Section Overview: Governance and Management for Social Policy in Latin America

Abstract

This chapter presents the Latin American section and provides an overview of its main findings. It discusses the governance and management for social policy in a region with high levels of inequality, informal employment, low fiscal efforts, and major weaknesses in terms of social risks and state capacity. Besides these similarities, wide variations also exist in social policy regimes across countries in terms of governance, administrative arrangements, levels of decentralization, and mixes of public services and private services. Innovations in social policy over the 21st century have produced a range of mixed systems that are not always consistent, distributionally sound, or sustainable.