Óscar Ugarteche: an intellectual who made equality a way of life
By Humberto Campodonico.
CLACSO Working Group on Energy and Sustainable Development
There are people whose professional careers can be summarized by a single discipline. They are described as economists, sociologists, historians, or jurists. With Óscar Ugarteche, the exact opposite is true. He was an economist, undoubtedly, and one of the most brilliant of his generation. But to define him solely in that way would be to reduce a life that constantly transcended the boundaries of any single field. Óscar was also a Latin Americanist thinker, a writer, a public policy advocate, a human rights defender, an activist for equality, and, above all, a man convinced that knowledge only has meaning when it contributes to transforming society.
These days, as farewell messages pour in from universities, international organizations, research centers, and social organizations in various countries, it's clear that each person remembers a different Óscar. Some recall the economist who revolutionized the study of Latin American external debt; others the generous professor who always found time to read a manuscript or discuss a new idea; many remember him as a tireless fighter for civil rights; still others speak of the warm friend, the brilliant conversationalist, or the cultured man who could move, with equal ease, from a discussion about international financial architecture to a conversation about Borges, García Márquez, or the poetry of César Vallejo.
Perhaps this diversity of memories is the best way to understand who he truly was. Because, ultimately, all these facets stemmed from a single concern that accompanied him throughout his life: to combat the various forms of inequality and domination that limit the freedom of individuals and nations.
His story began long before he became an international icon. It began at the Carmelitas de San Antonio School, where he was part of the first graduating class. Those who shared those years with him remember a precocious student, an insatiable reader, and an inexhaustible curiosity. While others sought answers, Óscar seemed determined to formulate new questions. That curiosity never left him. It accompanied him throughout his university studies in Peru and abroad, in his academic work, in international organizations, and in every project he undertook for more than four decades.
From a young age, he understood that Latin America faced problems that could not be explained solely from the perspective of national borders. external debt crisis The events of the 1980s profoundly impacted an entire generation of Latin American economists. Many focused their efforts on studying debt renegotiation, structural adjustment programs, or macroeconomic stabilization policies. Óscar chose a different path. He understood that the real problem was not only how much Latin American countries owed, but who wrote the rules of the international financial system and who benefited from those rules.
That intuition would change the course of his entire intellectual work. Oscar participated as an advisor in the negotiations of the Central Bank of Nicaragua regarding the external debt, at the beginning of the Sandinista revolution.
While most experts continued to discuss successive debt crises, Óscar shifted the focus of the debate to a much more ambitious topic: the need to build a New International Financial ArchitectureIt was not enough to renegotiate the debt every time a crisis erupted. It was essential to reform the institutions, rules, and governance mechanisms that allowed those crises to recur time and again.
It was an extraordinarily advanced idea for its time.
In the late 1990s, he promoted the creation of LATINDADDA Latin American network that very quickly moved beyond focusing exclusively on debt to become one of the main regional forums for reflection on development, tax justice, international finance, public policy, and economic rights. Under its impetus, the discussion ceased to be limited to financial balances, incorporating much deeper questions about democracy, equity, and the right of countries to sovereignly define their development strategies.
Oscar often repeated that the problem had never been solely the debt. The problem was the financial architecture that produced it. That's why he dedicated more than three decades to promoting the construction of a International Financial Codecapable of establishing fairer rules for relations between creditors, multilateral organizations, and sovereign states. He also advocated for the creation of a International Tribunal on Sovereign DebtConvinced that no country should be subject to the decisions of a single national court when issues affecting the well-being of millions of people were at stake, Óscar warned long before the litigation involving so-called vulture funds captured global attention that the absence of multilateral institutions to resolve such disputes was one of the major weaknesses of the international financial system.
It wasn't an academic concern. It was a profoundly ethical one.
What made Óscar different wasn't just the originality of his ideas. It was the conviction with which he defended them. He never conceived of economics as an exercise in technical neutrality or as a set of equations detached from people's lives. For him, behind every financial crisis, every adjustment program, or every debt negotiation, there were real human beings, families, workers, and entire countries whose development prospects were conditioned by decisions often made thousands of miles away.
