Transcript Slide 1

What motivated the project
• Guatemala is a mid/income country, yet
has among worst social indicators in LA
• Constrast between resources and results,
and between poverty and wealth indicators
• Aim: show how fiscal policy has kept rights
stunted; bring HR into debates on 2010
budget and new govt’s tax reform plans
Framework of analysis
Measuring
ESC rights
outcomes
Identifying
ESC rights
commitments
Assessing
policy efforts
Lack of
resources or
political will?
What do G’s health,
educ + food indicators
say abt Core Obligs,
Non-Discn + PR?
What legal + policy
commitments has
G made to ESCR?
Are they the right
policies? Sufficient?
Who do they benefit?
How implemented?
Is G using maximum
available resources?
Who benefits?
Increase over time?
Analyse outcome
indicators (aggregate,
disagg and over time)
Commitment indicators:
Treaty ratification
Constitutional provisions
Nat/int policy commtnts
Indicators of effort:
Are services available,
accessible etc
Patterns of social
spending and taxation.
1. Measuring ESCR outcomes
Core obligations: right to food
1 in 2 children chronically malnourished
Core obligations: right to health
Highest maternal mortality rate in LA
Core obligations: right to education
lowest primary completion in LA
Non-discrimination: gender
Lowest proportion of girls to boys finishing primary
Non-discrimination: ethnic/regional
MMR: Indigenous women 3 times as likely to die
Non-discrimination: intersecting
Youth literacy rates by location, ethnicity and gender
Progressive realization: food
Retrogression in child malnutrition
Progressive realization: health
Maternal mortality in Bolivia and Guatemala
Progressive realization: disparities
Ethnic and gender disparities have widened
2. Identifying ESC rights
commitments
Legal and political commitments
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Constitutional guarantees
Incorporation of human rights treaties
Peace Accords reaffirm ESC rights
MDG commitments
Exemplary laws and policies on maternal
health, education and food security
3. Assessing policy efforts
Common policy failures
Many attributable to lack of resources
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Don’t address structural determinants
Grossly insufficient in scope and coverage
Don’t benefit the most disadvantaged
Poor coordination, transparency, participation,
accountability, continuity
• Fail to promote the availability and accessibility
of quality and culturally appropriate services
Example: Lower spending on school
food programs than most LA countries
Example: school feeding programs
(left) not going where most needed
Example: obstetric services (left) not
reaching areas where more women die
La disponibilidad de médicos obstetras (izq) es menor en los departamentos con las
tasas de mortalidad materna más elevadas (dcha)
Example: No increase in access to
skilled birth attendance
Example: health resources declining
as population grows
Example: accessibility and cultural
appropriateness of reproductive care
• “I couldn’t have my baby in a health centre
because they force you to give birth lying down.
They treat you bad if you dont speak Spanish.”
• “Adela had lost a lot of blood. She knew she had
to go to hospital but she didnt want to – it’s 75km
away and we couldn’t afford the transport. She
said it was cheaper for her to die at home than
to be brought back dead from the hospital.”
– Interviews, Senahú, Alta Verapaz, 2008.
4. Genuine lack of resources or
lack of political will?
Social spending among lowest in LA
Social spending has stagnated since 2000
Social spending is among most regressive in LA
Eg: who benefits from education spending?
Incidence by quintile
Eg: who benefits from health spending?
Per capita spending by department
Public health spending has remained around 1%
of GDP, leaving households to pick up the cost
Low tax base explains G’s “bonsai budget”
An inequitable tax system
• Indirect taxes (VAT) make up 75% of tax income. Burden
falls disproportionately on poorest sectors.
• System riddled with tax exemptions benefiting most
lucrative corporate sectors. In 2008, these totalled more
than double the amount obtained through income tax.
• Serious problem of tax evasion, estimated at 4.3% GDP
in 2006 (= > health + education budget combined).
• Economic crisis and tariff liberalization have reduced tax
base further: now 3% lower than 2000 target.
• Fierce resistance to tax reform by the economic elite has
kept G a “minimal state” – and the courts are complicit
• Fiscal policy systematically breaches duty to fulfil ESCR.
Recommendations
Stepped increase in health and education spending, according to
benchmarks based on ICEFI’s costing of minimum interventions
necessary to achieve by 2015 universal access to primary health care,
and G’s own agreed targets re primary education coverage.
New Fiscal Pact to be agreed with full civil society participation, so as
to design a new tax system aimed at furthering principles of
universality, progressive realization and substantive equality in rights.
Pointed to income that could be generated from specific increases in
income and property taxes and reduction/elimination of fiscal
incentives.
Improved mechanisms for fiscal transparency and accountability.
Advocacy goals
• Bring HR into 2010
budget/tax debates
• Secure govt comtmt
• Promote nat’nal/local
monitoring capacity
• Counter media and
business discourses
• Press for acctability at
MDG + CRC reviews
Lessons/challenges
• Need to promote basic understanding of
HR principles to policy-makers, and clarify
our own!
• How prescriptive to be in
recommendations (eg costing?)
• Challenges of inter-disciplinary partnership