Social Cohesion

Social cohesion is a major priority to the EU by which they are committed to help South America fight against “poverty, inequality and social exclusion (Europa 2008)”.

 

A huge percentage of South America is made up of middle income countries which are experiencing inequality and poverty of around '41% in 2005 (UN 2005)'. With regards to inequality and exclusion, economic growth has a limited effect on reducing poverty in South America, as only a small percentage of the population appear to be wealthy. Income inequality is a severe impediment to poverty reduction and economic development. As well and an individual, inequalities also appear between countries, as various regions develop at different paces.  Not all regions attain sufficient infrastructure, access to markets and qualified labour in order to take advantage of world economies and globalisation.

The EU is struggling to maintain their level of social cohesion. A substantial amount of Europe’s population have incomes that are less than 60% of national median income (Europa 2008), which means there are increasing rate of inequalities regarding income and in regional distribution of employment, and so factors that affect poverty are rising rapidly (Europa,c). In order to combat these issues, the European Union’s Head of State and Government proposed a new approach at the European Council Meeting in Lisbon in March 2000. The plan introduces 5 objectives:

1)      The technological challenge

2)      A knowledge based society

3)      Making Europe more competitive

4)      Integration of the financial markets and coordination of macroeconomic policies

5)      Modernising and strengthening the European social model (Europa,c).

Europe’s past experiences in encouraging social cohesion lead to collaboration with the South American countries, supporting their development, their own ways of tackling social inequality, exclusion and poverty.

What the EU has to offer is:

• “A multitude of approaches that work and positive experiences (a variety of social-protection arrangements, education systems and ways of fighting discrimination and exclusion etc) from various parts of the EU”

• Recent experience with coordinating different Member States’ policies on social exclusion and poverty, and the benefits of working together at European level”

• “Tried and tested methods, developed as part of its regional policy, for helping certain regions whose development is lagging behind to catch up with the others (Europa 2008)”.