VOLUME 10 SPRING 2021 - Latin America Policy Journal
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VOLUME 10 SPRING 2021
STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ANA MARIA GARCIA OSORIO EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MAYRA DELGADO EXECUTIVE EDITOR MAYUMI CORNEJO CREATIVE EDITOR VALERIA MENDIOLA EDITORIAL DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR SOULANGE GRAMEGNA MANAGING DIRECTOR, DIGITAL ANDREA ALVAREZ ADVISOR LUIS CARLOS VELEZ COLLABORATOR ALFONSINA BAGNARELLI
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS THE LATIN AMERICA POLICY JOURNAL STAFF WOULD LIKE TO RECOGNIZE THOSE WHO SUPPORTED US IN THIS JOURNEY: DOUGLAS ELMENDORF DEAN AND DON K. PRICE PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AT THE HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL RICHARD PARKER LECTURER IN PUBLIC POLICY AT THE HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL AND SENIOR FELLOW OF THE SHORENSTEIN CENTER MARTHA FOLEY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF STUDENT SERVICES AT THE HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL AMANDA GUTIERREZ DESIGNER TRACY CAMPBELL COPYEDITOR CAMILA DE LA FUENTE ILLUSTRATOR LAPJ TEAM OF EDITORS MPA/ID CLASS OF 2021 & 2022
CONTENTS EDITORIAL NOTE........................................................................................................................ 1 LAPJ Editorial Board COMMENTARY INTERVIEW OF MA. ANTONIETA ALVA, FORMER MINISTER OF ECONOMY AND FINANCE (PERU).............................................................................................................. 2 Mayra Delgado INTERVIEW OF CLAUDIA LOPEZ, MAYOR OF BOGOTA (COLOMBIA)......................................7 Ana Maria Garcia Osorio INTERVIEW OF JUAN DANIEL OVIEDO, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS (COLOMBIA).............................................13 Ana Maria Garcia Osorio ARTICLES EDUCATION CAUGHT COVID-19..............................................................................................18 Eleno Castro BRIDGING LATIN AMERICA’S DIGITAL DIVIDE FOR INCLUSIVE RECOVERY .......................21 Marta Camiñas and Soulange Gramegna HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION OF CHILDREN UNDER FIVE YEARS OLD IN COLOMBIA DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC....................................................................26 Ana Maria Garcia Osorio ALL EGGS IN THE MACROECONOMIC BASKET: A SHORT RECAP OF THE COVID-19 EXPERIENCE IN PERU............................................................................................31 Alex Contreras and Claudia Bravo 2021: A YEAR FOR INNOVATION............................................................................................34 Ángela Flores
THE DANGER OF IGNORING MEXICO’S ENERGY POLICY SHIFT......................................... 37 Valeria Mendiola and Óscar Ocampo ARGENTINA OFFICIALISM: THE TWO POLITICAL TRADE-OFFS...........................................40 Marco Primo SEARCHING FOR RIO DE JANEIRO’S MESSAGE OF AMBITION...........................................43 Beatriz Vasconcellos, Ruth Huette, and Manuel de Faria HEALING THE WOUNDS OF XENOPHOBIA AFTER THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: INTEGRATION INITIATIVES LED BY FORCED MIGRANTS FROM NICARAGUA IN COSTA RICA .......................................................................................................................48 Fiore Bran Aragón DEFEATING COLOMBIA’S CASH-DEPENDENCY...................................................................54 Cesar Pabón RESEARCH PERU: SHOULD THE COUNTRY AIM TO GO BACK TO NORMAL?..........................................56 Paola del Carpio Ponce IN THE SHADOWS: EXPLORING THE CAUSAL FACTOR OF INFORMALITY IN COSTA RICA..............................................................................................................................61 Luis Fernando Corrales ILLUSTRATIONS THE YEAR IN PICTURES.........................................................................................................69 @camdelafu
EDITORIAL NOTE
2020 was a year in which the world took a most unexpected turn. Unfortunately, those
that suffer the most and that take longer to bounce back are always the ones that are more
vulnerable. Latin America got caught in dealing with a pandemic while handling large
fiscal deficits in most countries, low healthcare capacity and having very high rates of
participation in the informal economy. These conditions might be a recipe for disaster.
At the Latin American Policy Journal we set out to understand how the different coun-
tries had handled the emergency and what were the challenges ahead. We received some
insightful articles about xenophobia in the midst of a pandemic in Costa Rica, digital
divide in Latin America, fiscal response in Peru, and how education in general had been
affected in the region, among others. This edition of the Latin American Policy Journal
sought to highlight voices of senior policy makers and deep dive into their handling
of the pandemic, we are proud to highlight interviews with Maria Antonieta Alva, for-
mer Minister of Finance of Peru, Claudia Lopez, current Mayor of Bogota, Colombia and
Juan Daniel Oviedo, Director of Statistics Department of Colombia (DANE). These stories
should fill us with hope of how these policy makers made the best possible usage of
resources available and how they managed to innovate. The road towards recovery is
long and with the current vaccine distribution in Latin America we can see that there are
still major hurdles to overcome.
In this edition we are also very grateful to present interesting research pieces about in-
formality in Costa Rica, political crisis in Argentina, energy shifts in Mexico, and Rio’s
identity crisis. We are very thankful for everyone who believed in our idea for this edition
and that contributed to it. More than anything, we are grateful to our team with whom,
even though we did not share one single in-person meeting during the entire academic
term, brought their A-game during the entire year.
It is our hope that this edition serves as a time capsule in the future so that we can all
reflect on the obstacles that 2020 brought to the world but particularly to our beloved
Latin America.
Thank you and enjoy this edition.
Mayra Delgado and Ana Maria Garcia Osorio
EDITORIAL NOTE 1INTERVIEW OF MARIA ANTONIETA ALVA
Former Minister of Economy and Finance of Peru
Interview by Mayra Delgado
Co-Editor of the
sessions. In my case, I was summoned
MAIN CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED more than ten times and questioned twice.
