scholarly journals Operationalizing Integrated Water Resource Management in Latin America: Insights from Application of the Freshwater Health Index

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maíra Ometto Bezerra ◽  
Derek Vollmer ◽  
Natalia Acero ◽  
Maria Clara Marques ◽  
Diego Restrepo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Stakeholder Engagement ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
Freshwater Ecosystem ◽  
Health Index ◽  
Problems And Solutions

AbstractWater crises in Latin America are more a consequence of poor management than resource scarcity. Addressing water management issues through better coordination, identification of problems and solutions, and agreement on common objectives to operationalize integrated water resources management (IWRM) could greatly improve water governance in the region. Composite indices have great potential to help overcome capacity and information challenges while supporting better IWRM. We applied one such index, the Freshwater Health Index (FHI) in three river basins in Latin America (Alto Mayo, Perú; Bogotá, Colombia; and Guandu, Brazil) to assess freshwater ecosystem vitality, ecosystem services, and the water governance system in place. The approach included convening management agencies, water utilities, planning authorities, local NGOs and industries, community groups and researchers to co-implement the FHI. The results provide detailed information on the ecological integrity of each basin and the sustainability of the ecosystem services being provided. All three basins show very low scores for governance and stakeholder engagement, thus improving both in the region should be a priority. The results also shed light on how the FHI framework can help inform decision-making to improve IWRM implementation by facilitating stakeholder engagement while contributing to coordination, identification of problems and solutions as well as agreement on common objectives. Because implementation of IWRM is part of the solution for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.5 (“By 2030, implement IWRM at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation as appropriate”), our case studies can serve as examples to other Latin American countries to achieve SDG 6.5.

scholarly journals Using the Freshwater Health Index to Assess Hydropower Development Scenarios in the Sesan, Srepok and Sekong River Basin

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 788 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Souter ◽  
Kashif Shaad ◽  
Derek Vollmer ◽  
Helen Regan ◽  
Tracy Farrell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Water Dynamics ◽  
Wicked Problem ◽  
Health Index ◽  
Hydropower Development ◽  
Development Scenarios

Sustainable water resource management is a wicked problem, fraught with uncertainties, an indeterminate scope, and divergent social values and interests among stakeholders. To facilitate better management of Southeast Asia’s transboundary Sesan, Sekong and Srepok (3S) River basin, we used the Freshwater Health Index (FHI) to diagnose the basin’s current and likely future level of freshwater health. We used the conditions for December 2016 as a baseline, where Ecosystem Vitality and Ecosystem Services scored 66 and 80, respectively, out of a possible 100, whilst Governance & Stakeholders scored 43. Thus, the 3S provided a range of desired ecosystem services, but there were signs of environmental stress as well as undeveloped water governance systems and limited stakeholder engagement. We also modelled four hydropower development scenarios and found that increasing development reduced the scores of a subset of indicators. This compromised the future ability of the 3S basin’s ecosystem to provide its current range of services. The FHI helped identify data deficiencies, illuminated important social dynamics, made ecosystem–human–water dynamics more understandable to stakeholders, and examined the long-term dynamics of the basin.

scholarly journals Can we take the pulse of environmental governance the way we take the pulse of nature? Applying the Freshwater Health Index in Latin America

AMBIO ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Vollmer ◽  
Maíra Ometto Bezerra ◽  
Natalia Acero Martínez ◽  
Octavio Rodríguez Ortiz ◽  
Ivo Encomenderos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Health Index ◽  
Basin Scale ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Area Of Concern ◽  
Quantitative Assessments

AbstractQuantitative assessments have long been used to evaluate the condition of the natural environment, providing information for standard setting, adaptive management, and monitoring. Similar approaches have been developed to measure environmental governance, however, the end result (e.g., numeric indicators) belies the subjective and normative judgments that are involved in evaluating governance. We demonstrate a framework that makes this information transparent, through an application of the Freshwater Health Index in three different river basins in Latin America. Water Governance is measured on a 0–100 scale, using data derived from perception-based surveys administered to stakeholders. Results suggest that water governance is a primary area of concern in all three places, with low overall scores (Guandu-26, Alto Mayo-38, Bogotá-43). We conclude that this approach to measuring governance at the river basin scale provides valuable information to support monitoring and decision making, and we offer suggestions on how it can be improved.

