The Inclusion Process in Motion
in Latin America and the Caribbean

The picture of exclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean presented in this report is complex and ever changing, one in which traditional sources of discrimination are interacting with new, more complex forms of exclusion associated with democratization, macro stabilization, and globalization. The last twenty-five years have seen advances and setbacks for different groups regarding different exclusionary factors in a historic inclusion/exclusion cycle that has changed both the targets of exclusion and the mechanisms through which they are excluded.

In many countries in the region, the public policy case is still being made for the fundamental importance of greater inclusion in unlocking the pervasive inequality, poverty, and injustice plaguing the region. The “outsiders” are no longer marginal, but comprise large majorities of distinct populations. Public policy knowledge and experience on attacking exclusion is sorely limited, particularly in regard to the kinds of exclusion found in Latin America and the Caribbean. Yet elements of public policies and programs that can begin to address this inclusion/exclusion cycle are in evidence throughout the region. The objective of current policy initiatives is not inclusion explicitly and entirely but an inclusive outcome, such as redressing past discrimination (e.g., an affirmative action program) or improving educational performance, relevance, or access for excluded groups (e.g., bilingual education). Thus, the limited policy lessons available so far are drawn from policies and initiatives not necessarily termed inclusionary, but intended to have an inclusionary impact. The chapters in Part II of this report present a few examples of what is known about the inclusionary impact of certain types of program interventions, albeit a number that unintentionally replicate or create new exclusionary outcomes.

This chapter provides a more in-depth look at some of the legal changes, institutions, policies, and programs within the public policy framework for inclusion presented in Chapter 13. The intention is not to provide specific countries with specific policy recommendations, but rather to use a very sparse set of policy experiences to illustrate the conundrums—and the possibilities—of inclusion processes. The intent here is analytical, not operational. Inclusion initiatives are the product of strategies and action plans of nations and institutions, not analytic reports. Most importantly, policy recommendations in this area must be the product of civic participation and democratic processes that lie at the core of any set of national initiatives for inclusion. The review here is intended to be illustrative rather than exhaustive, helping support a larger framework for understanding the fundamental elements of inclusive public policy, drawing, as possible, on regional experience. The objective is to help, by examining national experience “in early practice,” to set a framework within which individual countries might gain insight into their own public policy processes and guide rethinking, research, and new policy initiatives.

INCLUSION AT THREE LEVELS

As laid out in Chapter 13, what can be observed not only in Latin America and the Caribbean but also in many developed and developing countries is an inclusion “process” through which public policy operates on three distinct but highly interrelated levels: the normative level, the institutional level, and the level at which policies themselves are implemented. There is no historical example of an inclusion process that acted exclusively on one of these levels without affecting the others, but country experiences vary according to the intensity of change within each of these three levels as well as in the nature of the changes being pursued. This section is intended to give a fuller description of the initial stages of inclusion “in motion” at the three levels, drawing, as possible, on examples from countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. A set of boxes accompanies this review, detailing specific national experiences.

Level 1: The Normative Framework and Regional Experience

The normative framework refers to the fundamental laws and constitutional provisions of a nation that govern the fair treatment and rights of citizens in a nondiscriminatory manner. Inclusion calls for a constitutional and legal framework that recognizes collective (group-based) rights as well as individual rights. Slowly and historically the most egregious examples of exclusionary normative frameworks are being removed worldwide (e.g., apartheid in South Africa, slavery, and segregation—although the caste system still persists in some Asian countries). With a premium on individual rights, however, the importance of the incorporation of collective-based rights has been less recognized. Individual rights frameworks often fail to recognize that individual rights can be violated if group-based discrimination is left unchecked. Collective rights incorporate both protections against group-based discrimination and affirmative policies to seek to redress the subordination of the excluded group. In this context, affirmative policies and positive discrimination become fair instruments (rather than unjust or discriminatory to those who are not recipients of the benefits) to combat structural inequality that affects excluded groups (Saba, 2004). These collective rights include access to land, cultural and territorial rights, and equal access to and fair treatment by the judicial system.

The normative instruments to enshrine collective rights are both international and national laws. There are at least twenty-nine international conventions and declarations related to discrimination, the majority of which have been ratified by Latin American and Caribbean nations. Included are United Nations (UN) conventions on basic universal human rights and the rights of excluded groups such as women and racial/ethnic populations, as well as conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO) governing labor rights and workplace discrimination. These conventions, once ratified by national legislatures, take precedence over national law. Declarations, unlike conventions, do not require ratification by national legislatures.

A number of Latin American and Caribbean nations have advanced in respect to national legislation that recognizes key populations as excluded groups within a sovereign nation, explicitly protecting and sanctioning cultural, ethnic, and racial diversity. One example is the Colombian constitution, which defines the nation as a multicultural nation; another is Colombia’s Law 80, which protects collective land rights (see Box 14.1). Other countries have enacted national laws against discrimination based on race (Brazil, Ecuador), ethnicity (Peru), or gender (Chile and many others).

In part because of Latin America and the Caribbean’s history of authoritarian regimes, the inter-American legal system has largely devoted its resources to countering the violation of basic civil and political rights (via torture, illegal imprisonment, “disappearances,” and murder). Violations of social, economic, and cultural rights based on group affiliation have taken second place in the work of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (Rossi, 2003). In recent years, the commission has begun to hear cases involving gender discrimination or discrimination against migrants, but a strong normative international framework for the region is still in its early stages. Apart from individual petitions to the international courts, the principal vehicle for advancing the protection and enforcement of collective rights on an international or regional basis is required reporting to international agencies (e.g., the above-mentioned Inter-American Commission and Court on Human Rights) as well as new obligations and reporting in connection with international meetings. The most important of these forums for inclusion within the region have been the United Nations Conference to Combat Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001) and the Fourth United Nations Conference on Women (Beijing, China, 1995).

