Governance and Poverty. The Role of Municipalities and Social Policies

Abstract

Although governance-understood as the quality of the relation between those who govern and those who are governed- becomes more evident at the local level, in Latin America the use of this concept and the discussion of the problems it implies has rarely appeared in studies of local governments, municipalities or urban development. Likewise, the relation between governance and poverty has been more a subject of journalism and of unanalyzed assumptions, than a specific area of research and systematic reflection. Based on results from debates over the cases of Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico and Dominican Republic, carried out in the seminar "Governance and Poverty at a Local Level", this work addresses these issues within two main subject areas: first, the role of local governments in building a democratic governance and a relation between poverty and governance, and second, the role, within these relations, of the new social policies to overcome poverty.