Latin American Economic Development

Does your economic development program have ties to Latin America? This article may interest you.

Latin America is headed toward an unhappy anniversary: 25 years of failed attempts at economic growth. The world has no comparable period of failure anywhere else in at least the last century, including the Great Depression. From 1960 to 1979, these economies grew at a decent rate, chalking up an 80% gain in income per person. In spite of Latin America having the world's worst inequality in income distribution, this was enough to substantially improve living standards for the vast majority of the population, including most of the poor.

But then something went wrong, and it has as much to do with policies advocated by the "Washington consensus." From 1980 to 1999, per-capita income grew by only 11%. The 1980s were known as Latin America's "lost decade," when the region's income per person actually fell. The 1990s produced only modest growth, and the first decade of the 21st century is now looking like it might also count itself among the missing. Using the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) projections for 2004, the first half of the new decade (2000-04) shows a gain of about 1% for the whole five years.

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