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About half of the region's poor live in cities, and policy makers across Latin America are increasingly interested in policy advice on how to design programmes and policies to tackle poverty. This publication argues that the causes of poverty, the nature of deprivation, and the policy levers to fight poverty are, to a large extent, site specific. It therefore focuses on strategies to assist the urban poor in making the most of the opportunities offered by cities, such as larger labour markets and better services, while helping them cope with the negative aspects, such as higher housing costs, pollution, risk of crime and less social capital.
One out of every five Latin Americans or around 130 million people have never known anything but poverty, subsisting on less than US$4-a-day throughout their lives. These are the region ́s chronically poor, who have remained so despite unprecedented inroads against poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean since the turn of the century. Left Behind: Chronic Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean takes a closer look at the region’s entrenched poor, who and where they are, and how existing policies need to change in order to effectively assist them. The book shows significant variations of rates of chronic poverty both across and within countries. Within a single country, some regions show incidence rates up to eight times higher than the lowest. Despite the higher rates of chronic poverty in rural areas, chronic poverty is as much an urban as a rural issue. In fact, considering absolute numbers, urban areas in many countries, including Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, have more chronic poor than rural areas. Undoubtedly the region has come a long way during the decade in terms of poverty reduction, guided by a mix of sustained growth and increased levels in amounts and quality of public spending and programs targeted directly or indirectly to the chronic poor. While improving endowments and the context where the chronic poor live is a necessary condition going forward, the decade’s experience suggests that it may not be enough to reach the chronic poor. The book posits that refinements to the existing policy toolkit †“ as opposed to more programs †“ may come a long way in helping the remaining poor. These refinements include intensifying efforts to improve coordination between different social and economic programs, which can boost the income generation process and deal with the intergenerational transmission of chronic poverty by investing in early childhood development. Equally important though, there is an urgent need to adapt programs to directly address the psychological toll of chronic poverty on people’s mindset and aspirations, which currently undermines the effectiveness of the existing policy efforts.
In large Latin American cities the number of dwellings in informal settlements ranges from one-tenth to one-third of urban residences. These informal settlements are caused by low income, unrealistic urban planning, lack of serviced land, lack of social housing, and a dysfunctional legal system. The settlements develop over time and some have existed for decades, often becoming part of the regular development of the city, and therefore gaining rights, although usually lacking formal titles. Whether they are established on public or private land, they develop irregularly and often do not have critical public services such as sanitation, resulting in health and environmental hazards. In this report from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, author Edesio Fernandes, a lawyer and urban planner from Latin America, studies the options for regularization of the informal settlements. Regularization is looked at through established programs in both Peru and Brazil, in an attempt to bring these settlements much needed balance and improvement. In Peru, based on Hernando de Soto's theory that tenure security triggers development and increases property value, from 1996 to 2006, 1.5 million freehold titles were issued at a cost of $64 per household. This did result in an increase of property values by about 25 percent, making the program cost effective. Brazil took a much broader and more costly approach to regularization by not only titling the land, but improving public services, job creation, and community support structures. This program in Brazil has had a cost of between $3,500 to $5,000 per household and has affected a much lower percent of the population. The report offers recommendations for improving regularization policy and identifies issues that must be addressed, such as collecting data with baseline figures to get a true evaluation of the benefit of programs established. Also, it shows that each individual informal settlement must have a customized plan, as a single approach will not work for each settlement. There is a need to include both genders for long-term effectiveness and to find ways to make the regularization self-sustaining financially. Any program must be closely monitored to insure the conditions are improved for the marginalized, as well as be sure it is not causing new informal settlements to be established.