The spread of COVID-19 has definitely
What are the main problems that make it difficult presented an important challenge for the
to manage COVID-19? economic policy of Peru and the rest of
The initial conditions in which the pan- the world since the spread of the virus
demic found us matter. On March 15th, continues to generate a series of negative
Peru had less than 100 ICUs for 33 million effects on daily life and economic activ-
inhabitants. We needed time to strengthen ity. The crisis generated by COVID-19 has
the health system, so one of the most demonstrated the importance and urgency
aggressive quarantines was decreed. of working on microeconomic aspects that
In the case of Peru, there are struc- are complementary and not exclusive to
tural factors that conditioned the results the macroeconomic ones, such as high
we have observed. In the beginning of informality, low levels of financial inclu-
the pandemic, Peru ranked 144 out of sion, closing the digitalization gaps, the
149 countries in health capacity, had the deficit in the quality of public services,
lowest number of ICUs and mechanical among others, which have limited the
ventilators in the region, had one of the effectiveness of public policies.
highest rates of informality, high levels of
overcrowding, low financial inclusion that What are the most important effects of the
affected the speed with which we wanted pandemic? Looking forward, in what should Peru
to give liquidity to households, and a high invest to prepare for potential pandemics?
self-medication rate. Unfortunately, there This crisis is unique, if we compare it with
is no country with Peru’s characteristics recent crises that Peru has experienced.
that had a successful experience in contain- The main difference is that its origin and
ing the pandemic. nature is a health, not economic, phenom-
Of course, the strength of the state also enon. For countries without a sufficient
matters. Let's just make a quick assessment health response, the policy instrument was
of how the Peruvian state delivers services to close the economy. It is an abrupt and
in regular contexts. That definitely affected self-imposed closure to save lives. This
responsiveness as well. We applied strat- meant that people and companies could
egies to counteract that such as assigning not generate income. This is relevant to
Delivery Units like Peru Purchases, Recon- understand why the crisis hit us so hard
struction with Changes, and Pan-American despite macroeconomic strength.
Legacy. That said, the crisis due to the global
Another factor that is not talked about expansion of COVID-19 has had significant
but that also had an influence was the negative effects on economic activity and
political instability during a full emer- fiscal accounts. In 2020, Peru's GDP con-
gency. Many ministers who should have tracted 11.1 percent, despite the necessary
been focused on facing the emergency measures implemented to stop the spread
had to participate in endless congressional and safeguard the lives of the population.
2 LATIN AMERICA POLICY JOURNAL SPRING 2021Thus, stopping nonessential activities and Superintendency (SBS), and the Minis-
the compulsory social immobilization neg- try of Economy and Finance (with all the
atively impacted economic activity during improvements they can have).
the first semester of 2020. However, we have not created the
However, activities began to restart in institutions that improve the daily life
May and the implementation of the eco- of Peruvians. And there are two types of
nomic plan against COVID-19 favored the institutions: those that provide direct pub-
rapid recovery of economic activities in lic services like education and health and
the second half of 2020. As a consequence those that protect market competition since
of the economic contraction and the mea- competition guarantees that Peruvians can
sures approved to combat the pandemic access the best quality at the lowest price.
last year, the fiscal deficit increased from Peru needs to be more aggressive in imple-
1.6 percent of GDP in 2019 to 8.9 percent menting these reforms.
of GDP in 2020, bringing the public debt
to 35 percent of GDP. COVID-19 has had VISION OF PERU’S RECOVERY POTENTIAL IN THE
notable negative effects on public finances MIDST OF THE CURRENT COMPLEX POLITICAL
in the world that are reflected in the signif- SITUATION
icant decline of financial indicators such as
country risk and credit ratings. However, What areas could be stimulated to promote
Peru stands out for continuing to maintain economic growth?
these indicators at favorable and stable In the short term, it is essential to mitigate
levels since before the pandemic, which the adverse effects of the expansion of the
shows the confidence of financial markets second wave of COVID-19 infections. It
in the country's macro-fiscal strengths. seems right to me that with the experience
Unfortunately, the crisis caused by gained over the past year, the government
COVID-19 has been a setback for the eco- has implemented a geographically and
nomic and social progress achieved in economically targeted quarantine, which
recent years. Therefore, the government would significantly temper the impact of
must work to strengthen some structural the pandemic. Economic activity has been
factors that are essential to face future pan- restricted, but not to the levels of previ-
demics. These factors are (1) the consolida- ous episodes. The productive apparatus is
tion of fiscal accounts and strengthening of almost intact.
public finances, (2) informality as a complex In addition, within the framework of the
structural and multidimensional problem, current targeted quarantine, the govern-
(3) the low level of financial inclusion even ment will continue to implement support
with respect to Latin American standards, programs for vulnerable sectors of the pop-
(4) inefficiencies in public spending, (5) a ulation, and economic support measures
fragmented and inefficient health service, have been provided for businesses and
(6) a pension system with low coverage families.
and sustainability problems, and (7) gaps Undoubtedly, the implementation of the
in the digitization of public services and vaccination process will be key in improv-
databases, and 8) gaps in internet services. ing expectations and the optimism of the
The reforms of the 90s showed us two population and, above all, accelerating the
things: (1) that we can agree as a society economic recovery since it will reduce the
on some principles (that are respected probability of implementing restrictive
regardless of who is in power) such as measures again. Unfortunately, due to the
macro stability and sustainability of pub- recent political scandals, we have started
lic finances and (2) that we can build insti- on the wrong foot. We have to quickly
tutions that support those bets, like the regain the confidence of the population in
Central Bank, the Banking and Insurance this process.