scholarly journals Política com paixão. A filosofia da libertação de Enrique Dussel

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 181
Author(s):  
Simone Rodrigues Pinto ◽  
Erivan Raposo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Problems And Solutions ◽  
Enrique Dussel ◽  
Philosophy Of Liberation ◽  
America Latina

Resumo O presente artigo propõe-se apresentar o pensamento do filósofo Enrique Dussel, autor central da reflexão política em muitos países da hispano-américa, embora pouco discutido no Brasil. Sua insistência em um discurso legitimamente latino-americano faz dele um autor fundamental para entendermos os problemas e as soluções pensadas fora dos grandes Centros, como Europa e Estados Unidos. O enfoque principal será em sua filosofia da libertação e nos desafios lançados para a ciência e sociologia política.Palavras-ChaveFilosofia da libertação, América Latina, ética, política, Dussel.--- AbstractThis article intends to present the thought of the philosopher Enrique Dussel, important author of the political debate in many countries of Hispanic America, though less recognized in Brazil. He seeks a though properly Latin American to reflect on the problems and solutions to the continent, designed outside of major academic centers such as Europe and United States. The main focus will be on his philosophy of liberation and the challenges posed to social and political science.  KeywordsPhilosophy of Liberation, Latin America, Ethics, Politics, Dussel ---Resumé: Cet article présente l'oeuvre de Enrique Dussel. Ce philosophe se retrouve au coeur de la réflexion politique des pays hispanophones de l'Amérique latine, mais il est encore peu débatu au Brésil. Son insistance à travailler un discours proprement latino-américain en fait un auteur incontournable pour la compréhension des problèmes et solutions pensés hors des grands centres, tels l'Europe et les États-Unis. L'accent sera mis sur la philosophie de la libération et sur les défis rencontrés par la science et la sociologie politique.Mots-clésPhilosophie de la libération, Amérique latine, éthique, politique, Dussel.

Migration vs. development? The case of poverty and inequality in Mexico

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agustín Escobar Latapi
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
International Migration ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Opportunity Cost ◽  
Inequality Index ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
And Migration

Although the migration – development nexus is widely recognized as a complex one, it is generally thought that there is a relationship between poverty and emigration, and that remittances lessen inequality. On the basis of Latin American and Mexican data, this chapter intends to show that for Mexico, the exchange of migrants for remittances is among the lowest in Latin America, that extreme poor Mexicans don't migrate although the moderately poor do, that remittances have a small, non-significant impact on the most widely used inequality index of all households and a very large one on the inequality index of remittance-receiving households, and finally that, to Mexican households, the opportunity cost of international migration is higher than remittance income. In summary, there is a relationship between poverty and migration (and vice versa), but this relationship is far from linear, and in some respects may be a perverse one for Mexico and for Mexican households.

Palestinian Diaspora Communities in Latin America and Palestinian Statehood

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
Yousef M. Aljamal ◽  
Philipp O. Amour
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
South America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Political ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
Political Views ◽  
The Right

There are some 700,000 Latin Americans of Palestinian origin, living in fourteen countries of South America. In particular, Palestinian diaspora communities have a considerable presence in Chile, Honduras, and El Salvador. Many members of these communities belong to the professional middle classes, a situation which enables them to play a prominent role in the political and economic life of their countries. The article explores the evolving attitudes of Latin American Palestinians towards the issue of Palestinian statehood. It shows the growing involvement of these communities in Palestinian affairs and their contribution in recent years towards the wide recognition of Palestinian rights — including the right to self-determination and statehood — in Latin America. But the political views of members of these communities also differ considerably about the form and substance of a Palestinian statehood and on the issue of a two-states versus one-state solution.