As the international framework evolves, this places continued importance on the evolution of strong national normative frameworks. On a national basis, enforcement is the single most essential factor in ensuring that rights on paper become inclusion in practice. A number of nations in the region are moving to create a specific institution with the mandate to enforce and advance constitutional protections. In 2003, for instance, Mexico approved a comprehensive antidiscrimination law and created, to assist enforcement, the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (Consejo Nacional para Prevenir la Discriminación, or CONAPRED). The law bars discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual preference, and religious affiliation.

A normative framework that is appropriate for advancing inclusion must respond to particular national histories and dynamics. Donald Oliver (2006) writes that in the case of Canada, with its founding by two nations, Britain and France, and native indigenous population, the advancement of multiculturalism (e.g., the country’s 1988 Multicultural Act) did not prove as successful as pursuing normative changes to protect individual rights (e.g., the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act, and the Employment Equity Act).

Enabling excluded groups to assert land and property rights is linked to advances not only in regard to the normative framework, but in specific programs and policies as well. The lack of birth registration documents for many women in Peru, for example, limits their ability to gain title to their land (Vega, 2006). Addressing the lack of birth certificates for large portions of the region’s population (Chapter 12) will unlock access for excluded segments of the population to a range of citizenship rights enshrined in law, including the rights to vote, to own land, and to attend school.

Normative frameworks are key to accessing another income-generating asset of excluded populations: their own human capital. The majority of Latin American and Caribbean nations (fourteen out of twenty-six) have ratified all eight ILO conventions related to the four core labor standards: the prohibition against child labor (Conventions 138 and 182); the prohibition against forced (slave) labor (Conventions 29 and 105); the right of free association and collective bargaining (Conventions 87 and 98); and freedom from discrimination (Conventions 100 and 101).[1] Among the other twelve countries, the pattern of nonratification does not appear to be particularly correlated the most pervasive violations of core labor standards among countries (Daude, Mazza, and Morrison, 2003), but rather is found to be correlated with institutional weaknesses and legislative delays. The protection of labor rights depends critically on proactive national enforcement and resources.

All told, the national and international normative framework is a fundamental building block of inclusive public policy that not only ensures basic protections for civil groups but also unlocks access and protections for income-generating assets critical to overcoming exclusion. Advancing normative frameworks makes a larger contribution as well; these frameworks contribute more fundamentally to societal recognition of discrimination against excluded populations, and as such can serve as a stimulus to advance institutional and instrumental change. In the dynamic three-level process that results, the normative framework cannot serve its macro role in protecting and ensuring the basic rights of citizens without commensurate advancement and enforcement of both the institutional and instrumental frameworks.

Level 2: Inclusion and Institutions

In order for public policy to succeed in advancing inclusion, the institutions that design and administer laws, policies, and programs must also operate inclusively. Existing institutions reflect endemic bias and often replicate exclusion, even after the elimination of overtly discriminatory rules (e.g., segregation, apartheid, legal prohibitions on female participation). To advance inclusion, institutions must be fairly representative, have explicit mechanisms for participation of excluded groups or their representatives, and run relatively efficiently and effectively (not, for example, on a clientelistic basis for elite interests). Exclusionary characteristics are often embedded in weak or corrupt institutions, argues Thorp (2007). In societies in which levels of social exclusion are known to be high, institutional reform and redesign are paramount to dislodging exclusion embedded in the operation of key public services (e.g., police, courts): who is hired and how, and how resources are apportioned. The two key elements of the institutional framework reviewed here are public institutions—at the national, local, and state levels—and civil institutions, which channel and articulate the interests and needs of excluded groups.[2]

Government Institutions

A source of many of the mechanisms through which exclusion is transmitted or replicated in the region can be traced to the operation of public and private institutions. These include myriad forms of institutional exclusion such as health facilities that treat Afro-descendants and members of indigenous groups in a discriminatory fashion, government resources steered disproportionately to favor the elite, government hiring that does not encourage diversity or representativeness, and programs that never reach into the communities of the intended beneficiaries, all leading to a reassertion of exclusion with each new political administration.

Efforts to advance inclusion through institutional change can be seen in a number of countries in the region, with work in the areas of institutions promoting gender equality and indigenous peoples’ rights offering a longer trajectory of experience. In the case of gender, institutional reform and diversity were sought both through improving representation in national legislatures and public institutions (via quotas) and through institutional change: creating new institutions, reforming existing ones, and moving to “mainstream diversity” and inclusion. Efforts to make government institutions more inclusive can be viewed as taking place through two distinct tools: political representation and quotas and institutional change.

Political Representation and Executive Branch Quotas

The region has comparatively greater experience with quotas to increase the political representation of excluded groups, predominantly women (see Chapter 4), than with any other form of quota. Beginning with Argentina in 1991, half of the countries in Latin America established quotas to ensure female legislative representation, with most setting a quota of 30 percent representation—well below the overall representation of females in the voting population (typically more than 50 percent). Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Ecuador are considered to have more progressive laws; Colombia in particular applies the 30 percent quota law to female representation in high-ranking executive branch posts as well (Ross, 2007). Colombia is among the few countries that set aside seats in the legislature (i.e., reserved seats, not percentage quotas) for Afro-descendants and members of indigenous groups. In an effort to advance executive branch parity, the Chilean government of Michele Bachelet has named women to half of the cabinet-level positions in the administration and to half of the subcabinet, regional, and administrative positions (Ross, 2007). In a review of gender quotas in Latin America, Mala Htun (2004) concludes that, on average, quota laws have boosted women’s legislative presence by 9 percent in the region; closed-list proportional representation electoral systems with placement mandates and large electoral districts work best in this regard (Htun, 2004).