COMMENTARY 3In the medium and long terms, it is toward sustainable levels. In fact, between
essential to focus all efforts on measures 2016 and 2019, there was compliance with
aimed at improving the efficiency and all the current macro-fiscal rules, even
competitiveness of the economy. Peru when facing El Niño phenomenon and
should continue in the path outlined in the subsequent need for reconstruction
the National Competitiveness and Produc- after disasters during that period. In recent
tivity Policy. As with everything, it can be years, the government worked on increas-
improved, but it presents an articulated ing permanent tax revenues by fighting tax
and consensual synthesis of a prioritized evasion and avoidance, increasing spend-
set of policy measures that aim to advance ing efficiency, among others.
the country’s vision established in the nine It should be noted that for 2020, in the
priority objectives. 2021–2024 Multiannual Macroeconomic
An interesting experience that Peru has Framework, the fiscal deficit is expected to
implemented are the executive tables that be at 10.7 percent of GDP and public debt at
collect important aspects of what Harvard 35.5 percent of GDP. The final result of the
professors like Dani Rodrik and Ricardo execution shows that these fiscal objectives
Haussmann teach about productive diver- were clearly met, despite being in a fairly
sification and coordination failures. They complex context. The fiscal deficit closed at
are spaces where the private and pub- 8.9 percent of GDP, while the public debt
lic sectors interact, identifying binding closed at 35 percent of GDP.
constraints and developing action plans The fiscal consolidation process began in
for strategic sectors, such as agriculture 2021. Thus, in the 2021–2024 Multiannual
exports in recent years, that could consti- Macroeconomic Framework of August
tute new growth engines. 2020, the fiscal deficit was forecasted at
6.2 percent of GDP. However, considering
At the household level, what strategies could be the more favorable than expected result in
proposed to alleviate the household economy and 2020, according to the updated projections
avoid an increase in the number of families with presented in the pre-electoral report pub-
limited resources? lished in January, the deficit would amount
In the current context of the targeted quar- to 4.8 percent of GDP in 2021.
antine to contain the expansion of COVID- In addition, we must point out the good
19, the government implemented support outlook from credit rating agencies. In
measures for families by granting 600 soles December 2020, Fitch Ratings maintained
(approximately US$162) bonuses to the the country's long-term foreign currency
most vulnerable households in the quaran- credit rating at BBB+ and changed the out-
tined regions, food support, tax measures, look from stable to negative. Fitch's deci-
among others. Likewise, social policies sion came only a few days after two other
continue to be active, in particular the cash prestigious rating agencies in the world,
support programs for households such as Standard and Poor's (ratifying Peru's rat-
Juntos and Pensión 65, and other social ing with a stable outlook) and Moody's
programs remain active. (in a periodic report), deemed the impact
of the coronavirus as extreme, but tempo-
MAJOR BATTLES AND RISKS FOR 2021 rary, and perceived the future of Peruvian
politics and the return to normalcy with
Will the fiscal position continue to be a strength? optimism.
Is it possible to continue borrowing to finance the
expenses of the pandemic? Is the policy of printing dollars and reducing the
The country has a long history of commit- interest rate of the United States beneficial for the
ment to fiscal responsibility, which makes economic recovery of Peru?
it credible that the deficit will converge To date, the United States Federal Reserve
4 LATIN AMERICA POLICY JOURNAL SPRING 2021(FED) maintains its interest rate close to is sufficient stock in the world. And the
zero [0.00–0.25 percent] and its expansion anti-vaxxers definitely have smarter and
program through purchase programs and more efficient communication strategies
credit advantages. than many governments. The situation is
This US expansive monetary policy, aggravated by the loss of citizens’ confi-
accompanied by other developed coun- dence in the state due to the handling of
tries, has positive economic impacts for the pandemic and by shameful scandals
Peru because it allows for a faster global like what happened in Peru. Privilege
economic recovery for trading partners in the delivery of services to citizens as a
and benefits key markets like raw materi- modus operandi in many Latin American
als. Likewise, it favors emerging countries countries is also being seen in vaccina-
like Peru through (1) a greater flow of cap- tion, which affects legitimacy or increases
ital into economies with solid macroeco- citizen’s indignation for the entire
nomic foundations like ours or preventing process.
a greater outflow of capital from them, (2) Vaccination campaigns are an import-
contributing to the reduction of external ant factor for the economic recovery of the
financing costs for domestic agents, and (3) region because they will make social-dis-
reducing depreciation pressures. tancing measures more flexible and start
However, this context is temporary, the process of reopening the most affected
and in the future, it may involve price and sectors like tourism, commerce, restau-
financial stability risks, especially in econo- rants, among others. However, the start
mies with significant internal and external of vaccination in the region has been slow
macroeconomic imbalances (high public and heterogeneous, compared to other
debt and fiscal deficit, high current account economic blocs. On the one hand, in Chile
deficit, among others). more than 2.9 million doses of vaccines
have already been distributed (to around
VISION ON LATIN AMERICAN AND THE 16 percent of its population) and its objec-
CARIBBEAN tive is to immunize 80 percent of its pop-
ulation by the end of the first semester of
An important factor for economic recovery is 2021. On the other hand, Caribbean coun-
vaccinating the population. How will differences tries such as Honduras and Nicaragua
in vaccination rates across countries impact their have not received any doses, while Cuba
economies? has decided to develop its own vaccine.
I think the current development challenge Under this scenario, the Latin America
is the vaccination process against COVID- and Caribbean region is expected to go from
19. It is estimated that the world has to contracting 7.4 percent in 2020 to growing
vaccinate ten times the share of popula- 4.1 percent in 2021 unevenly across coun-
tion it vaccinates every year and in record tries due to improvements in the terms of
time compared to the time the world has trade, the greater growth of trade partners,
taken to implement other vaccines. It’s an and the positive statistical effect. However,
unprecedented effort in scale and time. the slow vaccination rates and logistical
Governments face technical, logistical, problems in distribution could delay the
and political challenges. Now, we are con- economic recovery of the region. Actually,
cerned about the supply of vaccines, but according to The Economist, most countries
there is a huge concern of what will hap- will achieve widespread vaccination cov-
pen to the demand for vaccines when there erage in 2022, and some in 2023.
