Seminar in San Salvador – The demographic bonus

One of the topics covered in the seminar held in San Salvador was the demographic bonus. This bous is produced by the demographic transition and changes in the age structure of population. In the coming decades, the working age population will remain higher than the inactive population ages, opening a great opportunity so that the structure of the population can be seized as an impulse for development.


The demographic bounus, the economy and inclusion in production systems are closely related.

In many Latin American and Caribbean countries, education, health, housing, transport, and communications institutions and programs were developed. Said programs seek for each individual (men, women and children) to enjoy a healthy life and equal opportunity for all. However, framed in unequal societies, development policies currently coexist with assistance, protection, social security, and other poverty alleviation oriented programs.

Again from Guatemala

In his intervention Carlos Danilo Coloma from the Intendencia Nacional de Seguridad Social of Ecuador mentioned that one of the main problems of Ecuador is that despite positive economic rates of growth (even this year), the system has been unable to generate formal employment. In addition to this, he highlighted that other problema is the the State funds private complementary pension plans that have actuarial déficits. In the end, he mentioned that there is a lot of work to do in order to extend health insurance coverage and improve the quality of services.

CISS Award (3/3)

Javier Olivera (who also won the second place) wrote a paper analyzing what would happen to inequality in Peru if the country would have a multipillar pension systems instead of the current system based mostly on individual accounts. The author calculates that inequality will diminish. The paper provides support the several voices who argue countries´pension system should have a multipillar system.

CISS Award (2/3)

Today we will talk about the work of Boris Galarza from Peru who won the second place (tied with Javier Olivera). Boris analyses the demand and supply in the pension fund managers (PFM) industry. Using very advanced methods he finds that workers decides which PFM will manage their funds based on promotion and not on profitability or fees. On the supply side, he finds that sales cost plays a double role: as sunk cost to entry into the market and as promotion cost to maintain market share. This situation, argues the author, limits the possibility to lower cost and fees.

Great Depression vs Current Recession 2

In the past note we showed a table where we compared the fall of the gross domestic product and the industrial production. In this note we present the same table but now we compare the unemployment rate. As can be seen in the current recession, unemployment rate has increased in most developed countries and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, nevertheless, unemployment rate has not grown as much as in the Great Depression where unemployment rate reached more than 20 per cent, for LAC countries unfortunately there is no much information for those years. At the moment of making this table no country in the Americas reports an unemployment rate higher than 12 per cent.

Increase in Unemployment Rate During the Great Depression
and the Current Recession

Great Depression vs Current Recession

The following table presents a comparison between the Great Depression and the current recession in different countries. The GDP and industrial production data shows that the current decrease has been important but that it is still way short of the downturns observed during the Great Depression for almost all countries.

Decline in Production during the Great Depression and Current Recession, Various Countries

More on A-H1N1

People infected by the virus A-H1N1 continue increasing. In the following map, provided by WHO, we can see cases of people infected and deaths collected throughout all the world. The southern countries, Chile and Argentina, are in the winter season so they are having a large number of infections, which tell us that Mexico, United States, Canada, among others, should be prepared for the upturn expected in winter. Besides, the WHO recommended that health care-workers must receive priority access to the vaccine virus when it becomes available.

Global Crisis: estimates for Latin America worsen

A report published by the World Bank estimates that Latin America will suffer in 2009 a strong impact on its economy with an estimated contraction of 2 to 2.5 percent, these numbers mean that the World Bank made pessimistic prognosis than it did in April in which the estimation fall between 0.5 and 1 per cent. The organism estimated that by 2010 there will be an expansion of 2 percent, but that the recovery will be slow and uneven. According to the report, the global crisis will impact in different areas (see figure below).

The good news is that the World Bank sees the crisis as an opportunity for Latin America, because this crisis could cause the region to develop much faster.

Health: management, service care and financing III

The last sessions of our conference focused on elderly. We had presentations that talk about global trends and country specific presentations. Among the most important messages of the presentations we had: i) with the increasing longevity, most people will be fragil (this occurs even if during the past years, the fragility have been compressed to the last years of the life of elders); ii) Even if most of people will be fragil, the important factor for well being is to maintain functionality; iii) elderly should be care at home or at the community level; institutionalized care should be only to specific cases; and iv) to maintain the functionality of elderly homes and cities should be adapted with facilities and service tailored to the elder population.

Health: management, service care and financing II

We continue with the summary of the presentations that talk about global issues at our conference that was celebrated this week in Panama. Roberto Yllescas mentioned that today the paradigm of medical care can change. The previous paradigm focused in intrawalls attention, i.e., in hospitals and health institutions. The new paradigm aims for an attention focused in the prevention and monitoring, especially in patients with chronic diseases, home based. The major facilitators of this new technology are the internet and the mobile phones.

Health: Management, service care and financing I

Today it was inaugurated the seminar organized by the CISS. Presentation will be posted in the CISS web page, nevertheless in this blog during the next few days we would like to highlight the most important lessons that apply for all countries (country´s experiences can be download from the page). In its presentation Dr. Freire from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III stressed that: i) the current situation, global economic crisis and a possible reform to the USA health care system, will have a significant impact on the future of health systems around the world; ii) nevertheless, it has been proved that public financing is the only way to reach universal coverage (private financing is ineffective for these purposes); iii) social security and public services should complement each other; the former has been in the history of the world the way health systems have developed.