Increasing participation and representativeness does not, however, produce more inclusive outcomes single-handedly. Research on the performance of women in legislatures both in the United States and in Latin America demonstrates that women legislators are typically more active on issues of women’s, children’s, and family rights, but that on broader issues, party affiliation is a better predictor of legislators’ voting behavior (Htun, 2004). Most importantly, as women’s numbers rise and they link to networks of other women legislators, they are able to have a greater impact on policy. A study comparing twelve U.S. state legislatures found that those with women’s caucuses had a higher legislative output on feminist issues than those without such caucuses, regardless of the actual number of female legislators (Thomas and Welch, 2001).

Experience to date demonstrates that representation and executive branch quotas must be seen as one of the tools of inclusion that must work with other instruments to bring about more inclusive outcomes. In the case of quotas, enforcement via effective sanctions and multiparty alliances appears to be particularly significant. Marcela Rios, lead investigator with Santiago’s Latin American Faculty of Social Science (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, or FLACSO), advocates that quota laws be accompanied by constitutional changes to reform electoral laws (i.e., institutional changes linked with normative changes), since some electoral systems are better designed than others to increase representation of women.

Institutional Change: Creating, Reforming, and Mainstreaming

To advance institutional change and management reform, two principal options have been pursued in the region to date. One common option is the creation of specialized agencies, ministries, or councils to oversee public efforts to advance the rights and interests of excluded groups. A second option is to create new institutional channels and devote new resources to “mainstreaming” consideration of excluded groups or key excluded groups within existing institutions. With both options—mainstreaming and specialized agencies—institutional and management changes are sought to increase access and quality of government services to excluded groups (e.g., location of offices, mobile facilities) and to improve outcomes by addressing how institutions relate to and work with such groups.

Regarding the first option, the region has now had more than two decades of experience in the creation of specialized government ministries, not all of it favorable. The key concern is whether sufficient resources and political clout are provided to these agencies to effect change or whether mandate without power or resources leads to a further marginalization of excluded groups via such agencies. A number of ministries and bureaus for indigenous peoples were set up with the re-establishment of democracy in the region during the 1980s, but many of these agencies have yet to be modernized to become more representative of the distinct indigenous peoples in the various countries they serve. Additionally, all Latin American and Caribbean nations now have a ministry or some type of department dedicated to women’s inclusion and empowerment, eight with ministerial ranking (Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Peru).[3] Most have been established through legislation, executive order, or ministerial decree (IDB, 1998b). Another sixteen countries have set up parliamentary commissions devoted to women’s issues, and five countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Nicaragua, and Peru) have women’s ombudspersons or staff in the ombudsperson’s office in charge of gender issues (Buvinic´ and Roza, 2004).

Brazil provides the most prominent example of a new ministry created to lead and coordinate race issues for the country’s majority Afro-descendant population. The Special Secretariat for the Promotion of Public Policies for Racial Equality (Secretaria Especial de Políticas de Promoção da Igualdade Racial, or SEPPIR) was created in 2003 and is charged with coordinating government interventions to combat racism and advance socioeconomic conditions for the country’s large Afro-descendant population (see Box 14.2). In Uruguay, the city of Montevideo has created a special ministry on Afro-descendants to examine the specific policy needs of the Afro-Uruguayan population (Morrison, 2006).

Much of the literature on the performance of national machineries, agencies, and offices draws attention to their continuing marginality or precariousness in terms of budget, institutional capacity, or government influence (INSTRAW, 2005; DAW, 2004). It has been harder to track the role of such institutions in terms of their contributions to the wider public policy process and stimulus to new policies, programs, and instruments. Buvinic´ and Mazza (2005) note that at least some of the significant advances for women in the region must be partly attributable to new institutional dynamics set in motion via these institutions. This record includes the ratification of national conventions to combat violence against women as well as equal opportunity legislation (ECLAC, 2004). Two elements that seem to be central to the effective functioning of offices dedicated to gender are a very high level of support or patronage from the executive branch of government (which translates into budget support) and strong alliances with women’s organizations in civil society. These alliances include not only national networks, but also international and regional women’s alliances that serve as a forum for sharing national policy experiences and building financial support and political visibility for the women’s movement.

Mexico is one of the few countries that has created an “umbrella” agency or commission (CONAPRED, 2003) to address equal opportunity for a broad range of groups. Research is scant on the advantages/disadvantages and effectiveness of such umbrella agencies versus single-group advocacy agencies. Clearly, national context and the nature and size of distinct groups are essential to determining the right institutional configuration, one that both advances the rights of particular excluded groups and prevents the fractionalization or marginalization of those rights as accorded only via group-specific intervention. The idea of an umbrella agency has the appeal of potentially increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of government functioning via a larger political constituency, a larger support base grounded in citizenship rights, and synergies among groups. With such an umbrella agency, however, groups may be concerned that they are losing a direct government channel or may have greater difficulty advancing some group-specific inclusion priorities.

A second principal institutional strategy for inclusion, mainstreaming the interests and concerns of excluded groups within existing government ministries and programs, can be complementary to creating a specialized agency to handle these interests and concerns, but in theory, effective mainstreaming should obviate, over time, the need for such a separate agency. The methods for mainstreaming vary substantially with the policy task at hand. Reaching and serving excluded groups and adequately addressing the many sources of exclusion requires changing the way that institutions operate, where they are located, and the way their programs are designed and executed. This includes changing management decision making and inducing greater transparency and competitiveness in government hiring and contracting. One method of inducing mainstreaming changes involves the creation of offices, advisors, or panels within each government agency that ensure the consideration of excluded groups throughout institutional operations and provide mechanisms for oversight. Another method is revising the rules and procedures for government contracting and hiring. At an even finer level, the next section, dealing with actual instruments and programs, describes a number of methods used for increasing the access of excluded populations to programs and the impact of programs on those populations as a complement to institutional reforms.