That is why he never accepted the idea that economics could be separated from politics, history, or ethics. He was convinced that economic institutions were neither inevitable nor natural; they were human constructs and, as such, could be changed. This conviction accompanied him throughout his career and explains why his research was never limited to describing reality. It always sought to transform it.
On numerous occasions, I heard him say that Latin America had spent too much time discussing how to adapt to the rules of the international financial system and too little time asking who had written those rules and for whose benefit they operated. That seemingly simple question ran throughout his work. It explains why he was one of the first Latin American economists to replace the debate on debt with a much broader discussion about global economic governance.
His proposal for a new International Financial Architecture was, for many years, considered a distant aspiration. However, over time, many of the ideas he championed began to gain traction in multilateral organizations, universities, and international forums. The need to create more balanced mechanisms for resolving sovereign debt crises, the discussion on new financing instruments for development, and the reform of international financial institutions are now part of an agenda that Óscar began to build when very few were talking about it.
He was an extraordinarily patient man. He knew that great intellectual transformations don't happen overnight. He sowed ideas with the tranquility of someone who understands that he might not live to see their full fruits. That's why he never measured success by the immediacy of the results, but by the capacity to open new paths of reflection for future generations.
But reducing Óscar Ugarteche to an international economist would be an injustice.
His concern about inequality was never limited to North-South relations or between creditor and debtor countries. He also turned his attention to Peru. And there he found another power structure that would accompany him intellectually for the rest of his life.
In one of his last interviews he stated that "Peru is a caste society; it is not yet settled."The statement drew attention for its forcefulness, but those of us familiar with his career immediately understood that it was not a provocation. It was the culmination of more than forty years of reflection on Peruvian history.
Óscar argued that the country continued to reproduce deeply entrenched social hierarchies, inherited from the colonial era and constantly reinforced by economic inequality, racism, discrimination, and exclusion. For him, political democracy could not be fully consolidated while millions of Peruvians continued to face invisible barriers determined by their social origin, surname, skin color, place of birth, or sexual orientation.
That is why he fought inequality from the very first day of his public life. He fought it when he denounced the asymmetries of the international financial system. He fought it when he proposed fairer rules for peripheral economies. He fought it when he investigated the economic and financial crimes committed during Alberto Fujimori's regime as an advisor to the Investigative Commission chaired by Javier Diez Canseco. And he fought it again when he decided to become personally involved in one of the most difficult struggles in contemporary Peru: the defense of the rights of sexual minorities.
He was one of the founders of the Homosexual Movement of Lima (MHOL) In an era when publicly embracing that cause meant confronting deeply ingrained prejudices, he wasn't seeking notoriety. He was seeking consistency. For him, the defense of human rights wasn't a separate chapter from his work as an economist. It was part of the same worldview. He always understood that a society that discriminates against a segment of its citizens can hardly aspire to build truly democratic institutions.
In that struggle, Fidel ArocheÓscar's life partner, an economist, played a fundamental role. They shared not only affection and a life together, but also reflections on economics, development, and the profound inequalities of Latin American societies. Together, they championed equal rights and fought for the recognition of same-sex marriage in Peru for years, making their own story a testament to dignity, perseverance, and consistency between the ideals they publicly defended and the way they lived them.
This consistency also explains another little-known characteristic of his personality: his immense interest in literature.
Óscar read novels with the same passion he devoted to studying financial markets. He enjoyed discussing Borges, García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, and José María Arguedas because he was convinced that literature allowed one to understand aspects of the human condition that no statistics could reveal. He often said that novels taught as much about a society as the best economic studies. In them, he found the fears, hopes, contradictions, and aspirations of people that later reappeared, in another form, in major economic and political processes.
His intellectual breadth impressed those who knew him. He could begin a conversation about the international financial crisis and end it reflecting on a Latin American novel or the last film he had seen. He never accepted rigid compartmentalization between disciplines. He deeply believed in the dialogue between economics, history, sociology, literature, and politics. Perhaps that's why it was so stimulating to talk with him. He always forced you to look at a problem from an unexpected angle.
