From Rio to Johannesburg, a Lost Opportunity

By Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES

Latin American participants in the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro knew that living up to the pledges assumed there would not be easy. But perhaps they were unable to imagine just how far progress in the region on the social development front could be rolled back in a decade.

The path followed by Argentina between 1992 and 2002 is illustrative of that unexpected setback. The results achieved by the Southern Cone country are discouraging to those who will take part in the World Summit.

The Argentine economy grew 8.9 percent in 1991 and 8.7 percent in 1992, and unemployment stood between 6.5 and 7.0 percent, while the poverty rate shrank to 35 percent of the population, thanks to the recently achieved price stability.

A decade later, Argentina is in the midst of outright economic and social collapse. This year - the fourth consecutive year of recession - gross domestic product is expected to shrink 13.6 percent, unemployment has soared to 21.4 percent, three times the level seen 10 years ago, and 51 percent of the population has fallen into poverty.

Marcelo Aranda, an electrician, was earning a salary equivalent to 1,000 dollars a month in a local company until 1995. Today he is a ''piquetero'', the name given to the young unemployed workers who protest by staging roadblocks, demanding an unemployment subsidy of just 42 dollars a month.

The Argentine crisis is dragging the whole region down with it. In its annual report this year, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) noted that the economic slowdown is a generalised phenomenon, and that such a negative situation, with such a disappointing outlook, has not been seen since the mid-1980s.

''The spirit of Rio is impossible to recreate,'' Liliana Hisas, the head of the Universal Ecological Foundation, which is dedicated to developing a programme for the application of the principles adopted in the Earth Summit in 10 Latin American countries, told IPS.
''In a decade, no progress was made in terms of financial aid for development,'' said Hisas.

The 10 years that have passed between the Earth Summit and the upcoming Johannesburg conference could be considered a new ''lost decade'' in Latin America - the name given to the 1980s, when the region ''fell off the development wagon,'' she said.

The economic growth that seemed to be shaping up in the region in the early 1990s began to slow down by the middle of the decade. Today, the economy is shrinking while poverty and unemployment climb.

There is a gap between the expectations awakened by the economic model followed in the region in the 1990s and the current precarious prospects for growth, warned the ECLAC report.

That gap raises a number of questions regarding the economic and social sustainability of the current patterns of development, added the regional United Nations agency.

Average economic growth in Latin America has been on a downturn since 2000. For the fourth year in a row, the region will post net capital flight this year.

That outlook is a far cry from the expectations for development aid and technology transfer to the developing world that grew out of Rio de Janeiro.

Unemployment, which averaged 4.6 percent in the region in 1990, grew to 8.6 percent in 1999. This year, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) predicts the highest rate since the lost decade, when unemployment stood at nearly 10 percent.

It is these unimpressive results that Latin American delegates will take to the Johannesburg summit, which they will be able to attend, basically, by breaking open their piggy-banks, after a decade of international forums, preparatory meetings and conferences on which enormous sums have been spent to confirm that more setbacks have been seen than progress.

A document drafted by representatives of governments from the region meeting in a pre-Johannesburg preparatory gathering last year stated that ''significant advances'' have been made in the area of social development, in terms of raising public awareness, the passage of laws, and increasing participation by civil society.

According to the report, which was drawn up by a regional Latin America and Caribbean conference last year in Rio de Janeiro, the region's democratic institutions have been consolidated, which has created a more favourable environment for investment, economic growth, and a decline in poverty and unemployment - indispensable conditions for achieving sustainable development.

However, the regional representatives noted that 10 years after the Earth Summit, ''the conditions of poverty have dramatically increased, development needs have become more and more pressing, the deterioration of the environment has worsened, and the accelerated rate of globalisation poses new challenges, especially the question of equity.''

Although the proportion of the population living below the poverty line declined in the region over the past decade, the actual number of poor rose by 11 million, according to ECLAC, which reported that 44 percent of Latin Americans are living in poverty today.

The regional UN agency also stated that 78 percent of Latin America's poor - around 165 million people - lack access to potable water, and that approximately 30 percent live in overcrowded slums where people live more than three to a room on average.

The ECLAC and preparatory reports also highlight the fact that the distribution of wealth in Latin America, the most unequal in the world, remained one of the most predominant economic and social features of the region.

In most countries, inequality did not improve in the 1990s, said ECLAC. Even in the few countries that enjoyed steady economic growth, like Chile, the unequal distribution of wealth was not modified. Of 17 countries studied, only two made progress in that sense, according to the UN agency's report.

Latin Americans are also disappointed in the industrialised world's failure to live up to commitments to liberalise trade, which would help compensate for the decline in development aid.

The government representatives agreed last year that in Johannesburg, they must continue to press the demand that industrialised nations put an end to their protectionist practices.

''We haven't been able to advance in the liberalisation of trade, nor has the much needed development aid been forthcoming,'' Raúl Estrada Oyuela, the director of environmental affairs in the Argentine Foreign Ministry, told IPS.

The countries of Latin America, which in 1992 could barely identify a few isolated symptoms of the globalisation process, have already seen the negative effects of that process, which conspire against compliance with the sustainable development targets adopted at the Earth Summit, he said.

Among the main negative effects, the regional preparatory document points to ''economic and financial instability, social exclusion, and the exhaustion of national resources'' - problems that have been accentuated in recent years, and which curb progress towards development marked by equality.

For that reason, the regional representatives who have taken part in the pre-summit preparations say the conference slogan should be ''towards a new globalisation that guarantees sustainable, equitable and inclusive development.''

Nevertheless, a majority of participants from the region are anything but optimistic.
Moreover, non-governmental organisations argued back in 1992 that the commitments assumed by the governments were overly timid. Even more sceptical 10 years down the road, Latin America is about to pass the torch to Africa with the bitter sensation of having lost an opportunity.