A less-used option in the region, but one that is more common in OECD countries, is explicit quotas or mechanisms to increase the participation of firms run by excluded groups (often termed “minority-owned businesses”) in government procurements of goods and services. These mechanisms are designed to promote economic inclusion by diversifying the range of providers typically receiving business via government procurement, often seeking to increase the competitiveness of systems of contracting and the transparency of mechanisms for awarding contracts. Brazil is one of the few countries in the region with quota provisions governing government contracting that set aside a certain (albeit small) amount of government contracting business for members of excluded groups.

Civil Society

Organizations representing excluded groups, which may include nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), grassroots organizations, and community groups, are central to a functioning public policy process to advance inclusion. Such organizations not only provide organized input and support to ensure inclusion via public institutions and programs, but also serve as forums for advancing self- and group identity, which is essential to overcoming exclusion. Institutional change in the direction of inclusion in any of the forms discussed—“mainstreaming,” new institutions, or management reforms—involves the direct involvement and support of civil society organizations.

Civil society organizations and alliances of such organizations play a critical institutional role as the principal interlocutors between public institutions and excluded groups. They also have a hand in executing projects and programs themselves and translating their experience with these projects into advocacy for more effective policies and institutions. The Lula government has designated local Afro-Brazilian NGOs as the main executor of government services in local Quilombo communities (see Chapter 12), including managing programs related to hunger relief and the national conditional cash transfer program, Bolsa Familia. Civil organizations in various countries have found mutual advancement through collective organizations that permit a wider negotiating platform with and impact on the public sector. The Organización de Desarrollo Étnico Comunitario (ODECO) in Honduras represents both indigenous and Afro-descendant populations, owing to the country’s Garifuna population of mixed indigenous/African origin. ODECO’s representative base has enabled it to serve a great advocacy and program function for the nation’s large poor and excluded populations. Organizations representing excluded groups have each benefited from links with similar organizations in developed countries providing financial, technical, and advocacy support.

Civil society organizations play an even more fundamental role in the societal transformation required to advance towards inclusion. The experience of exclusion, particularly when rooted in centuries of oppression, can trigger resistance and alienation if not transformed through the formation of common social identities based in common experience (Hall, 1990). In their study on HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination in Latin America and the Caribbean, Peter Aggleton, Richard Parker, and Miriam Maluwa (2004) found that the creation of community organizations of people with HIV/AIDS was essential to combating the effects of stigma and discrimination. Through civic participation, such groups were able to create varied “project identities” that opened up new channels for overcoming exclusion through group identity, collaboration, and civic action.

Level 3: The Instrumental Level—Some Programs and Policies from Latin America and the Caribbean

Perhaps the areas most identified with public policy to promote inclusion are the specific programs and policies designed to address past discrimination or ensure greater equality for excluded populations. These programs and policies must be seen, however, within the wider public policy context, which includes a normative and institutional framework that contributes to more successful, better-designed, and better-executed policies (see Figure 13.2).

Programs and policies are carried out by national, state, and local institutions and serve to (a) identify excluded populations as the basis for better policies and programs, (b) redress past discrimination and remove exclusionary barriers, and (c) proactively advance improved socioeconomic conditions of excluded populations. To advance towards inclusion, inclusive policies and programs cannot be seen as small, isolated interventions that take place while the large gamut of public policy continues to produce highly exclusive outcomes. For example, a small program to improve the results of excluded populations in regard to entrance into university education, although helpful, can have only a limited impact if the bulk of public education spending and emphasis provides low-quality elementary and secondary education to those same excluded populations, with the result that most members do not even complete secondary school. Following this line, the instrumental policy process must be seen as dual directional: reforming and “undoing” major policies and programs with highly exclusionary outcomes together with implementing new proactive measures designed to achieve greater inclusion. Both redesign and new construction require attention to both universal and targeted programs, not one or the other.

Universal programs by their very definition are designed to benefit the entire citizenry (e.g., universal primary and secondary education, universal health programs). In nations with long histories of exclusion, exclusion is embedded in the normal conduct of “universal” programs and policies, which may have begun with the intention of universality but ended up benefiting only elites in practice. Social security and labor benefits are one example of a program of universal design—aimed at supporting all formal sector workers—that through the years has come to benefit the shrinking percentage of elite formal sector workers with long-term contracts (see Chapter 4). Labor regulations to ensure social security benefits, protection from arbitrary dismissal, severance pay, and other benefits formed the basis of the “rights” accorded to Latin American and Caribbean citizens following World Wars I and then II (Gordon, 2004). Over time, benefits for all evolved into “privileges for a few” in Latin America and the Caribbean through three key forces: exclusionary, corporatist hiring and business practices; the growth of informal employment; and globalization (Gordon, 2004). Thorp (2007) argues that the patterns of embedded exclusion in Latin American and Caribbean society have evolved through the combined forces of economic/production models, political structures and social policies that led to the disempowerment of large groups.

Exclusion embedded in programs and policies can be found not only in these macro, historical tendencies that affect universal programs, but also in the day-to-day administration of targeted programs. Claudia Jacinto, Cristina García, and Alejandra Solla (2007) studied youth neighborhood programs in Argentina, whose target population is marginal poor youth. They found that the design of these programs often did not take into account the very complex realities of community life in marginal neighborhoods and youth expectations. As a result, the programs often induced new cleavages or subexclusions within these communities, splitting them into groups of program participants versus nonparticipants or elevating community program organizers to a higher status than participants. Programs for marginal youth, argues Wendel Abramo (2004), often treat youth as a singular subject and fail to address their needs for autonomy and participation in order to yield inclusive outcomes.

Where does one begin, then? If exclusion is multidimensional and occurs simultaneously across sectors (e.g., education, labor markets, health), what instrumental-level changes should be advanced? How does one simultaneously attack existing program and policy exclusion and advance new inclusive instruments? Again, public policy literature offers few guideposts to date, and national experience is varied.

