Health in Development

Abstract

r H HI S presentation is based firstly on several positions that the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) i 2 has taken in the current international debate on the I 5 social issues of development. Secondly, it also reflects the discussions in progress among the technical staff of te M the Organization in preparation for the future summit of Presidents and Heads of Government, to which we intend to bring a proposal for a fresh discussion and redefinition of health alongside the new views emerging in this Region on the development process. The first aspect that draws our attention at this time is the relatively recent emergence of consensus on the need to restate and revise our approach to the development of Latin America and the Caribbean. If we review the publications of such international agencies as the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Economic and Social Planning (ILPES), the Organization of American States, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and even the banksthe Inter-American Bank and the World Bank-we find a consensus on the need to rethink development in the Region, especially in the aftermath of the eighties, which is sometimes referred to as the "lost decade." One question that frequently comes up in this discussion concerns the extent to which the crisis of the eighties is a new phenomenon in the scenario of Latin American and Caribbean development, or is instead a worsening of a structural phenomenon that has been part of the Region's development since the postwar period. This development process was based on import substitution, the internalization of industrial production, the central role of government as the promoter of development and, above all, recourse to external capital as the preferred source of development financing. The hypothesis we are embracing is that the crisis, whose