Social Panorama of Latin America 2010

In 2010 the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) proposed a comprehensive development strategy entitled Time for equality: closing gaps, opening trails (ECLAC, 2010). From a rights-based perspective, development is treated as an indivisible, rights-based process in which synergies are created between a macroeconomy that pushes back the frontiers of growth as an engine of employment and social inclusion; productive development that drives greater convergence between sectors and labour-market stakeholders to create a more diversified, innovation- and knowledge-intensive production matrix; a territorial matrix that links territories and narrows gaps in both production and well-being; a focus on social rights aimed at employment protection, the promotion of decent work, redistributive public transfers and the expansion of social safety nets; and a fiscal covenant that creates public policy space for promoting productive development with greater social equality by expanding and restructuring the tax burden.