COMMENTARY 5Author Biography
María Antonieta Alva Luperdi is a Peru-
vian economist and public administrator
who served as Minister of Economy and
Finance from October 2019 to November
2020. Alva previously served at various
departments in the Peruvian govern-
ment, mainly the Ministry of Economy
and Finance and the Ministry of Educa-
tion. In 2017, she was appointed General
Director of Public Budget at the Ministry
of Economy and Finance. Between 2014
and 2017, she was the Chief of Strategic
Planning and Budget at the Ministry of
Education. Previously, she worked at the
General Directorate of Public Investment
and the General Directorate of Public
Budget at the Ministry of Economy and
Finance.
María Antonieta Alva holds a master’s
in public administration in international
development (MPA/ID) from the John F.
Kennedy School of Government at Har-
vard University (USA) and a bachelor’s
in economics from Universidad del Pacíf-
ico (Peru).
6 LATIN AMERICA POLICY JOURNAL SPRING 2021INTERVIEW OF CLAUDIA LÓPEZ
Mayor of Bogotá
Interview by Ana Maria Garcia
Co-editor of the
Madam Mayor Claudia López, we are very grateful citizens, which is to use civic culture as a
for your participation in the pedagogical conviction for collective care.
of the John F. Kennedy School of Govern- Third, I think it was very useful to create
ment at Harvard University. a public and open data system for the man-
agement of the pandemic. Bogotá is the
What do you think has been the greatest success only city in Colombia and, as I understand
in managing the pandemic and economic recov- it, one of the few in the Americas that has
ery in the District? had a public and open data system since
I would highlight several things. First, I am April, since the beginning of the pandemic.
a woman who comes from academia, so I As Mayor I said, if we are going to make
think that Bogotá’s greatest success was life and death decisions for citizens, then
listening to science from day one. As soon citizens need to know the information that
as we learned about the pandemic, we got we are basing our decisions on. Scientists
started. As soon as we had the first case in can download our data and run their own
Bogotá, we formed a team of health pro- models, verify our information, dispute it
fessionals, epidemiologists, and scientists if necessary, and build a public and open
who helped us understand the pandemic; data system.
we knew practically nothing about it; we The fourth success has been to build a
did not know the risks. The team helped social and economic protection network
us model how the pandemic could develop along with a health protection network. I
in Bogotá, which informed our decisions to would say that these are the four greatest
face the pandemic. I believe that the first successes Bogotá has had in handling the
success was listening to science and mak- pandemic throughout this year.
ing decisions based on data from day one.
Second, it was always applying the We have talked about the successes, but what
principle of prevention and precaution, would you have done differently? How would you
always, precisely because the virus knows have done it, and why didn’t you do it?
much more about us than we do about it. Today I see that we have missed sev-
So in the face of enormous uncertainty, we eral things. Colombia has a mixed health
always applied the principle of preven- regime—health is not 100 percent public,
tion and precaution, being cautious, not nor is it 100 percent private. The health
taking unnecessary risks, and on the con- authorities have jurisdiction, meaning we
trary—and I think that was the third suc- do inspection and surveillance, but we do
cess—leading with the information we had not have the capacity to control private
available. We led difficult decision making health agencies. The national government,
in the country. Bogotá was the first one to the national health superintendency, is the
propose a general quarantine in Colombia. one that can sanction private agents, not
We did a four-day quarantine drill during the municipalities. I believe that one thing
March 16 to 20—Bogotá’s first confirmed we lacked from the beginning and that we
case was on March 6. We began to do are going to ask for now is the delegation
something that is in the DNA of Bogotá’s of power from the national government to
COMMENTARY 7control private agents and health provid- March—although it’s February 2, and the ers in our region. There is a debate which first vaccine has not arrived in Colombia, I won’t get into about whether or not the which is a bit dire; we are late. The pres- health system should be completely pub- ident announced that vaccinations will lic or private. As Mayor, I have to oper- be through IPSs and EPSs, and I am a lit- ate within the existing public health care tle concerned about that. One of the first system. I don’t think that health care in things that worked for Bogotá is coordi- Colombia fails because of the mixed sys- nation between the public and private sec- tem, because during the pandemic I have tors. We called the private sector from day worked closely with the public and private one and told them to accept centralized systems. Bogotá has led four alliances with coordination with us (the mayor’s office) Bogotá’s health services, and we had good as health authority, and we aggregated collaboration and coordination. But I am public and private resources to improve missing one piece of the puzzle: the local coordination among agents—it was a col- government needs control when EPSs (pri- lective action problem. vate health-promoting entities) and IPSs We proposed four things to EPSs that we (private service-providing institutions) are have been doing well: not complying with the protocol. Today, 1. First is home care. A little more than the mayor’s office can inspect these com- 9–10 patients or 9.5 out of 10 positive panies and report noncompliance, but we patients we identify receive care at home; cannot sanction it, so we are left without we do not take them to a hospital. The leverage. Why does this weigh so heav- first thing was to set up home care teams, ily on me? Because in this mixed system, regardless of what EPS people belonged to. almost 70–80 percent of the patients who We pooled teams and distributed coverage are affiliated with the health system are to provide home care for all the positive affiliated with EPSs. EPSs have to take the cases regardless of which health system COVID-19 tests, for example, and the effi- they belonged to. That was the first agree- ciency of EPSs is very heterogeneous. Some ment. are very efficient and deliver results in 48 2. The second agreement was for track- hours or less, but some of them take more ing, but as I have mentioned, 90 percent of than a week to deliver results, which is the tracking is done by EPSs, and it does deadly in pandemic management. not work well—that has been difficult. EPSs have to track cases, which is critical 3. The third was for chronic care. People to develop timely epidemiological barriers with diabetes, uncontrolled hypertension, to prevent the pandemic from spreading. did not have their medicines on time. We There are some that do it, but others do not made a third agreement to do preventive track their