By Laura Lucía Becerra Elejalde, CAMBIOColombia, January 7, 2025
https://cambiocolombia.com/economia/desigualdad-colombia-persistencia-banco-mundial
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
Colombia is one of the most unequal countries in the world. A recent World Bank study concludes that more than one third of its income inequality is determined by elements such as where the person was born, their gender, their parents’ socioeconomic level, and their ethnicity or status as migrants. Is it possible to combat that?
“Imagine two girls born in Colombia on the same day. One is born to highly educated parents in a prosperous city. The other is born to poor parents with limited schooling, and in a municipality that’s far from the capital of the department, which is already a department with a high rate of poverty. The personal journeys of both girls could be very different. There is a high probability that the conditions into which each girl was born will impact their opportunities to obtain a quality education, get a good job, and go on to live a life without poverty.”
The World Bank’s most recent report on poverty and inequality in Colombia begins with that paragraph. Colombia is the third most unequal country on the planet according to that agency; exceeded only by South Africa and Namibia. The Gini Coefficient, the indicator that measures inequality in different countries, gives Colombia a value between 0 (which stands for perfect equality) and 1 (stands for completely unequal). Colombia’s score is 54.8 points, while the scores of its African competitors are 63 and 59, respectively, according to the World Bank.
Why is Colombia such an unequal country?
In its report, the World Bank recognizes the persistent and profound inequality of access to opportunity between social groups and regions in Colombia, and the very different levels of poverty. This is explained by the historic inability of the government to provide quality public services to the different departments and municipalities.
These inequalities in the provision of government services end up being translated into fewer opportunities for large numbers of people to accumulate essentials like education, health care, land, and housing, fundamental for improving their quality of life.
“In Colombia the gaps are very extensive compared to the countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). We can speak of two Colombias, places that have access to service that’s comparable to sub-Saharan Africa on the one hand, and on the other hand, places with access that’s similar to OECD countries,” explains María Eugenia Dávalos, a senior economist in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice at the World Bank and responsible for the report.
According to Dávalos, one of the particularities of Colombia that don’t apply to other countries is territorial inequalities that are extensive and very persistent, and which limit the reduction of poverty.
“The capacity to generate income is very unequal in Colombia; not everyone is equally equipped for activities like quality education, health, financial or physical capital so as to be able to seek better economic opportunities and escape from poverty,” she points out.
In Colombia, 16.7 million people live in conditions of poverty. That’s 33% of the population. Among the regions most affected, for example, are departments like La Guajira and Chocó.
The problem, explains Dávalo, is that because of those conditions and the socioeconomic structures of the different regions, the poorest municipalities don’t reduce their poverty at the same rate that the richer ones do. “The places that are flourishing the most are the ones have been able to prosper more than the poorer ones, so the reduction of poverty has not provided the same opportunities to everyone,” says the economist.
The study states that institutions in Colombia are not completely prepared to eliminate the gaps in opportunity, and that includes in the countryside. As a result of the unequal access to activities and opportunities, there exists low social mobility between generations, and that ends up creating a vicious cycle of inequalities.
That leads to another of the most terrifying conclusions in the study: the life journey that is partly determined at birth. According to the World Bank’s study, at least a third of income inequality is determined by elements like where a person was born, their gender, their parents’ socioeconomic level, their ethnicity, and their migratory status.
(Graph omitted)
Are we condemned to be unequal forever?
Not exactly. Breaking the cycle of persistence and perpetuation of inequality is a complicated task, but it’s not impossible. The territorial inequalities and inequalities between groups will not be solved without changes, and the economic and social dynamics won’t be achieved by themselves.
Therefore, Dávalos talks about a public policy agenda to break with that persistence and to promote social mobility. “We have to prioritize, especially in the areas that are lagging behind, the same way we promote investment in productive activities, to provide more equal opportunities, strengthen our institutions to provide better opportunities at the local level, and conceive
policies with a vision of the countryside.”
The World Bank proposes some specific activities:
*Invest in quality primary health care, prioritizing the rural, remote, and exurban areas that have low access;
*Introduce a national textbook and education resources policy, including a professional development program for teachers, focused on those textbooks. Colombia is the only country in the region without a national textbook policy. That’s an action that could be implemented easily,” explained the economist, Dávalos.
*Make progress with the multipurpose Cadaster initiatives and strengthen the financial performance of local governments to improve access to physical capital, such as land.
*Improve the institutional framework by intermunicipality cooperation, for example, to improve capabilities for creating policies and improving management, and establishing regulatory, institutional, and financial incentives to promote construction of partnerships.
*Generate alliances with other actors, such as the private sector, organized civil society, or academia, with the goal of identifying and bringing in more actors and capabilities, and aligning interests and possible complementation.
*Create policies better adapted to the local contexts, that consider the elements of differentiation, coordination, and comprehensiveness.
“In Colombia, where you’re born will give you very different opportunities,” says Dávalos. She believes that this vicious circle can be broken up, but to do that, you have to think of policies for different levels.