Newsgroups: soc.culture.mexican
From: DowJones@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: Mexican Program To Spur Development Shows Much Progress
Date: Fri,  8 Jan 1993 09:25:46 -0500 

  

  By Matt Moffett  

  MEXICO CITY -- The Solidarity Program is the fulcrum of President Carlos
Salinas de Gortari's effort to ensure that the benefits from Mexico's
free-market economic renaissance reach the very poor. And the do-it-yourself
antipoverty plan has been such a success that hardware stores can scarcely
keep picks and shovels in stock.  

  In four years, neighborhood building brigades have refurbished 75,000
schools and paved thousands of miles of streets. Communities have also
played a major supporting role in heavier projects that have brought
electricity and potable water to more than 10 million people and drainage
services to another eight million. Barrios are even starting small businesses
with the aid of a Solidarity venture-capital fund, which already has
helped finance some 2,400 enterprises. Because citizen participation
minimizes labor costs and reduces waste, the program's $9 billion price
tag is far less than what the government would have paid to do the work
itself.  

  "Citizen involvement eliminates many vices often associated with social
spending," says Mabel Nieto de Aguilar, director of Costa Rica's development
effort. "There are lots of lessons for us in Mexico's program." A score
of other developing countries, mostly in Latin America but also including
China and India, have sent delegations here to learn them. Already, Argentina
has started an antipoverty program that takes its self-help emphasis
and its name from Mexico's.  

  The keen interest in Solidarity comes as Latin American governments
move from battling depression to the new challenge of spreading the benefits
of prosperity. "I am convinced that there isn't a successful economic
strategy without a well-planned social program accompanying it," Salinas
said in an interview last month. Today , he will meet with President-elect
Clinton in Texas to discuss the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement,
which has been the catalyst for Mexico's recent economic success.  

  Even though the region has had faster economic growth than that of
the leading industrialized countries for two years running, the expectations
of impoverished Latin Americans may be rising even faster than their
living standards. That's clearly true in Venezuela, whose government
recently fended off another coup attempt; its economic growth has averaged
nearly 10% since 1990, but in a recent poll 90% of the people said the
government's economic policies favor the rich.  

  Historically, Mexico itself has been far from a model of equity. A
1989 survey showed that the richest 10% earned as much as the poorest
70%. Measures of social welfare have been similarly skewed. The inhabitants
of Mexico's most prosperous states live, on average, a decade longer
than those of its poorest ones, says Adolfo Chavez, a public-health expert.
 

  And although Solidarity favors the poor, other facets of Mexico's present
economic policy clearly tilt toward the rich. Mexico's move to dismantle
trade barriers benefits businesses large enough to compete at home and
in foreign markets. Thus, the number of Mexicans on Forbes magazine's
billionaire list grew last year to seven from two in 1991 -- and topped
the United Kingdom's total. President Salinas's policies also benefit
people with the capital to play Mexico's financial markets, and they
are just a tiny minority of the 85 million Mexicans. Indeed, half the
assets of Mexico's banking system sit in only 18,600 accounts.  

  Can Solidarity, or any government program, lessen such huge disparities?
Wary of the ruinous populism of the 1970s and 1980s, the technocrats
running Mexico today don't promise miracles. "Government cannot guarantee
equitable income distribution," Finance Minister Pedro Aspe says. "What
government can and should do is guarantee better distribution of opportunities-
."   
    9 25 AM
Newsgroups: soc.culture.mexican