patients, and some don’t even care for chronic patients so that their treat- contact their positive cases, much less fol- ment was controlled, they had access to an low up. In a pandemic, this is dire because oximeter, and they had their medications having 99 percent of the tracking work is and glucose tests on time. People with not enough if the 1 percent that is left out uncontrolled comorbidities have a high can enlarge the pandemic. So now I regret risk of mortality if they get infected with not having the faculty to control and sanc- COVID-19. tion EPSs and IPSs, and not having asked 4. The fourth was for the centralized reg- for this faculty. If having that faculty is ulation of ICUs. ICUs are in hospitals; it is needed for testing and tracking, it will be impossible to have an ICU outside of a hos- even more needed during vaccinations, pital. Most hospitals are private, and most especially since the national government people affiliated with the health system announced that the first vaccines would will go to private hospitals. Bogotá had begin to arrive between February and 935 ICUs when the pandemic began; half 8 LATIN AMERICA POLICY JOURNAL SPRING 2021
of those were dedicated to COVID (about capita price there is a preventive health
450). First we made a plan to expand component, such as isolation and track-
that capacity, and today we already have ing, and there is a curative care compo-
2,448—we went from 935 to 2,448, and we nent, such as hospitalization or the ICU. I
allocated more than 2,000 to COVID. The am certain that EPSs, meaning the private
Secretary of Health is the regulatory center regime, are quite good at curing and very
for emergencies and receives requests from precarious at prevention. It does not have
hospitals about patients who require an the economic or operational incentives to
ICU and assigns patients to an ICU regard- be good at prevention and healing at the
less of the hospital or system it belongs same time, and since healing is more profit-
to. So there is a centralized coordination, able, there is more government investment
which is a very critical and very scarce in resources for healing than prevention.
resource. However, one of the main elements of pan-
We believe that we will need the same demic management is prevention, which
centralized regulation to carry out mass includes case tracking and isolation, and
vaccinations, vaccination without barriers, that is exactly what EPSs do not know how
regardless of which EPS a person belongs to do well. We would like a centralized
to. But the difficulty is that the national control of resources. If I was asked what
government is doing a very centralized I would change in the Colombian health
management. The National Vaccination care system, I would not be for complete
Plan is super centralized, and that can be nationalization. That would be a mistake
a difficulty. Since the tracking and isolation because there have been important gains
of patients is managed by EPSs and it did under the existing mixed health care sys-
not work, and since we (the mayor’s office) tem. Colombia did not have a health system
cannot control and sanction them, I have 30 years ago, but no one remembers that
no way to improve that, and that is what anymore. Back then doctors only served a
my handling of the pandemic depends on. very small portion of the population, and
That is what we lacked in the past, and if today we have more than 92 percent of the
we do not get that now for vaccinations, population affiliated and insured, so that is
we run the risk that vaccinations will be a great victory of the mixed regime that we
done as badly as the PRASS (testing, track- cannot disregard. I would, however, advise
ing, selective sustainable isolation system), that every actor stick to what they are good
and that would be a disaster. That is one at. We know that the private regime we had
thing I believe we have to achieve now, an for 20 years is not good at prevention, so
additional factor to correct—well, more to they should not be paid for that. Instead,
include than to correct. prevention efforts should be delegated to
us, the regional entities. During the pan-
Interesting, I would think that the centralized ICU demic, the regional agencies should be
and home care management would be more diffi- responsible for the ICU, home care, track-
cult to achieve than having control over tracking ing, and vaccination, and once the pan-
and monitoring of patients. demic is over, the regional agencies should
The issues of coordination and track- have centralized coordination and other
ing have been difficult because all the types of critical resources.
data and money are very decentralized. I Bogotá is paying a high price; Colombia
do not want to get into the discussion of is as well. Bogotá, despite being the capital
whether the health regime should be pub- of Colombia and producing almost a third
lic or mixed—I have to work with what is of its GDP, has fewer hospital beds per cap-
there. What is the problem? In Colombia, ita than Medellín. We have a hospital sys-
the mixed regime means that affiliates pay tem, public and private, that does not have
a price per patient attended. In that per the ideal number of beds, hospital beds or
COMMENTARY 9ICU beds. We made a mega-monumental The last question is, what voices do you listen to effort in seven months, to go from 935 to in your decision making regarding the apparent 2,448 ICU beds. Still, that is insufficient, tradeoff between economic reactivation and so that is the price Bogotá is paying. How public health? Who do you listen to? are we going to catch up? In this four-year First, the tradeoff is not apparent. I wish period, one of the goals in our develop- it were apparent, but it is quite real, and ment plan is to strengthen the public health unfortunately, it is global. Because of the and hospital system. To summarize, we are pandemic, everyone had brutal economic going to build six new public hospitals. and employment crises because the sac- Without counting the private hospital net- rifice for saving lives is to stop interac- work’s expansion, we’ll have a new wing tions since this disease is transmitted by in Kennedy, a new wing in Meissen, a new breathing, and we cannot stop people hospital in Usme, the new San Juan de Dios from breathing. Although we can't stop in the city center, the new hospital in Bosa, breathing, we can lower interactions, but and an expansion of the hospital in Enga- that has a mental health cost and a brutal tivá. That is the expensive price Bogotá is economic and labor cost. So what do I do? paying, and we have to catch up in this I understand businessmen and their con- four-year period. cerns, so I listen and meet with them, but The expensive price Colombia is pay- I also meet with doctors, epidemiologists, ing, apart from its regional and economic and hospital managers in public and pri- inequality, is that Colombia produced vac- vate networks. I meet with everyone. My cines until 2001, but then stopped investing job and my duty are to listen to all voices in science, knowledge for laboratories, and and understand their legitimate concerns; vaccine production. We are now paying for I have to mediate that. I also have to face that bad karma! So, I