point of support in the region and began by identifying the lever capable of mobilizing collective action to turn the results around and help eliminate or minimize the risks.

The panorama they face is complex: six years from the end of the term and with the goals halfway achieved, the countries of the region are immersed in growing polarization and citizen distrust of their leaders and institutions, and are suffering the permanent impact of the risks of climate change and natural phenomena.

Added to this are the pressures exerted by citizen security problems and conflicts of various kinds - in many cases with illegal territorial control - corruption and extreme inequalities, which hinder the transformation of social and cultural norms and prevent the consolidation of the social contract and progress towards the fulfillment of the SDGs.

"Organized crime represents a permanent challenge: Latin America remains the most violent region on the planet, with the highest number of homicides per capita in the world and one of the main threats to imperfect democracies," recalled Michelle Muschett, UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

"For UNDP, democracy and human development are two sides of the same coin that are mutually reinforcing: the more democracy, the more human development as a process of expanding freedoms; the more human development, the more demand for democratic governance that protects and promotes those freedoms," Muschett said.

"We are convinced that strengthening governance is fundamental to building more just, resilient and sustainable societies in Latin America and the Caribbean," said Sergio Díaz Granados, CAF's executive president.

Governance: this is the lever that UNDP and CAF identified to mobilize the region. And they set themselves the task of collectively building minimum action guidelines from which to start in order to establish a common agenda in which the permanent conversation of all the actors would be a guiding principle.

They promoted the first subregional dialogues with the participation of one hundred people representing academia, the private sector, social organizations, political parties, central and local governments, and representatives of some of the region's international organizations.

These dialogues confirmed that the lever on which the countries of the region must rely to eradicate poverty is governance, but not just any kind of governance: it must be inclusive and promote development, which implies that political power should reflect all sectors of society, that it should be possible to include diverse views and design policies that favor each sector.

To achieve this, an institutional transformation through the professionalization of public administration, the strengthening of transparency and the reinforcement of the link with the citizenry is unavoidable.

It also means that strong states that count on the collaboration of the private sector and take the community into account are key, so that vulnerable people are at the center of decisions.

Likewise, it is not possible to move forward without recovering the legitimacy of democratic institutions, transforming state capacities, renewing social contracts and fiscal covenants, and guaranteeing citizen security and peaceful coexistence.

Effective democracy

During the dialogues, measurements that show the magnitude of the problem became evident: the percentage of society that considers democracy to be the best system of government decreased from 68% in 2012 to 59% in 2023. Meanwhile, 72.5% of Latin Americans considered that their country "is governed by a few powerful groups for their own benefit".

For the experts, it is a fact that "low democratic legitimacy has profound repercussions, ranging from the deterioration of civic culture to the possibility of supporting responses that weaken the rule of law and even democracy, and can even facilitate -although not determine- an eventual democratic breakdown".

"In the current context of increasing inequalities and greater socio-political tensions, the effective governance of democracy becomes critical to guide the construction of a new improved normality, that is, one that is more inclusive and attentive to citizen demands for distributive justice, social cohesion and expansion of opportunities, as demanded by SDG 16 (partnerships for the goals)", warned UNDP and CAF.

In other words, to achieve SDG 1 of ending poverty, it is essential to guarantee SDG 16, which seeks to promote peaceful and inclusive societies, facilitate access to justice for the entire population and create effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

It is also key to promote citizen security initiatives and digital transformation in societies and public institutions, promote fair taxation, effective public spending and collaborative governance, as well as the strengthening of digital democracy and regional multilateralism, all with a rights-based approach.

"It is very important to continue supporting public transfers and social protection programs, but it is essential to create conditions for labor markets to function better, so that there are fewer people in informal work and more quality jobs," said Luis Felipe López Calva.

For Jeffrey Sachs, the renowned Columbia University economist, a well-equipped population is needed to adapt to changing technologies, meet local needs and be part of supply chains. This requires quality education. "We're not going to have better jobs, we're not going to have higher wages, unless education is there, it's of quality and the children, really, learn at the level they should."

So it's not just about SDG 1 or SDG 16, but about all the goals that impact each other.

The idea is to have lower levels of external threats, internal conflicts and homicides, and States with greater capacities to respond more effectively to health emergencies, natural disasters and the climate crisis. And, above all, to confront the inability to guarantee the application of the law throughout the territory due to the influence of de facto powers and the weakness of the judiciary.

Undoubtedly, a common challenge for the countries of the region is to overcome corruption and short-term leaderships that prevent the construction of long-term social agreements and affect the quality of the institutions needed to promote policies that reduce social and economic inequalities.