Chile

report 2014

Avance hacia los ODM y demanda social insatisfecha

Chile sigue siendo el país latinoamericano con el mejor comportamiento en términos de logro de las Metas de los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio (ODM), de acuerdo con la Red Gubernamental Milenio[1], que proporcionó los insumos que sirvieron de base al tercer informe nacional ODM Chile. Este informe, publicado en diciembre de 2010, comprende principalmente cifras recogidas en 2008 y 2009, por lo que no incluye los potenciales efectos adversos del terremoto del 27 de febrero de 2010 sobre los indicadores reportados. No obstante este nivel de logro, que el propio informe estima en alrededor de un tercio del nivel establecido como meta para el año 2015, el profundo malestar social manifestado masivamente en las calles por la sociedad chilena en los últimos dos años en relación con el estado de la educación y la salud públicas; la depredación ambiental por parte de las grandes corporaciones y, sobre todo, la evidente profundización de la brecha de la desigualdad, plantean interrogantes respecto a lo que ello significa en la práctica para el país.

BCI & GEI 2011
news
Students in Santiago.
(Photo: Hans Peters/Flickr/CC)

The proposed Budgetary Law 2015 does not contemplate significant changes in the current structure of the public financing of higher education, says an analysis by the Centre of National Studies of Alternative Development, CENDA, and the Institute of Sciences Alejandro Lipschutz, ICAL. These think-tanks worry that resources designated to "subsidize demand" have increased significantly but that doesn't change "the commercialization of education and the role of profit-making in it". Michelle Bachelet was elected president on a platform that included free high level education and therefore the study finds "surprising" that the proposed budget "repeats and aggravates exactly that process of privatization that generated the current situation".

Students in Santiago, Chile
(Photo : Hans Peters/Flickr/CC)

Chile remains the Latin American country with the best performance in terms of achieving the goals of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to the Millennium Government Network. Despite this level of achievement, which the report estimates at about one third of the target set for 2015, the deep social unrest massively expressed in the streets by Chilean society over the past two years regarding the state of public education and health, environmental depredation by large corporations and, above all, the obvious widening of the gap of inequality, raise questions about what this means in practice.

Presentation of the demand before
the OIT. (Photo: Chilean parliament)

Sources: CENDA, Radio Universidad de Chile.

This week Chilean unions and social organizations made a report to the International Labour Organization (ILO) office in Santiago denouncing private sector pension funds for discrimination against women, a practice that had been documented in a study by the Centro de Estudios Nacionales de Desarrollo Alternativo (CENDA, the focal point of Social Watch in Chile).

Chilean legislators meet with CENDA's
experts. (Photo: Congress of Chile)

Sources
Cámara de Diputados de Chile
Cenda 

Men who retire under the new Chilean pension system – exhibited as a model throughout Latin America – obtain now an income 33 per cent higher than women who have saved the same funds, informed researchers Manuel Riesco and Mireya Baltra, of the Centre for National Studies on Alternative Development (CENDA, national focal point of Social Watch) to the Chamber of Deputies of that country.

Sara Larraín. (Photo: Partido Ecologista)

Sources: Enlazando Alternativas, IPS News Agency

The government of president Sebastián Piñera dropped the charges of “disturbances” against Sara Larraín, director of the environmental NGO “Chile Sustentable” after a judge determined that her arrest was illegal.