Even in recent years, he never lost his ability to anticipate debates. When much of the economic discussion was still focused on international finance, Óscar began to take an interest in the energy transition and its implications for Latin America. From the CLACSO Working Group on Energy and Sustainable Development He insisted that the change in the global energy matrix It should not be analyzed solely as a technological process. It was also a geopolitical, financial, and social transformation that would redefine relations between developed countries and peripheral economies for decades to come.
Once again, he looked further than most. And perhaps that's the best way to remember his legacy.
He was not only a brilliant economist. He was one of those rare intellectuals who never stopped asking questions. He never accepted that inequalities were inevitable. He never believed that international institutions were unchangeable. He never stopped thinking that Latin America could build a more dignified place in the world. And he never relinquished the idea that knowledge should be placed at the service of freedom, equality, and justice.
There are intellectuals whose work remains locked away in libraries. Others manage to influence public debate for a few years before being replaced by new generations. And there are a few whose legacy consists, above all, of changing the way others begin to see the world. I believe Óscar Ugarteche belongs to this last category.
Those who worked with him remember his enormous intellectual generosity. He never conceived of knowledge as a personal possession to be protected. On the contrary, he enjoyed sharing readings, recommending authors, commenting on manuscripts, or discussing research projects with students and young researchers. He didn't just teach economics. He taught a way of thinking. A way of formulating questions, of distrusting easy answers, and of always looking a little beyond the obvious.
That attitude explains the profound affection his passing evokes today. In recent days, it hasn't only been economists who have spoken out. Sociologists, historians, lawyers, human rights activists, writers, social leaders, former students, and colleagues from many different countries have also shared their thoughts. Each one remembers a different facet of Óscar, but they all agree on one thing: he was an extraordinarily generous person with his time, his ideas, and his friendship.
He doesn't just leave behind books or academic articles. He leaves behind institutions. Leave behind international research networks. He leaves behind generations of young economists who today discuss the international financial architecture using concepts he began developing when they still seemed like fringe ideas. He also leaves behind a Latin American agenda that continues to grow around reforming the international financial system, addressing sovereign debt, and the need to build fairer rules for the global economy.
But perhaps his greatest legacy is something else.
Oscar never accepted that inequality was a natural fact. Nor did he believe that power relations were immutable. His entire life was a constant invitation to question the structures that produce exclusion, whether they manifested themselves in the international economy, in the social organization of Peru, or in the denial of fundamental rights to certain human groups..
Therefore, when he stated that Peru remained a caste society, he wasn't expressing pessimism. He was posing a challenge. He was telling us that Peruvian democracy still had an unfinished task: to become a society of citizens equal in dignity and rights. His entire intellectual work can be read, in essence, as a long reflection on that aspiration.
In his later years, he once again surprised those who knew him. While many thought he would remain exclusively focused on international financial issues, he began studying the energy transition and its consequences for Latin America. This was consistent with his entire career. He always sought to understand the next major historical shift before it occurred. He didn't investigate the past out of nostalgia, but because he wanted to help build the future.
That constant curiosity was perhaps one of his greatest virtues. He never stopped learning. He never stopped reading. He never stopped being enthusiastic about a new idea or a new conversation. He retained until the very end that rare capacity to marvel at knowledge, a quality that usually distinguishes great masters.
Today, people from many generations and from many different countries bid him farewell. Some knew him in university classrooms; others in international organizations, at CLACSO, at LATINDADD, in the Congress of the Republic, in social movements, or in the defense of human rights. All feel that a singular voice of Latin American thought has been lost.
However, ideas have a very particular way of outliving those who write them.
As long as the debate on a new international financial architecture continues; as long as Latin America continues to seek a fairer place in the global economy; as long as someone questions the inequalities that still permeate our societies; as long as a new generation of researchers dares to think from the Global South without passively accepting answers constructed elsewhere, Óscar Ugarteche will remain present.
Because that was, probably, the most profound feature of his intellectual life. He never studied the world to describe it. He studied it to change it.
And few aspirations can be nobler than that.
July 13, 2026
CLACSO Working Group on Energy and Sustainable Development
This text expresses the position of the aforementioned Working Groups and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