think that Colombia the not so apparent conflicts between the should go back to being a vaccine producer, formal and informal sectors of employ- even if it takes ten years to consolidate. We ment. We mostly restrict the formal sector, should make agreements not only to pur- which provides Bogotá with 90 percent of chase vaccines but also with some pharma- the resources needed for pandemic man- ceutical companies that produce a vaccine agement. On the other hand, 60 percent of type that we could replicate. We should people's work and jobs are in the informal give ourselves the task of transferring sector, so there is a struggle. There are busi- knowledge and technology. AstraZeneca, nessmen who say, no, do not shut us down, for example. It is not that the AstraZen- do not restrict entrance to shopping malls eca vaccine is better—the one from Pfizer but rather control informal workers who is also very good—but the method it uses continue working and disregarding every has a better chance of allowing for technol- safety protocol, while the informal work- ogy and knowledge transfer and scientific ers say that they’re the humble ones who investment from Colombia so that it can need to work and that is the only option be replicated in Colombia. In fact, Astra- they have so let others make a sacrifice. So Zeneca reached a production agreement it is not only having to listen to everyone with Argentina and Mexico, and with the but also try to not encourage conflict. On tools we have in Latin America, that can the contrary, we try to make people under- be done. It is absolutely strategic, and one stand that their interests are legitimate of Bogotá’s goals is not only to support the and that we all have to make some level national government in vaccine procure- of sacrifice for the collective good, every- ment but also engage in knowledge and one without exception. This pandemic technology transfer mechanisms to rebuild does not discriminate—it kills the richest vaccine production capacity in Colombia, and kills the poorest. I clarify—it kills the particularly in Bogotá. poorest more because they are poor and 10 LATIN AMERICA POLICY JOURNAL SPRING 2021
they have worse health conditions, making to build trust, and you have to engage an
them much more vulnerable to the virus. I enormous level of pedagogy and convic-
listen to everyone, but I have to make deci- tion. Bogotá is a city of 8 million inhabi-
sions from a distance, decide at all times tants, it is one of the densest cities in the
the level of care and contribution for each world, and unfortunately, it is also a super
so that we can get through the different unequal city. Only with citizen collabora-
stages of the pandemic. That's my job: I lis- tion, in a few weeks Bogotá managed to
ten to epidemiologists and scientists, but I get 95 percent of its citizens to adopt the
also have constant and permanent forums mandatory use of masks, through convic-
with businessmen, I have constant meet- tion alone. Bogotá has 17,000 police offi-
ings with the informal sector that I have cers, and only 4,500 per shift, so there’s
to try coordinating with, and above all, I no way this could have been imposed.
have enormous pedagogical work with the Everything has been done through public
whole city. There are countries that have conviction and with an enormous ped-
controlled the pandemic better, but they agogical effort from our part. I have to
are authoritarian countries that control listen to the public and all the actors, with-
information and manipulate the data of out encouraging conflict and, on the con-
their citizens. That is not the price we are trary, building trust because providing
going to pay for handling the pandemic. In care during the pandemic, with science,
a democracy, the only thing that saves us is vaccines, cures, fundamentally depends
collective action for care—nothing else can on. . . . Collective action for care is what
save us. In order to have collective action, saves lives, even more than the vaccine.
you have to build trust, not fear; you have Even to vaccinate—without collective
to be transparent with information, which action for care, there are no vaccinations.
is why it is so important to have an open That is my job.
public health system with public data
and transparent information. You have Thank you very much, madam Mayor.
COMMENTARY 11Author Biography She was a senator for the Alianza Verde
Claudia López is the Mayor of Bogotá. She Party during 2014–2018. From there, she
was elected with more than 1,108,000 votes, promoted important laws such as the Pro-
thus achieving the largest vote in the history bici Law, the premium for domestic workers,
of the city, for the coalition made up of the a guarantee of resources for the state policy
Alianza Verde, Polo Democrático, and the of early childhood "From Zero to Always,"
Activista movement parties. and an education degree without a military
passport. In addition, she managed to be rec-
She studied government and finance, pub- ognized as the best senator throughout these
lic administration, and political science at years.
the Externado de Colombia University. In
addition, she has a master's degree in pub- She was the leader of the Anticorruption Con-
lic administration and urban policy from sultation, the most voted citizen initiative
Columbia University and a PhD in political in the history of Colombia with 11,671,420
science from Northwestern University in the votes throughout the country.
United States. In 2017, she was a candidate of the Alianza
At a very young age, she joined the stu- Verde party for the presidential elections, and
dent movement for the seventh ballot that in March 2018, she was linked as vice-presi-
led to the 1991 Constitution. She directed dential candidate of candidate Sergio Fajardo
the Department of Community Action in for the Colombia Coalition.
Bogotá and was mayor of the town of Santa In her career she has also worked as a jour-
Fe, advisor to the Ministry of Housing, and nalist, researcher, and political analyst.
consultant to the UNDP.
12 LATIN AMERICA POLICY JOURNAL SPRING 2021INTERVIEW OF JUAN DANIEL OVIEDO
Director of the National Administrative Department of Statistics of Colombia (DANE)
Interview by Ana Maria Garcia Osorio
Co-editor of the
What do you think has been the national National Identification File as well as the
government’s greatest success in handling the household surveys have been a game
pandemic and the country’s economic recovery? changer for developing an adequate pan-
I believe that the most successful decision demic response. With this information,
the national government has made so far DANE alongside with the National Plan-
regarding the management of the pan- ning Department (DNP) built a set of tools
demic is the extensive use of the available that enabled the very fast design of a tar-
information from different sources, such geting strategy for nationwide policies
as administrative records and the National like the Solidarity Income and VAT refund
Population and Housing Census, as well programs and helped to streamline strate-
as enhancing the use of different tools that gic information for decision makers at the
allowed to prioritize the vulnerable pop- municipal and state (department) level.
