Like a beggar on top of a mountain of gold Latin America, the saying goes, is like a beggar on top of a mountain of gold. In the next century, the continent has big ambitions to finally realise its huge potential. Paddy Woodworth assesses the prospects. In the 500 years since the Spanish and Portuguese, for good and ill, started to link what became Latin America with the rest of the world, the region's fabulous wealth and miserable poverty have been the stuff of legend, with a strong basis in reality. But the old adage still has a certain ring of truth.
Social inequality stretches wider here than on any other continent.
Twenty-four Mexican families are richer than 24 million of their fellow citizens. Many Latin American leaders believe that the next decade offers a great opportunity, and perhaps the last one for a long time, for the continent to at last engage with the global economy as a major player, measuring up to the established giants to the north and east, and emerging giants in Asia. There are some solid grounds for such optimism, but they are undermined by fault lines which could, almost as easily, lead to turmoil and collapse. Latin America's great advantage over Asia and Africa, in general terms, is the relative stability of its political and economic institutions. Over the last 20 years, military dictatorships have crumbled and been replaced by democratic systems.