CIDE-4112 Seminar on Vulnerability and Inequality
After 50 years of official development assistance, we confront the same core questions as those in the development agenda in 1948: How to eradicate the different forms of human deprivation? How to respond to the public policy challenges posed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?, and how to ensure full enjoyment of political, economic, social and cultural civil rights for all humankind? The return of poverty as a core issue in the debate around development and its global scope is closely related to two issues, which are common to many other problems and are present between and within countries, namely: a) The rediscovery of inequality: the world is not flat. The realization about the existence of deep inequalities related to a delayed eradication of poverty has brought about important changes such as the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals by the United Nations General Assembly, or the adoption by International Financial Institutions of new instruments, including Policy Reduction Framework Papers. The rediscovery of the issue of inequality is related to an undeniable increase in income inequality observed in the most populated nations in the world, such as the United States, China, Brazil and Russia and, more recently, India, as well as within other countries with transition economies. At the same time, the poorest 20% of the population appears to be losing ground and experiencing new levels of human deprivation and exclusion from the potential benefits of a world that is more open to exchange and opportunities, because the basic health problems, access to water, deterioration of natural resources and the livelihood of millions of people remain urgent and are still unresolved. b) Social exclusion and differential access to the benefits of globalization: Globalization has accelerated a series of critical processes, unprecedented in the past 500 years, we live in a time of abrupt and extreme contrast among social groups, countries and geographic regions with a high access to resources and opportunities on one side, and on the other, a wider group of people, countries, and possibly geographic regions, that are marked by deep inequalities regarding access to resources and opportunities, as well as a gradual collapse of their own environment, this issue transcends the barriers of inequality regarding impact but not as to potential for confrontation. Perhaps now more than ever are we able to state that the same environment that we have modified in our quest for growth and expansion of our production capacity required for a greater social justice, is now becoming a threat. The issues of climate change, environmental degradation, and their most evident consequence: natural disasters, tell us that we should have a wider vision, and that our research and public policies must face the challenge of the interdisciplinary and multi-dimension character of problems. At the same time, our institutional structures appear now, as rarely before, impotent in facing the challenges of environmental collapse and social exclusion social, when the ability to govern and generate public value and wellbeing is subject to the evil forces of economy and the unbridled interests that pursue profit to an extent never seen before since the times of domination of religion over monarchy during the Middle Ages.
Instructor
Piniero Maricel
Catalog page for this course