ulation for the different public policies Additionally, DANE in partnership with
aimed at mitigating the impact of the pan- DNP and IETS designed the per block vul-
demic (such as monetary transfers). nerability index, which was then launched
The COVID-19 response is anchored as a geovisor that contained the popula-
on a set of policies which were based on tion’s comorbidities, age distribution and
statistical information. In various cases, it the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)
has been possible to identify how infor- per block (see a screenshot of this geovisor
mation from the DANE’s Population and in Image 1). This geovisor enabled local
Housing Census, the Social Security reg- programs like Bogota Solidaria or Medellin
ister (PILA, for its acronym in Spanish) Me Cuida to target their grocery deliver-
record, the System for Identification and ies and public health I think that the pan-
Classification of Potential Beneficiaries demic was a very important opportunity to
(SISBEN, for its acronym in Spanish), the highlight the catalytic power of using the
Image 1: Geovisor of Bogota including MPI
COMMENTARY 13adequate data to target social policy and In 2020, the unemployed in the 13 main
create modern and impactful social policy. cities account for 56,2 percent of the total
unemployed nationwide, and the 47,7 per-
What would you have done differently? What data cent of the employed population. That is,
were missing? there was a stronger effect on the 13 main
An updated Economic census is one ele- cities, even stronger than the global effect.
ment that would have been great to have In terms of the volume of the employed
before the pandemic as to have accurate, population, the pandemic put us at a very
comprehensive and timely statistics to similar level to 10 years ago.
inform policy makers and generate busi- We believe that this individualized use
ness resilience. Why? Because the regu- of information on the labor market and
lar census is a statistical operation, not (and the information on poverty that will
an administrative or fiscal operation. An be soon released) is essential to design
economic census has the benefit of being recovery strategies that are relevant for
inclusive in a country like ours where, in each city, and it is very important to use
the 23 main cities, almost half of the econ- the information we have on informality for
omy is informal. Part of the difficulty we each city.
face as a national government is how we
knock on the doors of the informal sector How do you think the demographics of the
without knowing where they are. We know country will be affected post-pandemic? For
that they exist in large aggregates, and example, in the United States, there is migration.
we know that they are part of the hidden Highly skilled workers are emigrating from the big
economy. One of the elements we needed cities of New York and Boston. Are we seeing this
the most was to have that information phenomenon in Colombia, and do we have that
from the economic census to know how to information?
ensure economic sustainability of the for- In order to answer this question, it is
mal and informal sectors. This year, we are important also to recognize the existing
beginning to collect the information in the urbanization trends under which there
pre-census phase. is a rapid growth of conurbations on the
country. Some examples are Soacha near
What is the main use of the DANE data for the Bogota, and Soledad in the surroundings
economic recovery? of Barranquilla. I mention this as out of the
We have a very clear position regarding 55,271 COVID-19-related deaths that we
the use of our information for the coun- have registered in Colombia, 64.1 percent
try’s economic recovery. Throughout 2020 occurred in capital cities, in addition to
we continuously estimated labor market Soacha.
indicators for each of the country’s 23 main There was a study published by The
cities, and that was fundamental for us. We Lancet that established that the greater
did this by learning very quickly how to contagion factor or the higher mortality
apply phone surveys. These labor market rate is due to the metropolitan nature of
indicators are key, particularly in urban urban infections, not due to higher popu-
areas where we managed to use disaggre- lation density…If this premise is correct,
gated information with reference criteria then migrating to the conurbation is not
and differential affectation. With this infor- necessarily the most profitable decision
mation, we can know the exact effects of and does not make sense considering the
the pandemic on the labor market. socioeconomic conditions of that process in
What happened to the country's labor Colombia.
market in 2020? Out of the 2,4 million The Barranquilla conurbation leans
people who lost their jobs throughout the toward Soledad, and a high-income per-
country 1,1 million became unemployed. son is not going to live in Soledad. The
14 LATIN AMERICA POLICY JOURNAL SPRING 2021Medellín conurbation leans toward Bello. epidemiologists, stress is really getting to
In Medellín, for example, there is a possi- people, and people have not been going
bility for this type of phenomenon to exist to their check-ups due to the pandemic,
because there are much more balanced so there will be consequences. This is key
urban conditions between the munici- information for public health decision
palities of the conurbation. In Colombia, making during the COVID-19 pandemic.
migration from big cities usually happens
because low-income people cannot afford How will the post-pandemic job market be
to live on the city anymore; that is still the affected? What changes are you expecting?
case. Therefore, we probably will not see I believe that this is one of the most import-
the deconcentrating of cities due to high-in- ant problems because of the impact of the
come migration like you see in England or COVID-19 pandemic on urban dynamics
in the United States. was so strong that it made visible elements
For us, the most important focus is that were historically present but that need
the imbalance that the excess mortal- new solutions. That is the case with gen-
ity from COVID-19 is generating on the der gaps in the labor market and failures in
ratio between yearly births and deaths. terms of educational relevance to the needs
In Colombia, in 2018, there were 649,115 of the labor market.
live births and 236,851 deaths, with a ratio The informally employed population
of about 2.7:1. The pandemic drastically only grew one point, so people might
affected that ratio. The indicator tells you wonder what is the problem of informal-
that at least 2.7 people were being born for ity in the context of the pandemic? Well,
every person, but the pandemic caused logically that one point increase in a con-
that indicator to drop to 2.1, meaning traction means that the blow was much
that for each death, now there are only stronger on the formally employed popu-
2.1 births. That imbalance will be seen in lation. That means that in the 13 main cities
approximately 30–40 years when we enter we saw a decrease of 1.561.000 employed
the demographic bonus period. People people between May-December 2019 and
were afraid of a baby boom during the pan- the same period of 2020, of which almost
demic, but that just has not been the case. two-thirds are formal, and one-third are
Another important aspect to consider informal. This shows that the pandemic
is how the causes of death have changed took people out of the labor market, mostly
during the pandemic. For example, we from the formal sector, and that they have
expect a considerable increase in deaths entered informal activities.
