December 14, 2023.- This Thursday took place the official launch of the Social Observatory of the Pacific Alliance (PA), designed and implemented by the Technical Group for Development and Social Inclusion of the PA, with technical support of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
It is a cutting-edge virtual instrument whose objective is to collect, systematize, manage and publish updated information on the social sector that contributes to the design and strengthening of public policies, improving the well-being of member countries, with a view to ensuring that the benefits of integration reach the subregional community, academics, public policy designers, as well as those practices that were applied in the field of Social Development to face the health crisis caused by COVID-19, and which in turn are aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Regional Agenda for Inclusive Social Development (ARDSI).
The Social Observatory was designed considering the following dimensions in its structure: Social Indicators (Education, Employment, Poverty, Income Distribution, Health, Food and Nutritional Security, Social Security, and Housing and Basic Services); Social Institutionality (rules, institutional design, management and financing tools); Social Investment (social spending); Social protection (programs); Actions against Emergencies and Social Innovation (in the field of social policies).
The dimension of “Social Institutionality” raises the recognition of the social structure of each of the countries; their management and financing tools on which they act. On the other hand, it is about identifying how the “Social Spending” of the region is being carried out, comparing the progress and challenges with the regional index for the establishment of proposals or response measures based on more inclusive and efficient public balances.
In the case of “Social Protection”, it is a favorable space that seeks to expose the main programs and initiatives that directly impact the well-being of citizens, reviewing key aspects about their response capacity, target audience, conditionalities, subprograms, among others.
A particular dimension is “Social Innovation”, which seeks to present the initiatives: platforms, actions or laboratories that are being implemented in each of the member countries and how these can be a means to mitigate the challenges in terms of poverty and inequality through innovative solutions to social problems.
It should be noted that the Social Observatory is a regional platform where two important components can be identified: a) its level of “instrumentalization”, to the extent that it allows academics, officials and policy makers to identify multiple data and tools for the design of new and better public policies; and b) its degree of “specialization and sustainability”, being a unique and specialized space that brings together figures and data in countries with common interests, population and geography through dynamic and updated information.
Finally, this instrument will make it possible to influence informed decision-making for the design of better public and social policies in the countries of the Pacific Alliance through the review of indicators and social data, and the strengthening of programs and the reorientation of interventions in the field of Social Protection towards the valorization of social investment to reduce gaps and inequalities.
You can access the Social Observatory at: https://observatorioalianzapacifico.cepal.org/es