The distinct program and policy types discussed in the following subsections—affirmative action/antidiscrimination measures, sectoral policies (e.g., education, health, labor markets), conditional cash transfer programs, and economic development/empowerment—highlight the interrelated (potential) impacts of proinclusion interventions. Underlying a functioning instrumental framework for inclusion are the basic data on excluded groups, collected both nationally (principally via censuses and household surveys) and on a program-by-program basis through civil registration and basic identity documents (e.g., birth registration and national identity cards). Previous chapters have demonstrated that in both censuses and civil registration, Latin American and Caribbean countries suffer from major deficits: poor data collection on excluded populations and higher underregistration and lack of identity documents for excluded groups (see Chapter 12). Regional efforts supported by the IDB, such as Todos Contamos I and II and direct support for national censuses, along with data collection and civil registries are fundamental elements for advancing a common platform for launching better-targeted and more effective public policies.

Affirmative Action/Antidiscrimination Measures

Worldwide, affirmative action is perhaps the policy most associated with redressing past discrimination. Affirmative action should be more accurately seen as one implement in the instrumental toolbox for inclusion; its effectiveness relies heavily on enforcement and implementation as well as the larger context of complementary policies and programs. Unfortunately, discussions of affirmative action are often mired in debates over “special preferences” and fail to consider the role of such preferences as one tool in a wider inclusion process.

Although the region’s experience with affirmative action to date is limited, affirmative-action-type policies and programs can be found in a number of sectors (Buvinic´ , 2004; IAD, 2004; AfroamericaXXI, 2006). They appear most widely in political representation quotas (see “Level 2: Inclusion and Institutions”) according to gender, race, and ethnicity, with gender garnering the widest coverage. There are limited quotas of this type in such fields as public housing, employment, and education. In its points-based beneficiary selection system, Chile provides ten extra preference points to persons with disabilities who apply for public subsidies or housing programs; Brazil has quotas for Afro-descendants and members of indigenous groups for public sector hiring and for university entrance (see Box 14.2). A compendium of affirmative action and legal instruments for Afro-descendant populations in the region compiled by AfroamericaXXI lists ten countries as having such tools.

Affirmative action instruments are used more broadly in other parts of the world and extend to such fields as private sector employment, corporate ownership, and university funding in which the region has little experience. Malaysia has perhaps the most comprehensive affirmative action program, introduced as an integral part of its New Economic Policy. Quotas in the Malaysian program correspond to three distinct ethnic/national groups and cover corporate ownership, education, and employment. Despite dire warnings by the World Bank of the negative effects of such a comprehensive approach to affirmative action, Malaysia’s program has succeeded, without social unrest, in democratizing and opening up corporate ownership and addressing significant income inequalities among groups. In the United States, affirmative action instruments are moving from an emphasis on government procurement preferences for minority-owned businesses towards promoting greater diversity among larger companies and in government procurement contracts. This shift is being pursued both to open up new markets to minority-owned firms and to improve the market access of many companies to minority customers (Boston, 2006).

Outside the formal definition of quota systems or affirmative action programs are initiatives that support the implementation and enforcement of antidiscrimination policies or laws. In most cases, excluded populations have limited resources to seek enforcement of their rights on either an individual or group basis. Judicial or law enforcement reforms and programs play a key role in this area. The state and federal governments in the United States, for example, support legal aid clinics for the poor that include legal representation for cases involving discrimination, as well as specific proactive enforcement programs, for example, to ensure equal opportunity in credit lending or housing. As with other policies and programs, enforcement and implementation in affirmative action are particularly important to success. Barbara Bergman (1996) argues that the limited impact of affirmative action policy in the United States can be explained largely as a result of inadequate enforcement by U.S. agencies.

Often overlooked in the role of affirmative action is its indirect contribution to breaking the cycle of public denial surrounding the impact of past discrimination and to social and cultural change that can augment other policy initiatives. An admissions director at a Brazilian state university explains, “The biggest advantage of this quota system is that it has broken this myth of a nonracial society. Brazilians have by and large always believed there are no white Brazilians or black Brazilians. But the debate over quotas has forced everyone to confront the fact that racism, discrimination and social exclusion are alive and well here” (quoted in Jeter, 2003). As stated earlier, although affirmative action is one of the policies most associated with inclusion, it is also mired in controversy and debate in many countries (see Box 14.2). Its critics fear that it utilizes discriminatory methods to undo past discrimination, creating new sources of tensions based on race and ethnicity. As evidence of its continuing controversy in the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a partially divided opinion striking down school desegregation plans intended to foster primary and secondary school diversity ordered by the courts (Barnes, 2007).

Sectoral Policies and Programs: Education, Health, Labor Markets

A key to undoing the replication and perpetuation of exclusion via existing institutions and achieving targeted advances for excluded groups lies within sectoral social policies. These include policies and policy implications in education, labor markets, health, and nutrition (see Boxes 14.3 on reproductive health, 14.5 on HIV/AIDS, and 14.6 on justice), as well as social protection/cash transfer schemes. An adequate collection of data and statistics on race, ethnicity, disabilities, and other characteristics of exclusion is needed as a baseline to better identify how programs and policies are affecting excluded groups disproportionately, in order to better refine and redesign sectoral programs. Earlier chapters have demonstrated, for example, that despite educational advances for women overall, indigenous women are among the most poorly educated; Afro-descendant and indigenous men and women earn a disproportionate share of low wages and are more highly represented in the informal sector (Chapter 5). Policy responses aimed at addressing these substantial disparities require great attention to the multiple roots of the disparities and the multiple factors that affect them.

