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来源类型 | Report |
规范类型 | 报告 |
A New Social Contract for the Northern Triangle | |
Daniel F. Runde; Mark L. Schneider | |
发表日期 | 2019-05-08 |
出版年 | 2019 |
语种 | 英语 |
概述 | CSIS’s Daniel Runde and Mark Schneider argue that the Northern Triangle of Central America needs continued U.S. support to establish a new social contract and overcome social$economic$political$and security challenges$including irregular migration. |
摘要 | There is neither a “magic bullet” nor an “out of the box” solution to the problems of the Northern Triangle. Most of the solutions are relatively straightforward but politically hard and involve a mixture of economic, development, political, and security reforms. The problems of the region are, in fact, solvable, but they require sustained attention from the United States, political will in the NCTA countries, including cooperation rather than obstruction from elites in these societies, and ultimately strong and inclusive economic growth to go with strengthened governance. 1) GNP per capita reaches around $8,000, which is slightly over double the current GNP per capita; 2) transnational crime, drug trafficking, and gang violence and activity are significantly reduced; and 3) the social contract is reset and basic needs such as jobs, education, health, infrastructure, and power are reliably delivered. CASE STUDY: MEXICO Figure 1: Immigration from Mexico to the United States vs. GDP growth Source: Pew Research Center and World Bank Development Indicators Challenges and Progress Figure 3: GDP per capita (current US$) Source: World Bank Development Indicators Violence and criminal activity: Violence has lingered from the aftermath of unresolved violence in the 1960s and 1970s and outright civil war in the 1980s and has persisted due to weak governance and corruption.8 El Salvador and Honduras have some of the highest homicide rates in the world for countries not at war (see Figure 2).9 In El Salvador, recent policies have combined comprehensive and targeted violence reduction programs along with more effective policing. This represents a change in tactics after “mano dura”—hardline policies for crime and violence—had produced only limited impact. Consequently, the homicide rate in El Salvador decreased from 105 to 51 per 100,000 people from 2015 to 2018, but criminal activity remains rampant and forced migration high.10 In Guatemala alone, criminal extortion leads to an annual loss of $60 to $400 million, more than 3 percent of GDP.11 Drug trafficking through Honduras and Guatemala has continued to endanger lives there and ultimately in the United States as well. Gender-based violence is another important driver of migration. El Salvador has the highest femicide rate in Latin America, at 10.2 per 100,000 women as of 2017.12 In 2017, 46 percent of Latinobarometro respondents agreed that violence against women is one of the of the most damaging types of violence in the NTCA.13 Figure 2: Intentional Homicides (per 100,000 people) Source: World Bank Development Indicators and InSight Crime Violence is also perpetuated by large and growing gangs that are financed by extortion and links to cartels supplying illicit drug for U.S. consumption and empowered by U.S. extradition policies. The largest gangs in the NTCA, MS-13 and M-18, have 85,000 members combined.14 In a 2017 Latinobarometro survey, 70 percent of respondents from the NTCA said that gang violence was one of the most damaging types of violence—more than any other countries in Latin America.15 Violence is a direct driver of migration. Research from the Inter-American Dialogue finds that a 1 percent increase in homicides corresponds with respective increases in migration of 120 percent, 100 percent, and 188 percent in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.16 Poor Economic Performance: NTCA countries feature low levels of economic growth and inadequate economic policies. The average GDP per capita of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras was $3,613 in 2017, which is considerably lower than the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) average of $9,244 (see Figure 3).17 NTCA countries have not taken full advantage of trade agreements such as the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). Moreover, NTCA countries, together with Haiti and Venezuela, remain some of the poorest in the Western Hemisphere.18 Weak Governance and Social Services: The countries of the NTCA have weak governance structures with high levels of corruption. Corruption in all three countries undermines trust in government, diverting public funds to private pockets. Recently, former presidents, ministers, and elected representatives have been jailed or indicted thanks to high civil society pressure and external support to public prosecutors. There is little or no political consensus, and there is a noticeable lack of state presence in many parts of these countries, especially in terms of judicial institutions. In turn, there is insufficient infrastructure and poor electricity. There are myriad other problems: many populations suffer from health, nutrition, and agricultural challenges; law enforcement and security sectors are inadequate; family systems are disintegrating due to violence and migration; and economies feature high unemployment and informality. All of these factors create an enabling environment for crime and gangs. The elites, rather than trying to alleviate these issues by supporting tax reform to raise revenues to finance public services, find “work arounds” to safety and social problems, protecting themselves and the upper echelons of society with vast private security networks and private hospitals. Demography and Employment: The population of the NTCA region was 32.5 million people in 2017, with half of the population under the age of 25.19 The population is expected to reach 40 million by 2030, with 70 percent living in urban areas.20 It is important to address the challenges of crime, weak governance, and poor economic performance before they become even more pronounced as the population increases and becomes more urban. Providing adequate employment to youth and managing labor informality are interrelated challenges. 