SUNS  4294 Monday 5 October 1998


CENTRAL AMERICA: INTEGRATION SKIRTS SOCIAL WOES

San Jose, Oct 1 (IPS/Maricel Sequeira) -- The integration process Central America has been going through has tended to bypass the sub-region's social problems, according to observers here.

Researchers, labour officials and representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) came to that conclusion when they reviewed the movement towards closer ties between Central American nations at a
conference held here under the theme of 'Central America Looks South'.
The meeting, held from Sep. 23-35, also examined integration processes in the rest of Latin America.

Carlos Molina, executive secretary of the Central American Confederation of Workers (CCT), told IPS that two basic conclusions emerged from the discussion.

The first was that globalization constitutes a real threat due to its negative impact on employment and jobs. The second was that Central America's integration process does not take social issues into account, despite mechanisms like the Alliance for Sustainable Development (Alides).

Alides, established by the sub-region's governments in 1994, was based on environment, social, economic and political considerations. But the alliance "soon became a dead letter, as evaluations by the United Nations Programme for Development (UNDP) and the Latin American Faculty
of Social Sciences (FLACSO) have shown," said Molina.

The sub-regional integration effort has been little more than a framework for cooperation in trade, as FLASCO's Juan Pablo Perez recalled. To this day, it has not addressed social issues.

According to Perez, three of every 10 Central American adults are illiterate. The average person has had less than five years schooling, while public spending on education is less than four percent of gross domestic product (GDP). And there are only three scientists for every 10,000 inhabitants.

In terms of health and water services, Central America has changed very little, said Perez. Public spending in these sectors is less than three percent of GDP. Four of every 10 persons lack access to potable water, and three out of 10 do not receive adequate health care.

There are 90 doctors for every 100,000 Central Americans, two out of 10 children under the age of five are underweight, and 40 to 60 out of every 1,000 children die before reaching their fifth birthday.

Sixty percent of the sub-region's people are poor, the income of the wealthiest 20% is 30 times greater than the income of the poorest 20 percent, Perez noted,.

Since the integration process has proved unable to address social issues, the sub-region's three main labour federations are trying to coordinate their action. One of their priority projects involves
getting labour codes passed throughout Central America.

The Confederation of Central American Workers, the Central American Workers Coordinating Group and the CCT are also seeking to promote social security laws and legislation that protects workers' right to join unions.

Jorge Nowalski, a consultant with the UNDP, said that the UNDP's 1998 'Human Development Report' (HDR) confirmed that Central America had not improved on the social plane.