Inducing greater inclusion in education demands, for example, not only attention to equitable access and participation for racial, ethnic, and other excluded groups at all levels of education, but also particular attention to physical access for persons with disabilities, multicultural and bilingual education, and a reduction of disparities in school quality among neighborhoods linked to race or ethnicity (Verdisco, Calderón, and Marshall, 2004). In targeting social exclusion via education, Marshall and Calderón (2006) highlight the need for policies designed, first, to improve schooling for poor people by increasing access and lowering costs, and second, to raise the demand for schooling by increasing its expected returns. For persons with disabilities, the key barriers to expanding inclusive education include stigma and discrimination, invisibility, lack of accessible transportation, perceived cost, and gender discrimination (boys with disabilities are more likely to be sent to school than girls) (Massiah, 2004). Experience in the region with more inclusive education methods includes providing bilingual education (e.g., Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras); expanding physical access and introducing innovative pedagogy to include people with disabilities in regular classrooms (e.g., Mexico’s “inclusion in higher education” program); introducing and adapting the curriculum to stress multicultural heritage and the contributions of Afro-descendants and indigenous peoples to national culture and history (e.g., Colombia); and linking education and school attendance with programs to eradicate the worst forms of child labor (e.g., the Dominican Republic, where indigenous, migrant, and Afro-descendant children are disproportionately represented among child laborers). A shift in data collection and analysis must accompany advances in inclusion achieved via education. Developed nations much more frequently measure how specific groups (e.g., females, Afro-descendants) perform under their social or economic programs in order to ascertain whether the programs are creating greater disparities among various sectors of society and to aid in program redesign or complementary interventions.

Reproductive health (see Box 14.3) offers a particularly compelling area for attention in which the region is far behind even other developing regions, and there are significant differences in infant mortality for excluded groups (e.g., Chapter 2 notes higher rates of infant mortality for indigenous over nonindigenous populations living in the same area).

Many of the region’s labor market policies and programs have yet to be explored for their contribution to greater social inclusion (Chapter 5). What is striking across the region are the barriers encountered by excluded groups in the labor market, despite the advances made in education among these groups. In a study of whites, pretos (Afro-descendants), and pardos (those of mixed race) in Brazil, labor market returns from education were found to vary significantly with parents’ position in the earnings distribution scale and the gradient of skin color (Arias, Yamada, and Tejerina, 2002). The study’s authors found that the earnings gap actually increased for Afro-descendants relative to whites the more education they received (with all other differences in education, parents’ income, etc., controlled for), whereas at the lower end of the scale, the earnings gap relative to whites was smaller, and pretos and pardos had more similar earnings.

In spite of their educational advancement, women have not enjoyed commensurate gains in labor market earnings, despite increasing rates of labor force participation (see Chapter 5). Occupational segregation for women—clustering of women in low-paid sectors of domestic work, teaching, and office work—is pervasive in Latin America and the Caribbean. Despite important economic shifts in occupational structure and macroeconomic circumstances from 1989 to 1997, occupational segregation by gender in key countries was not found to decrease as would be expected (Deutsch et al., 2004). This suggests that cultural and social factors of exclusion persist in counterintuitive ways in response to economic changes that would normally induce shifts. As detailed in earlier chapters, the rapidly growing informal labor market has itself become a key factor in the current dynamics of exclusion in the region. Excluded groups continue to be overrepresented in informal work, lacking key benefits, protection, and access to productivity-enhancing training. Women represent more than one-half of the informal sector, and their average earnings are lower than those of men in the informal sector (Barrientos, 2004).

The most promising results in the region in the labor market field come from a series of evaluations of youth training programs in the region (e.g., in Argentina, Chile, Peru) that demonstrate that women, as a proxy for excluded groups, realize greater returns to training and placement services than men. The placing of women in traineeships in firms under the auspices of these programs is likely enabling women to leapfrog over the hiring discrimination they encounter and the disadvantages they face in having more limited contacts.

The first study of the gender effects of labor intermediation services, conducted on Mexico’s National Employment Service in Mexico City (Flores Lima, 2007), found positive effects for men over a control group that did not participate in the service, but no significant impact for women. This study, and an upcoming study of Chile’s labor intermediation service, help show the way toward actions needed to ensure that job placement services appropriately serve as vehicles for improving the quality of jobs found by excluded groups rather than reinforcing existing occupational segregation and exclusion.

Conditional Cash Transfer Programs

Conditional cash transfer programs, now in place in more than twenty countries in the region, take into account key aspects of gender empowerment and decision making in their delivery of cash subsidies and health benefits via mothers. Another objective—to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty from parents to children—mirrors a similar goal of eradicating intergenerational transmission of exclusion. Conditional cash transfer programs also take into account implicitly the interrelated forms of exclusion, in terms of access to health services and the multiple roots of children’s failure to attend school. Ethnic and racial participation and performance in such programs, however, has yet to be studied, and the data collected on the outcomes achieved by such programs are not disaggregated along these lines. Thus, it is simply not known whether such programs serve to overcome (or reinforce) exclusion, and in what ways. A social inclusion spotlight on such programs might provide potential opportunities to improve program outcomes and performance via an examination of whether there are disparate outcomes for distinct groups constraining these programs from having a more significant impact in key countries. Most important in terms of impact would be the exclusion dimension of what comes next, that is, how successful conditional cash transfer programs are at leading to a lasting exit from poverty. Santiago Levy (2006) argues that this is precisely the weakness in such programs, for children may be healthier or better educated after a conditional cash transfer intervention, but may then be recirculated into exclusionary labor markets and neighborhoods where those gains cannot be realized as a long-term exit from poverty.

Economic Development/Advancement

A different range of policies and programs come under the rubric of promoting economic development and empowerment of excluded populations. These include programs to promote economic development in geographic areas with high concentrations of targeted ethnic or racial populations; provide excluded populations with greater access to credit and business development services and greater support in their utilization; support land reform and property rights; and provide access to quality infrastructure, transport, and markets.