73 percent of non-agricultural workers were informally employed in Guatemala in 2017.21 This figure is also high in Honduras and El Salvador, at 71 percent and 64 percent, respectively.22 This has important implications for migration, as economic informality has been shows to drive migration by up to 27 percent in El Salvador, 12 percent in Honduras, and 4 percent in Guatemala.23 The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has the potential to either alleviate or aggravate the employment situation. Currently, the NTCA region is losing ground in productivity and competitiveness due to its slow adoption of 4IR technology and its focus on governance issues rather than innovation and the future of work. The potential of 4IR needs to be taken into consideration in long-term development plans to ensure it can be harnessed to empower the growing population and rising demand for labor. 24 Energy: The percentage of population with access to electricity has increased considerably since the 1990s (see Figure 4) due to a series of power market reforms.25 In May 2016, for example, the Mexico and Central America Interconnection Commission was established to enhance the integration of the electricity market with the help of the United States.26 Domestic resource mobilization and remittances: The United States and other donors have sought to help these countries improve financial management, but there remain important gaps in areas such as tax collection and evasion, fiscal and procurement transparency, public spending effectiveness, and partisan rather than merit-based public sector employment.27 The NTCA collects similar levels of tax revenues as other Central American countries (see Figure 5) but is far from other Latin American countries such as Brazil and Argentina, whose tax revenues average 30 percent of GDP.28 Levels differ within the NTCA as well. El Salvador collects the highest tax revenue of all three NTCA countries (as a percentage of GDP) and is making efforts to increase government funding as well. Additionally, NTCA countries have significant remittance flows (see Figure 6), which fuel the consumption of goods and services.29 In El Salvador, remittances totaled $5.4 billion in 2018—equal to 21 percent of GDP.30 Honduras collected remittances totaling $4.7 billion, almost 20 percent of GDP, and Guatemala saw remittance inflows worth $9.5 billion, or 12 percent of GDP.31 Security: The NTCA countries have some of the highest homicide rates in Latin America and the Caribbean, only surpassed by Venezuela.32 Nevertheless, homicide rates have been decreasing in recent years (see Figure 2). U.S. assistance in support of justice reforms, professionalizing police, and community violence prevention have had a positive and measurable impact on improving security and reducing violence and homicide rates. U.S. Engagement to Date 33 34 35 36 37 38 U.S. Engagement Moving Forward 39 Ultimately, the Northern Triangle needs to achieve enough economic growth to reach approximately $8,000 per capita, and with far less income disparity than is currently present. 40 41 42 Dreaming Big: What Does Success Look Like for the NTCA? Daniel F. Runde is senior vice president, holds the William A. Schreyer Chair in Global Analysis, and directs the Project on Prosperity and Development at the Center Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Mark L. Schneider is a senior adviser with the CSIS Americas Program. This report is made possible by general support to CSIS. No direct sponsorship contributed to this report. This report is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax- exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s). © 2019 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved. Peter J. Meyer, “U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America: An Overview”, Congressional Research Service, January 3, 2019, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IF10371.pdf. “U.S. Foreign Aid by Country: Honduras, Disbursements,” USAID, 2018, https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/HND?fiscal_year=2018&mea- sure=Disbursements; USAID, “U.S. Foreign Aid by Country: Guatemala, Disbursements,” 2018, https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/GTM?fis- cal_year=2018&measure=Disbursements; “U.S. Foreign Aid by Country: El Salvador, Disbursements,” USAID, 2018, https://explorer. usaid.gov/cd/SLV?fiscal_year=2018&measure=Disbursements. "Foreign direct investment: Inward and outward flows and stock, annual,” UNCTADSTAT, 2018, https://unctadstat.unctad.org/wds/. Michael A. Clemens and Hannah M. Postel, “Can Development Assistance Deter Emigration?” Center for Global Development, February 2018, https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/can-development-assistance-deter-emigration.pdf. Jeffrey S. Passel, D’Vera Cohn, and Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, “Net Migrations from Mexico Falls to Zero – and Perhaps Less,” Pew Re- search Center, April 23, 2012, https://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/23/net-migration-from-mexico-falls-to-zero-and-perhaps-less/; World Bank Development Indicators, “GDP per capita (current US$), Mexico,” https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP. CD?locations=MX. Daniel Lederman, William F. Maloney, and Luis Serven, Lessons from NAFTA for Latin America and the Caribbean Countries (Washing- ton, DC: World Bank, 2003), http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/BookNAFTAWorldBank.pdf. Passel, Cohn, and Gonzalez-Barrera, “Net Migrations from Mexico Falls to Zero – and Perhaps Less,” Pew Research Center, April 23, 2012, https://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/23/net-migration-from-mexico-falls-to-zero-and-perhaps-less/. Rocio Cara Labrador and Danielle Renwick, “Central America’s Violent Northern Triangle,” Council on Foreign Relations, June 26, 2018, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/central-americas-violent-northern-triangle. Tristan Clavel, “InSight Crime’s 2017 Homicide Round-Up,” InSight Crime, January 19, 2018, https://www.insightcrime.org/news/ analysis/2017-homicide-round-up/; Chris Dalby and Camilo Carranza, “InSight Crime’s 2018 Homicide Round-Up,” InSight Crime, January 22, 2019, https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/insight-crime-2018-homicide-roundup/; “Intentional homicides (per 100,000 people),” World Bank Development Indicators, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5. “Intentional homicides (per 100,000 people),” World Bank Development Indicators; Dalby and Carranza, “InSight Crime’s 2018 Homicide Round-Up.” “Addressing the drivers of illegal immigration: USAID results in the Northern Triangle”, USAID, 2018, https://www.usaid.gov/ sites/default/files/documents/1862/USAID_NT_Results_FINAL_08.31.2018.pdf. Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean, “Femicide or feminicide,” United Nations, 2017, https://oig. cepal.org/en/indicators/femicide-or-feminicide. “Latinobarometro Analisis de datos,” Latinobarometro, 2017, http://www.latinobarometro.org/latOnline.jsp. Labrador and Renwick, “Central America’s Violent Northern Triangle.” “Latinobarometro Analisis de datos,” Latinobarometro. Manuel Orozco, “Recent Trends in Central American Migration”, Inter-American Dialogue, 2018, https://www.thedialogue.org/ wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Recent-Trends-in-Central-American-Migration-1.pdf. “GDP per capita (current US$),” World Bank Development Indicators, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?loca- tions=ZJ. Daniel Runde, “The United States Has a Lot Riding on the Honduras Election,” Foreign Policy, November 14, 2017, https://foreign- policy.com/2017/11/14/the-united-states-has-a-lot-riding-on-the-honduras-election/. UN DESA Population Division, World Population Prospects 2017 (New York: United Nations, 2017), https://population.un.org/wpp/. Agustin Maria et al., Central America Urbanization Review (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017), https://openknowledge.worldbank. org/bitstream/handle/10986/26271/9781464809859.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y. “Informal employment (% of total non-agricultural employment),” World Bank Development Indicators, https://data.worldbank. org/indicator/SL.ISV.IFRM.ZS?locations=SV-GT-HN. Ibid. Orozco, “Recent Trends in Central American Migration.” “Plan of the Alliance for the Prosperity of the Northern Triangle: Main Progress and Achievements 2017-2018,” Inter-American Development Bank, 2018, http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=EZSHARE-1694733848-5. “Access to electricity (% of population),” World Bank Development Indicators, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS. “U.S Strategy for Central America,” U.S. Department of State, 2018, https://www.state.gov/p/wha/rt/strat/; Inter-American Devel- opment Bank, “IDB salutes Central American nations’ progress towards forming a Regional Electricity Market,” April 18, 2018, https:// www.iadb.org/en/news/idb-salutes-central-american-nations-progress-towards-forming-regional-electricity-market. Mark L. Schneider, South-South Cooperation in Transparency, Anti-Corruption, and Citizen Security (Washington, DC: CSIS, January 2019), https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/190403_Transparency.pdf; U.S. Department of State, “U.S Strategy for Central America.” “Tax revenue (% of GDP),” World Bank Development Indicators, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS; “Latin America and the Caribbean: Tax revenues continue to rise despite low economic growth,” OECD, March 23, 2017, http://www.oecd. org/tax/latin-america-and-the-caribbean-tax-revenues-continue-to-rise-despite-low-economic-growth.htm. “Migration and Remittances Data,” World Bank, 2019, http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/migrationremittancesdiasporaissues/ brief/migration-remittances-data. Ibid. Ibid. Dalby and Carranza, “InSight Crime’s 2018 Homicide Round-Up.” “Alliance for Progress,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Alli- ance-for-Progress.aspx. “U.S Strategy for Central America,” U.S. Department of State. Meyer, “U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America: An Overview.” Ibid. Dara Lind, “Trump’s decision to cut off aid to 3 Central American countries, explained,” Vox, April 1, 2019, https://www.vox. com/2019/4/1/18290443/aid-central-america-mexico-guatemala-immigration-border. Committee on Foreign Affairs, “Engel, McCaul Urge Administration to Reconsider Aid Cuts to Central America,” U.S. House of Representatives, April 23, 2019, https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/2019/4/engel-mccaul-urge-administration-to-reconsid-er-aid-cuts-to-central-america. Christina Perkins and Erin Nealer, Achieving Growth and Security in the Northern Triangle of Central America (Washington, DC: CSIS, December 2016), https://www.csis.org/analysis/achieving-growth-and-security-northern-triangle-central-america. Michael Clemens, “Does Development Reduce Migration?” Center for Global Development, March 18, 2014, https://www.cgdev. org/publication/does-development-reduce-migration-working-paper-359. Maria et al., Central America Urbanization Review. Dave Graham, “Honduras president laments U.S. aid cuts, eyes role of China,” Reuters, September 24, 2018, https://www.reuters. com/article/us-honduras-politics/honduras-president-laments-u-s-aid-cuts-eyes-role-of-china-idUSKCN1M42R6. |
URL | https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-social-contract-northern-triangle |
来源智库 | Center for Strategic and International Studies (United States) |
资源类型 | 智库出版物 |
条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/328089 |
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Daniel F. Runde,Mark L. Schneider. A New Social Contract for the Northern Triangle. 2019. |
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190507_RundeandSchne(690KB) | 智库出版物 | 限制开放 | CC BY-NC-SA | 浏览 |
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