By: Staff Writer
June 25, 2024
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in a report that Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) that structural inequalities are causing the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region to not fulfill their potential on the “green transition.”
The “Government at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2024,” report said that while democracies in the region have become more firmly established, trust in government has continued to decline, inequality and informality remain challenges, and governments have limited fiscal space to address pressing problems, Including climate change and other environmental issues. The region needs a more ambitious and comprehensive deployment of public governance tools if it is to achieve a green transition.
The report also said: “LAC countries need better implementation of existing public integrity regulations to prevent undue influence and policy capture.
“Public perceptions of corruption remain high in the LAC region. According to the Gallup World Poll, 75.5% of respondents in 2023 believe that corruption is widespread throughout their government, compared to 53.6% on average among OECD countries.
“To mitigate public integrity risks in the public sector, all six of the LAC countries with available information have established safeguards, such as regulations requiring members of government to submit interest declarations when they take office. However, Chile is the only country in which all government members have submitted their declarations.
It added: “There are also implementation gaps related to lobbying and political finance. Three of the six LAC countries with available information have a legal definition of lobbying, but only Chile has established a supervisory body and has investigated non-compliance with regulations on lobbying activities. All six countries have regulations that ban anonymous donations and require contributions to political parties and candidates to be registered and reported. However, only in Argentina, Mexico and Peru is information about the number of cases related to breaches of political finance regulations published by an independent oversight body.”
Trust in government has also eroded in the LAC. “Trust is an important indicator for measuring how people perceive the quality of government institutions in democratic countries and how they relate to them. While trust it is not in itself a necessary outcome of democratic governance, a certain level of trust is required for governments to successfully carry out public sector reforms. Better evidence on the levels and drivers of trust in LAC is required to disentangle its multidimensionality and enable governments to propose and adjust their actions with the goal of earning their citizens’ trust,” the report noted.