Targeting regional development provides an opportunity to address in a more integrated fashion distinct roots of exclusion: limited job opportunities and business development, marginalized neighborhoods, and lack of access to vital social services. The interrelated impacts of specific forms of exclusion are often most visible in isolated rural regions or urban neighborhoods where there are high concentrations of targeted racial and ethnic populations. The IDB currently supports a series of regional development projects, including one in Bocas del Toro, Chile, and another in Darien, Panama, which explicitly seek to incorporate participation and decision making by local ethnic and racial populations and regional development based on cultural and ethnic identity. In the Chilean case, the participation methods have introduced an inclusion focus into the project “Development with Identity,” which draws on the strengths, assets, and aspirations of the Mapuche peoples and is supported by a substantial investment (US$150 million) from the national government.

Margarita Sánchez (2004) recommends that economic development programs oriented to Afro-descendant communities in particular take into consideration participatory development methods that rebuild the social capital and leadership diminished by multiple forms of exclusion. Among the lessons from Afro-descendant community development that Sánchez includes are the importance of (a) simultaneous strengthening of nongovernmental organizations and networks, (b) incorporation of training tools for community participants targeted to overcoming historical barriers (e.g., self-esteem, gender roles, identity), and (c) linkage with wider social and economic development projects and programs.

There is a widespread perception that the economic advancement of excluded groups is hindered by their more limited access to credit to build income (businesses) and assets (home, property ownership). Lenders can discriminate against members of excluded groups via a variety of methods: applying stricter credit standards, charging higher interest rates, and requiring more collateral on loans to borrowers from these groups than from favored borrowers (Elliehausen and Lawrence, 1990, cited in Torero et al., 2004). In the United States, for example, systematic evidence of blatant discrimination against African Americans who sought to purchase homes in predominantly white neighborhoods led to major reforms in lending practices and disclosures. Recent research into direct discrimination in credit markets in Latin America and the Caribbean, however, is limited.

Many believe that the lack of credit availability for excluded groups in Latin America and the Caribbean may operate through more indirect channels than the blatant discrimination found in the industrialized countries (Chapter 3). Instead, exclusion and discrimination in the region are manifested in the preconditions imposed on applicants from excluded groups to qualify for formal credit, as well as the generally high average rates charged to members of such groups for the credit extended. In their literature review and study, Máximo Torero and his colleagues (2004) found in the case of Peru that the whiter the household, the greater its access to credit, but the marginal effect was quite small. They speculate that a range of indirect factors may be at play in the region, including factors correlated with race and ethnicity (e.g., income instability) and more limited access to needed private assets and public goods. In the case of many Latin American and Caribbean countries, it may well be that a host of factors, such as lack of verifiable collateral, land title, or basic identification, impede even basic loan qualification for members of excluded groups.

Creating new opportunities for firms owned by representatives of excluded or minority groups requires the breaking of clientelistic economic relationships between firms based on past relationships rather than competitiveness. As Thomas Boston (2006) argues, the economic disadvantages faced by minority-owned businesses are rooted historically in unequal treatment in all spheres of life: economic, social, political, and legal. Boston describes a new, promising area for promoting minority-owned firms in the United States: supplier diversity programs with major U.S. companies. To break old patterns, companies are urged to diversify their supplier base and encourage their vendors to do so as well. The most notable U.S. organization encouraging supplier diversity, Boston notes, is the National Minority Supplier Development Council, which has been instrumental in increasing the purchases of goods and services from African-American-owned businesses in the United States from $86 million in 1972 to more than $80 billion in 2003.

Another excluded group for which economic and social empowerment has yielded results is persons with disabilities, in particular, through efforts in some countries to make cities and services (e.g., schools) more accessible to these persons. The experience of Curitiba, Brazil, has shown that systems that are inaccessible to those with disabilities are far more costly than accessible ones (Massiah, 2004). In the area of accessible transport, key lessons include universal design principles, equal access to public transport, and special services for people with special needs (Wright, 2001, cited in Massiah, 2004).

ADVANCING INCLUSION IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN: WHAT NEXT?

Shaping Effective National Inclusion Processes

Observation of all three levels of policy “means” in inclusion processes in Latin America and the Caribbean shows that the intensity and urgency to advance has varied markedly from country to country. For example, Colombia’s national process has emphasized normative changes (see Box 14.1), whereas in Chile, new investments and instruments for indigenous peoples, for example, have been the strongest focus. There is simply no known example in which a nation sought to address inclusion or some form of group-based stigma and discrimination with only a program change, that is, without institutional and normative changes as well. The case of Ecuador (Box 14.4) demonstrates changes at all three levels, as well as the inclusion of distinct changes to address the needs of populations such as those living with disabilities and those with HIV/AIDS. If one views inclusion as a multidimensional, multigroup process, this places emphasis on developing distinct country models and processes that rely on interaction with civil society groups within a given nation, as well as the sequencing of normative, institutional, and policy changes to address the most substantial national needs and weaknesses first.

The IDB’s Social Inclusion Trust Fund has placed particular emphasis on supporting, understanding, and analyzing social inclusion as it advances in particular “leader” countries (IDB, 2006a). Support is targeted not to single policy interventions, but to key stimulus actions that can have a larger, reverberating impact on a range of inclusion outputs along the inclusion policy spectrum. The distinct weights assigned to normative, institutional, and instrumental changes reflect distinct country differences and needs. In Jamaica, for example, addressing HIV/AIDS-related discrimination is particularly pressing as a focus for national social inclusion (see Box 14.5).

Of the three levels of policy means more broadly, the role of normative constitutional changes is likely to be the least transformative in current times, save cases such as South Africa (Richards-Kennedy, 2006), as constitutions and legal frameworks in many countries have been modernized in the transitions to democracy in the late twentieth century. What is more pressing in Latin America and the Caribbean is the refinement and advancement of legal protections and the transformation of rights on paper into rights in practice via enforcement and proactive implementation. Although the scope of normative legal and constitutional changes needed in the region may be limited, there is some evidence that normative changes can play an important catalytic role in stimulating follow-on institutional changes and new policies and programs designed to give life to constitutional commitments.
A priority for normative change in inclusion in many countries of Latin America and the Caribbean remains land and property rights and access to capital (Chapter 4). Much of the region’s economic exclusion stems from unequal access to income-generating assets. A new generation of land-titling and land reform programs in the region benefit women, indigenous peoples, and Afro-descendants and recognize collective and community land ownership. These groups suffered for centuries under normative frameworks that did not recognize or would not grant them titles to their land (Chapter 2).