Climate change is the defining development challenge of our time. More than a global environmental issue, climate change and variability threaten to reverse recent progress in poverty reduction and economic growth. Both now and over the long run, climate change and variability threatens human and social development by restricting the fulfillment of human potential and by disempowering people and communities in reducing their livelihoods options. Communities across Latin America and the Caribbean are already experiencing adverse consequences from climate change and variability. Precipitation has increased in the southeastern part of South America, and now often comes in the form of sudden deluges, leading to flooding and soil erosion that endanger people s lives and livelihoods. Southwestern parts of South America and western Central America are seeing a decrease in precipitation and an increase in droughts. Increasing heat and drought in Northeast Brazil threaten the livelihoods of already-marginal smallholders, and may turn parts of the eastern Amazon rainforest into savannah. The Andean inter-tropical glaciers are shrinking and expected to disappear altogether within the next 20-40 years, with significant consequences for water availability. These environmental changes will impact local livelihoods in unprecedented ways. Poverty, inequality, water access, health, and migration are and will be measurably affected by climate change. Using an innovative research methodology, this study finds quantitative evidence of large variations in impacts across regions. Many already poor regions are becoming poorer; traditional livelihoods are being challenged in unprecedented ways; water scarcity is increasing, particularly in poor arid areas; human health is deteriorating; and climate-induced migration is already taking place and may increase. Successfully reducing social vulnerability to climate change and variability requires action and commitment at multiple levels. This volume offers key operational recommendations at the government, community, and household levels with particular emphasis placed on enhancing good governance and technical capacity in the public sector, building social capital in local communities, and protecting the asset base of poor households.
Indigenous people constitute a large portion of Latin America's population and suffer from severe and widespread poverty. They are more likely than any other groups of a country's population to be poor. This study documents their socioeconomic situation and shows how it can be improved through changes in policy-influenced variables such as education. The authors review the literature of indigenous people around the world and provide a statistical overview of those in Latin America. Case studies profile the indigenous populations in Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, examining their distribution, education, income, labour force participation and differences in gender roles. A final chapter presents recommendations for conducting future research.
Latin American cities have always been characterized by a strong tension between what is vaguely described as their formal and informal dimensions. However, the terms formal and informal refer not only to the physical aspect of cities but also to their entire socio-political fabric. Informal cities and settlements exceed the structures of order, control and homogeneity that one expects to find in a formal city; therefore the contributors to this volume - from such disciplines as architecture, urban planning, anthropology, urban design, cultural and urban studies and sociology - focus on alternative methods of analysis in order to study the phenomenon of urban informality. This book provides a thorough review of the work that is currently being carried out by scholars, practitioners and governmental institutions, in and outside Latin America, on the question of informal cities.
This open access book revisits the theoretical foundations of urban planning and the application of these concepts and methods in the context of Southern countries by examining several case studies from different regions of the world. For instance, the case of Koudougou, a medium-sized city in one of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso, with a population of 115.000 inhabitants, allows us to understand concretely which and how these deficiencies are translated in an African urban context. In contrast, the case of Nueve de Julio, intermediate city of 50.000 dwellers in the pampa Argentina, addresses the new forms of spatial fragmentation and social exclusion linked with agro export and crisis of the international markets. Case studies are also included for cities in Asia and Latin America. Differences and similarities between cases allow us to foresee alternative models of urban planning better adapted to tackle poverty and find efficient ways for more inclusive cities in developing and emerging countries, interacting several dimensions linked with high rates of urbanization: territorial fragmentation; environmental contamination; social disparities and exclusion, informal economy and habitat, urban governance and democracy.
Environmental awareness and social mobilization is a growing issue in Latin America. This book discusses how co-operative recycling practices have been increasingly used as a strategy to contest both the waste problem and urban poverty. Selective waste collection and sorting materials out of the garbage stream has become a widespread survival strategy for the economically excluded population. While severe and chronic occupational health problems and risks are very common among the recycling workers, thousands of people exclusively depend on accessing these resources. By examining experiences from Brazil and other Latin American countries, this book questions what can be done to improve the environment and livelihoods for these excluded citizens, examines the specific health and risk implications and looks at the many innovative recycling co-ops and associations which have recently emerged, creating an exciting new form of solidarity economy. In doing so, it uncovers the landscapes of despair populated by the urban marginalized, but also the landscapes of hope, where solidarity and collaboration make a pathway to a better way of life.
The report examines a variety of specific instruments and applications in municipalities throughout the region under three categories: property taxation and betterment contributions; exactions and other direct negotiations for charges for building rights or the transfer of development rights; and large-scale approaches such as development of public land through privatization or acquisition, land readjustment, and public auctions of bonds for purchasing building rights. It concludes with a summary of lessons learned and recommends steps that can be taken in three spheres: Learn from Implementation Experiences Increase Knowledge about Theory and Practice Promote Greater Public Understanding and Participation
This is compounded by the lack of voice and influence that low income groups have in these official spheres.