Sorting Out the Mixed Economy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy C. Offner
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
New Deal ◽  
The United States ◽  
Business Associations ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
The Road ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The New Deal

In the years after 1945, a flood of U.S. advisors swept into Latin America with dreams of building a new economic order and lifting the Third World out of poverty. These businessmen, economists, community workers, and architects went south with the gospel of the New Deal on their lips, but Latin American realities soon revealed unexpected possibilities within the New Deal itself. In Colombia, Latin Americans and U.S. advisors ended up decentralizing the state, privatizing public functions, and launching austere social welfare programs. By the 1960s, they had remade the country's housing projects, river valleys, and universities. They had also generated new lessons for the United States itself. When the Johnson administration launched the War on Poverty, U.S. social movements, business associations, and government agencies all promised to repatriate the lessons of development, and they did so by multiplying the uses of austerity and for-profit contracting within their own welfare state. A decade later, ascendant right-wing movements seeking to dismantle the midcentury state did not need to reach for entirely new ideas: they redeployed policies already at hand. This book brings readers to Colombia and back, showing the entanglement of American societies and the contradictory promises of midcentury statebuilding. The untold story of how the road from the New Deal to the Great Society ran through Latin America, the book also offers a surprising new account of the origins of neoliberalism.

Nesting Expectations: What Can the Mexican and Argentinean Cash Transfers Tell Us about the Development of Development?

1969 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-169
Author(s):  
Andrés Dapuez
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfers ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Transfer Programs

Latin American cash transfer programs have been implemented aiming at particular anticipatory scenarios. Given that the fulfillment of cash transfer objectives can be calculated neither empirically nor rationally a priori, I analyse these programs in this article using the concept of an “imaginary future.” I posit that cash transfer implementers in Latin America have entertained three main fictional expectations: social pacification in the short term, market inclusion in the long term, and the construction of a more distributive society in the very long term. I classify and date these developing expectations into three waves of conditional cash transfers implementation.

Epidemiology of Hypertension and Diabetes Mellitus in Latin America

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricio Lopez-Jaramillo ◽  
Jose Lopez-Lopez ◽  
Daniel Cohen ◽  
Natalia Alarcon-Ariza ◽  
Margarita Mogollon-Zehr
Keyword(s):  
Diabetes Mellitus ◽  
Type 2 Diabetes ◽  
Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Cardiovascular Diseases ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Premature Mortality ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
And Control

: Hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus are two important risk factors that contribute to cardiovascular diseases worldwide. In Latin America hypertension prevalence varies from 30 to 50%. Moreover, the proportion of awareness, treatment and control of hypertension is very low. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus varies from 8 to 13% and near to 40% are unaware of their condition. In addition, the prevalence of prediabetes varies from 6 to 14% and this condition has been also associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. The principal factors linked to a higher risk of hypertension in Latin America are increased adiposity, low muscle strength, unhealthy diet, low physical activity and low education. Besides being chronic conditions, leading causes of cardiovascular mortality, both hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus represent a substantial cost for the weak health systems of Latin American countries. Therefore, is necessary to implement and reinforce public health programs to improve awareness, treatment and control of hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus, in order to reach the mandate of the Unit Nations of decrease the premature mortality for CVD.

An Inter-American Episode

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Pablo Neruda ◽  
Jose Marti ◽  
The South ◽  
American Reader ◽  
The North ◽  
Literary Theories ◽  
The Us

This chapter focuses on a paradigmatic misencounter between an American experiencer and a Latin American reader. Examining an implicit debate about the sources of Walt Whitman’s poetry and vision of the Americas, I argue that Waldo Frank, one of the twentieth century’s main literary ambassadors from the US to Latin America, positioned Whitman as the representative US writer whose antibookish experiential aesthetics could serve as a model for “American” writers both in the North and in the South. I show how Frank’s framework provided a foil for Borges’s idiosyncratic view that Whitman’s poetry about America derived entirely from his readings of European and US writers. Although much of the best scholarship on Whitman’s reception in Latin America has concentrated on poets like José Martí and Pablo Neruda, who adapted Whitman’s naturalism, I contend that Borges’s iconoclastic portrait of Whitman as a reader profoundly influenced a range of anti-experiential literary theories and practices in Latin America.

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