Focusing on Key Institutional and Policy Changes

In all inclusion processes, institutional and instrumental changes are seen most frequently occurring in conjunction with one another. Again, this stems logically from the embedded nature of exclusion. One cannot institute effective new programs and policies with the same personnel and institutional processes that have previously actively bypassed excluded populations or have no credibility or record with excluded populations.

Of the three levels of policy change, few would disagree that the most widely needed impulse for change in Latin America and the Caribbean is in the area of reforming elite-based or elite-benefiting institutions and implementing a new generation of public policies that serve the poor and excluded in more effective and comprehensive ways. Research reviewed in Chapter 3 showed the differing weights of group and class (e.g., income) identity in exclusionary outcomes.

Although the great variability by country within Latin America and the Caribbean in the nature of exclusion and the specific groups affected must be recognized, key areas of institutional policy change can be and have been more broadly identified region-wide, given common histories of elite-driven politics and economies. European inclusion policies (Atkinson, 2004) have targeted labor markets as a key focus; José Antonio Ocampo (2004) argues that the focus in the Latin American and Caribbean context should be on both education and labor markets. Within education, Chapter 2 argues for the urgent need to reduce inequalities in primary education and improve school quality.

One policy guidepost (Marshall and Calderón, 2006) in the area of eradicating exclusion is to focus on key “entry points” where greater inclusion might have greater follow-on impacts on other areas of exclusion. Income-generating entry points are considered the most fundamental in this regard: education, labor markets, land and property ownership, and business development. Although not income-generating per se, justice presents a particular urgency because of its pivotal role in the ability to access other rights and is frequently a focus of civil rights movements in developed countries (see Box 14.6).

A critical next step in the region is both to identity the strategic key entry points and to make the lessons learned from past policies in regard to inclusion more systematic and more useful in shaping future policies. This will require a much more systematic review of both the efficiency and equity aspects of public policies in regard to key entry points. A series of IDB strategies, policy documents, and studies seek to undertake such a review in regard to key public policy areas and offer a substantial reference. [4] The previous chapters have presented policy perspectives in each of these areas, most specifically in the areas of labor markets (Chapter 5), financial services (Chapter 12), education (Chapters 2, 3, and 13), and business development (Chapters 8, 9, and 11). Specific policy recommendations applicable to individual countries, as stated at the outset of this chapter, are not the purview of this analytical work. Rather, they must be the product of the very national and multilateral strategy and consensus processes that inclusion dictates.

Although the range of program and policy interventions needed at the instrumental level seems daunting, the perspective of national experience and of the larger public policy process offers some relief. In the region today, the priorities and target instruments vary substantially based on national experience and are still considered to be in their very early stages. Coverage, even in the areas of key entry points, is limited. To date, there are still relatively few programs and policies with much longevity in the region, and few programs collect data disaggregated according to group identification, with the exception of data on gender. In comparison, developed countries have a full complement of programs and policies spanning each of the above areas—affirmative action/antidiscrimination, sectoral policies, and economic development—with a much wider range of programs and policies in each of the areas.

The diversification of policies and programs along the many dimensions of exclusion is more representative of developed countries than of Latin America and the Caribbean, where norms, institutions, and policies and programs can be seen as not yet encompassing the wide political, economic, and social dimensions of the problem of exclusion. For example, affirmative action or quota-based systems are relatively prevalent in many countries in a wider range of areas, but in Latin America and the Caribbean the measures involved are predominantly political party quotas, principally those for gender. International experience indicates in very broad terms that as the inclusion process evolves over time, inclusion policy can move to greater diversity and specificity of instruments (policies and programs) even if there is not always full societal consensus, particularly as strengthened civil society and more representative government provide the means to open up new channels for policy intervention.

Returning to the Foundation

To advance ultimately towards inclusion, though, demands a return to its foundation. There is no single identifiable cause nor a single definable solution to the multiple layers of political, economic, and social marginalization that have produced high rates of social exclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean. Progress towards inclusion in the region requires significant efforts both to better define and comprehend the forces that create exclusion and to better understand as well the public policy process needed to significantly advance inclusion.
For Latin America and the Caribbean, the most basic step forward in public policy to combat exclusion begins with the recognition of some fundamental truths:

1. Exclusion is too complex, multidimensional, and changing for single, isolated policies to be effective in combating it.
2. Public policy to advance inclusion must be viewed, designed, and evaluated as part of a comprehensive set of diverse interventions within a policy process that integrates the role of civil society and societal change.
3. When designing interventions, public officials must think horizontally and vertically about needed changes and reforms on three levels—laws, institutions, and instruments—as each depends on the others.
4. A key to developing sustainable national inclusion processes in Latin America and the Caribbean lies in the evolution of democratic systems in the region towards greater representativity and participation, the heart of developing more inclusive public policies.
5. The systematic evaluation of existing policies and programs for their impact on inclusion, the identification of key opportunities not available to excluded populations, and basic data collection must begin now if countries are to have the ability in subsequent years to enact a new generation of evidence-based policies and programs that contribute to vibrant national inclusion processes.

Unearthing and addressing the dynamics of exclusion and inclusion via public policy will play a central role in the region’s future. That future, many argue, must place fundamental citizens’ rights—political, social, human, economic, social, and cultural—at the core of achieving inclusion (Abramovitch, 2004). Without greater advances in inclusion based on fundamental citizen rights, Latin America and the Caribbean will continue to suffer from its legacy of exclusion and remain the most unequal region in the world.

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