Seminar: "Breaking the Poverty Cycle"

The importance and benefits of early childhood care as a way to help reduce poverty and inequality and achieve economic and social development Latin America and the Caribbean was analyzed and discussed by 300 experts and public officials today during a seminar at the Annual Meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank.

"The cost of child care programs is not an expense, but an investment in the future of our communities,"said IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias in inaugurating the seminar on "Breaking the Poverty Cycle: Investing in Early Childhood.

"Ethical and social reasons show that investment in children to prevent transmitting poverty from generation to generation is the best investment for the region," Iglesias said ."The Bank is promoting a political, financial, and social alliance to achieve more ambitious objectives in this area."

Iglesias said the IDB plans to undertake 60 programs to promote infant care and youth development in the next five years to improve the life of small children, steps that will have a multiplier effect in society, he said.

A video prepared by the bank shows statistics and images portraying the magnitude of impoverished and abandoned children in the region as well as some of their experiences.

Four of every 10 children 8 years old or less - a total of 45 million - who live in poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean may have poor-paying jobs and repeat the experience of their parents because of the lack of preparation and capacity for learning.

Studies and projections by the IDB and other organizations show that investments in early childhood, by dealing at the root causes of the development problem, provides high benefits for children and communities and saves social costs.

"Poverty is not only low income,"said Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya K. Sen, a main speaker at the seminar. "The reach and relevance of breaking the poverty cycle through early childhood interventions requires a broader approach. We have to see development as a general process of expansion of human freedom. The quality of life that we enjoy has to take note of the substantive alternatives and options we have in our lives."

"Health care, public education, and other measures that help to end the cycle of basic impoverishment must get a central place in an integrated development approach. Child mortality, which still claims an astonishing total of lives, has to be seen as impoverishment itself," he added. "Good childhood prepares a person for leading a good life and being economically productive and also for being a good citizen."

The director of the World Health Organization, Go Harlem Brundtland, said in final comments at the seminar that he was optimistic about the rising international consciousness on the effectiveness and economic dimensions of child development strategies.

Among those attending the seminar were a representative of the National Congress of Guatemala, Manuela Alvarado; Nancy Birdsall, director of economic programs for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Barbados Foreign Minister Billie Miller; Robert Myers, the former co-coordinator of the Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development; and the general manager of the Central Bank of Colombia, Miguel Urrutia.

The IDB seminar was co-sponsored by the governments of Denmark, Finland, and Norway; the International Cooperation Development Agency of Sweden; and UNICEF.

Last updated: 01/16/07