from heart-related ailments. We expect Women fared worse in informality,
this to be the second-most common cause while men fared worse in formality. That
of death in men over 60. According to means women face double vulnerability
Table 1: Variation of formal and informal population from December 2019 to December 2020
COMMENTARY 15because they are leaving the formal sector will be important. One positive aspect is
workforce and they have not been able to that the pandemic allowed people to trust
become integrated into the informal econ- official statistics, not necessarily me, but
omy. Men, on the other hand, have been to trust an institution that has been doing
able to use informality for individual eco- this work for 67 years. We have, of course,
nomic recovery. This will have dire conse- made mistakes, but we have corrected and
quences on poverty, because more women revised them and made updates.
have left the workforce and female heads People value information and statistics
of household will face challenges to reinte- a little more, and people are a little sur-
grate into the economy. As it is, on average, prised that they can go to the vulnerabil-
a household is almost 2 percentage points ity visualization tool in the DANE website
more likely to be poor if the head of house- and access exact georeferenced data. For
hold is a woman (See Table 1). example, we know the age distribution
and multidimensional poverty index per
How do you think the general interest in statistics block in the major cities. This has been key
in Colombia is going to affect everything that has to identify the vulnerable populations in
happened with the use of data? the pandemic. On the other hand, it is truly
I believe that the only way to get past the empowering for people to feel identified
crisis or to turn the aftermath of the crisis and seen. I think that technology has also
into recovery or survival criteria is to know, allowed these visualizations to bring peo-
through information, what was affected. ple closer together and make people iden-
So, I do believe that embracing statistics tify with what is happening.
16 LATIN AMERICA POLICY JOURNAL SPRING 2021Author Biography this dissertation are published in indexed
Juan Daniel Oviedo Arango holds a PhD in international journals, as well as working
economics from the University of Toulouse 1, documents of the renowned Institute of
and he is an economist from the Universidad Industrial Economics (IDEI) of Toulouse.
del Rosario in Bogotá. Since 7 August 2018, Juan Daniel has international professional
he was appointed by the President of the experience in economic consulting for
Republic as director of the National Admin- energy markets and national experience in
istrative Department of Statistics (DANE). government and teaching. More particu-
His doctoral dissertation entitled "Essays larly, he served as director of institutional
on the regulation of regional natural gas planning and research (2016–2018) and
markets" under the direction of Farid Gasmi director of the doctoral school of economics
studies the impact of transportation capacity (2013–2016) at the Universidad del Rosario
on the structure of the natural gas industry in Bogotá. Additionally, he was a founding
and the exercise of market power, through the partner and executive director of LEICO
use of theoretical regulatory models accom- Consultores, a consulting firm that became
panied by numerical simulations. This work an expert opinion for the public and private
has been of great relevance for the natural gas sectors in regulated markets in Colombia and
industry in Europe, since certain sections of Latin America. Juan Daniel has preserved
this dissertation constitute a research proj- his academic position as a career professor at
ect for the French state gas company, Gaz the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá since
de France (GdF) initially conceived by Jean- 2005.
Jacques Laffont. The articles that originate
COMMENTARY 17EDUCATION CAUGHT COVID-19
Eleno Castro
Before the pandemic, education in Latin studies show that this new emergency
America and the Caribbean (LAC) was model has not improved learning. In the
highly unequal. Although the prima- Netherlands, it was found that eight weeks
ry-school attendance rate has improved of confinement resulted in a decrease
considerably, large attendance gaps remain of approximately 3 percentile points in
in secondary school. In many cases, schools expected learning, and the losses were
continue to exclude the poorest children. larger among students from less-educated
Now, the pandemic threatens to intensify homes.3 In Belgium, the results are simi-
the educational challenges of LAC. lar; standardized tests show that 2020 stu-
In 2018, approximately four out of ten dents perform worse when compared to
people did not finish school, and this was previous cohorts, especially in Dutch. In
especially worse for countries like Hon- addition, the inequality of quality between
duras and El Salvador where the number schools increased between 17 and 20 per-
increased to seven and six, respectively. cent for math and Dutch.4
Socioeconomic status also determines the In Latin America, studies on learning
chances of graduating from the educa- loss have been more limited. However, it
tional system; in the poorest quintile, six is difficult to imagine that results could be
out of ten young people do not graduate, better, considering European countries out-
compared to only two in the wealthiest perform LAC in PISA and also have better
quintile. After leaving school, many of educational infrastructure than many LAC
these young people do not find job oppor- countries.
tunities and join a group of young people
who do not study or work in the region. Many Students Will Not Return to School
Approximately 16 percent of young peo- A recent study by the Inter-American
ple between ages 15 and 24 do not work Development Bank (IADB) predicts that, in
or study.1 LAC, approximately 1.2 million boys and
The education system was also of low girls between 6 and 17 years old will drop
quality. According to the Programme for out of school mainly for two reasons: (1)
International Student Assessment (PISA), the inability to adapt to the new learning
in mathematics Latin America obtained conditions at home and (2) the economic
an average of 100 points less than OECD crisis, which will force many families to
countries. The difference in scores is equiv- take their children out of school.5
alent to an educational gap of 2.5 school This number hides great social inequal-
years.2 ities since, out of all students who will be
excluded from the school system, 38 percent
THE EFFECTS OF COVID ON EDUCATION and 44 percent will be poor and from the
lower-middle class, respectively. In terms of
Remote Models Have Not Been Effective for age group, young people between 15 and 17
Children’s Learning years old will be the most affected by the cri-
COVID-19 forced countries around the world sis. In this group, the school non-attendance
to provide remote education; however, some rate will increase to levels similar to those
18 LATIN AMERICA POLICY JOURNAL SPRING 2021You can also read
