No. 48-49 (2005): Social Cohesion and Public Finance

The emergence of the term "Social Cohesion" in the conceptual jargon appears approximately two decades ago. However, in our region, it has emerged with great force in recent years. Thus, in 2004, at the Guadalajara Summit in Mexico, the Heads of State and Government of Latin America and the European Union reiterated their primary responsibility, together with their civil societies, to lead processes and reforms aimed at increasing social cohesion by combating poverty, inequality and social inclusion. These agreements, reaffirmed at the Vienna Summit in 2006, opened up a new field of cooperation in political relations of solidarity between the two regions.

This topic becomes relevant for Latin America in general, and Central America in particular, due to the urgent need to address pertinent problems concerning: high rates of poverty and indigence; extreme inequalities; different forms of discrimination and marginalization; labor market dynamics with scarce inclusive capacity; population with high levels of deterioration in basic rights, such as health, education, aging; transformations and new orientations in families and communities, to mention, among others, some current social challenges. Hence, its recent appearance in dominant aspects of the Region's public agendas.

Social cohesion is a concept under construction, with diffuse scopes, not always agreed upon, whose close notion is social capital. It is indifferently associated with different aspects of social development, incorporating within its scope general problems of poverty, inequality, social exclusion and governance. Its conformation from the theoretical-practical study, is acquiring a greater profile of identity and depth, pretending to become an unmistakable reference in the design of public policies.

Notwithstanding the above, the growing usefulness of the concept is perceived, presenting a series of edges and interrelation in countless aspects of social, economic and political development, evidencing the tensions between the close links between these three dimensions, because economic exclusion generates political separation, which in turn, increases inequality and endangers social justice, causing unrest and discontent among society, and violating the solidity of the democratic order.

Hence the relevance of the relationship between social cohesion and public finances, by operationalizing it in concrete terms of government resources and financial allocations, aimed at rethinking social protection on the basis of universally recognized rights, through policies, programs and projects that contribute to improving the welfare of our populations.

These reflections invite us to begin to examine how to strengthen social cohesion in the Region by means of guidelines that seek its viability, by acting on the obstacles that prevent progress towards effective citizenship, the horizon on which the significant concern of this topic makes sense.