By David Roberts
As several Latin American countries celebrate their bicentenaries, the latest being Chile and Mexico, marking 200 years since the start of the process that led to their independence from Spain, now is probably as good a time as any to reflect upon the progress the region has made over recent decades.
And not insignificant progress that is, too. Almost every country in the region now enjoys a relatively stable democracy, a situation quite unlike that of 20, 30 or more years ago, when military dictatorships and guerrilla wars were commonplace. Of course, there's no such thing as a perfect democracy - witness the 2000 US election when Al Gore lost despite receiving more votes than George W Bush - and in Latin America it comes in various shapes and sizes, some more steadfast than others, but there remains just one country that cannot seriously claim to be a democracy, and we all know which one that is.
Then there's the economic progress made in recent years. Most countries in the region now have stable, regulated and market-based economies that have seen steady growth, and generally survived the financial meltdown of 2008-09 better than their counterparts in the so-called developed world. Indeed, countries like Chile, Peru and Colombia have made remarkable headway, and even the "socialist" countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador are a far cry from the old-style socialism seen in the communist/Soviet era. Brazil, meanwhile, has emerged as a genuine world economic powerhouse, with many of its corporations being global industry leaders (Vale, Petrobras and Embraer, for example). Compare all that to the constant banking, foreign debt and hyperinflation crises of yesteryear.
Of course, all that is no excuse for complacency. The region faces many severe challenges, such as the still unacceptable levels of poverty and a shameful record on wealth distribution, high rates of crime and drug-related violence, indigenous rights issues, corruption, weak institutions and inadequate infrastructure, to name a few. Large parts of Latin America are still over-dependent on exports of raw materials and consequently remain vulnerable to commodity price cycles, and economies in some parts of the continent, as in the case of Mexico in the recent global slump, are too reliant on demand for their products in the US.
The region is also particularly susceptible to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, flooding and hurricanes. The consequences of these "acts of God" can only partly be blamed on divinity, as many of the deaths and much of the damage are more often than not the result of shoddy building (Haiti in January, for example), poverty, deforestation and other human frailties.
And the region remains divided between the left-leaning Venezuela-led bloc and the more "liberal" nations, although perhaps less so than some may imagine as leaders such as Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador have shown they are not always prepared to toe the Chavez line.
Finally, and this may be more of a symptom than a cause of the region's ills, Latin America remains largely ignored by the outside world. Events like earthquakes and the attempts to rescue the 33 trapped miners in northern Chile do, quite naturally, capture the attention of the world, but even Washington's policy towards Latin America (talk of a partnership of equals, etc) is fuzzy to put it kindly, and regions further afield simply don't seem to have Latin America on their radar. This too represents a major challenge that regional leaders must face up to - to make sure Latin America's voice is heard on the global stage, and it's one that cannot wait another 200 years.
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