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New social challenges and restructuring of public action in Latin America
International Colloquium on Urban Inequalities and Post-Pandemic from an Intersectional Perspective

September 25 and 26, 2023 | City of Buenos Aires
Gino Germani Research Institute, University of Buenos Aires
Uriburu 950 6th floor

Presentation

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) a global pandemic. On March 23, 2020, the agreement by which the General Health Council recognized COVID-19 as a serious disease requiring priority attention was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation. From that date forward, government interventions would be crucial to addressing the economic and social devastation caused by the pandemic.

The severe pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) has had multiple and interconnected effects on Latin American societies: it highlighted the great socio-economic inequalities and existing inequities in access to and quality of goods and services; it forced the restructuring of public health systems to address and prioritize the health emergency; it generated a profound economic crisis given the closure of a large number of companies and the drop in workers' income, and with it, the increase in poverty; it transformed social life by forcing individuals and families to confine themselves to their homes, even in conditions of extreme overcrowding; it forced women to add to their traditional caregiving tasks the care of the sick and support for their children's online learning activities; it caused a forced cohabitation that had countless consequences in psychological terms and fostered situations of domestic violence, among many other things.

Likewise, the pandemic highlighted the serious structural problems of our Latin American societies and the limited capacities of our states to cope with a health crisis of unprecedented magnitude and unpredictable dimensions. ECLAC estimated that in the early stages of the emergency, public spending to address the pandemic in Latin American countries was very limited and uneven, with Brazil allocating the highest percentage of its GDP (4,02%), followed by Bolivia (2,83%) and Argentina (2,23%), while Ecuador (0,13%) and Ecuador (0,14%) allocated the fewest resources.

Social policies implemented to address the emergency in all countries initially focused on containment. Isolation and/or social distancing were imposed with varying degrees of rigor in all Latin American cities. The repurposing of healthcare systems to care for COVID-19 patients, followed by mass, free vaccination, were the main actions. Within this framework, national governments responded according to needs and available resources, striving to ensure that the population continued to receive some income (for example, the Emergency Family Income program in Argentina or the expansion of beneficiaries of social protection programs and scholarships for primary school students in Mexico). In low-income neighborhoods of several Latin American cities, this was complemented by the distribution of free basic food supplies and drinking water, as well as measures to prevent evictions for non-payment of rent, among many other government actions, which were concentrated at the federal or central levels.

Likewise, in a context where citizens demanded immediate answers, many local governments redirected their own resources to address the needs of their populations. As is typical in situations of social risk, the pandemic also activated community and family support networks to mitigate the impacts arising from the emergency.

The numerous research projects carried out in recent years have compiled and analyzed both the effects of the pandemic on the increase in poverty and inequality in Latin America, and the multiple actions undertaken by national and local governments and social organizations to mitigate the most serious effects of this global pandemic. Several of these projects were published and/or disseminated by CLACSO, and many indicate that one of the corollaries of the pandemic must be the restructuring of all social policies, at both the federal and local levels. These policies have been designed and implemented for more than two decades in our countries, with very few variations despite their clear limitations. Analyzing the systems, frameworks, actions, resources, and results that make up the complex network of social policies at the central and local levels is not only a relevant but an essential objective in the current context, and this project falls within that framework. International Seminar “New social challenges and restructuring of public action in Latin America, which is organized by the CLACSO Working Groups “Poverty and social policies”, “Latin American urban processes: (in)justices and (in)equalities” and “Inequalities, social structure and Politics”.

In this context, the main questions that initiate this dialogue between Latin American academics are:

• What are the challenges posed by the post-pandemic scenario in terms of poverty and inequality?

• What types of social policies can respond to the challenges posed by the post-pandemic context?

• What are the challenges that different sectors pose to social policies?

Objectives

• Identify the challenges posed by the post-pandemic scenario in terms of poverty, inequalities and social policies.

• To characterize the intervention methods of social policies in the region, the characteristics they adopt according to sector and social groups, and their forms of implementation.

• Open a space for Social Dialogue between the three CLACSO Working Groups mentioned above, which include researchers from Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

Dynamics of the meeting

The Seminar unfolds in three working sessions. A main panel, serving as the opening session, focuses on identifying the challenges posed by the post-pandemic scenario in terms of poverty, inequality, and social policies.

A panel on inequality and social policies that allows us to recognize the interactions between social policies and other dimensions of social life such as gender, urban life, etc.

A final panel on poverty and social policies will explore what types of initiatives are currently being implemented to combat poverty in the pandemic scenario, which groups are the recipients of these actions, and how they are implemented.

In all cases, the panels are organized around the presentation of papers by three to four panelists and the contributions of the commentators. The moderators will be responsible for managing the timing and the flow of the dialogue in each panel.

• The activities are open to the academic community and the general public.

• No fee will be charged for attendance and/or registration for the presentation of the works.

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PROGRAM

Day 1: September 25th, 16 to 19 pm

Inaugural Session

• Martín Unzué. Director IIGG-UBA
• Karina Batthyány, Executive Director, CLACSO
• Pablo Vommaro. Director of Research, CLACSO
• María Carla Rodríguez (IIGG-UBA | CONICET)
• María Mercedes Di Virgilio (IIGG-UBA | CONICET)

Inaugural Panel

• Rolando Cordera and Alicia Ziccardi (PUED-IIS-UNAM)
• Agustín Salvia (UCA|IIGG|CONICET)
• Pablo Yanes (ECLAC)

Comment: María Mercedes Di Virgilio (IIGG-UBA)
Moderator: : Melina Tobias (IIGG-UBA)

Day 2: September 26

Table 1: Inequality and social policies 10 a.m. to 13 p.m.

• Manuel Dammert (PUCP)
• Vicente Moctezuma (ISS-UNAM)
• Mercedes Najman (CONICET | IIGG-UBA)
• Karina Videgain (PUED-UNAM)

They commentRamiro Segura (IDAES | UNL | CONICET) and Carlos Fidel (UNQ)
Moderator: Valeria Laura Snitcofsky (UBA | CONICET)

Table 2: Poverty and social policies 14 to 18 pm

• Victor Borrás and Tabaré Fernández Aguerre (University of the Republic)
• Flavio Gaitán (UNILA)
• Luis Ortiz (ICSO)
• Rosa María Voghon Hernández (Independent Researcher)
• Iliana Yaschine (PUED-UNAM)

They comment: Carmen Midaglia (Univ. of the Republic) and María Carla Rodriguez (IIGG-UBA | CONICET)
Moderatea: Jesica Pla (CONICET | IIGG-UBA)

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