When Peru’s new president, Ollanta Humala, was sworn in last week, there was a little something for everyone. For international and local investors spooked by his incendiary political past, he rolled out a cabinet brimming with business executives and notables from the Peruvian establishment. In a nod to neglected minorities, he named Susana Baca, a famed singer who is black, to tend the culture ministry. And to “Ollantistas”, his longtime comrades on the left, he served up “Peru for all,” a grab bag of benefits including a 25 percent hike in the minimum wage over two years, universal pensions, and a new ministry of development and social inclusion.
That is the good news from Lima, where the onetime military man, best known for his fevered nationalist rhetoric and a failed coup d´état in 2000, is trying to repackage himself as a statesman and conciliator.
That is also the troubling news. Humala seems ill-suited for the high wire. The 49-year-old retired lieutenant colonel rose to national politics from the hard left, promising to bring foreign investors to heel, rewrite the constitution and return the national economy to state care. Having failed to gain power by bayonet, he befriended Hugo Chávez, the fiery president of Venezuela and herald of so-called “21st century socialism”, and vowed nothing less than a revolution by ballot box—the bourgeoisie be damned.
UNDP representative in Lima, Rebeca Arias noted that the UNDP has scheduled a $465 million fund for cooperation with Peru during the next five years, a significant portion of that amount would be for social inclusion programs.
The new cooperation agreement signed with Peru for the 2012-2016 period, would provide a series of programs such as improving basic services, addressing the chronic malnutrition of children, improving the quality of education and promoting bilingual education for indigenous and rural communities.
According to an article in Andina, Arias noted that the new agreement with Peru includes five major areas: economic growth with social inclusion and respectable work, strengthening democratic governance and social protection and access to basic social services.
As well as programs focusing on environmental management, climate change, disaster management, and protection of cultural heritage.
"You have to work hard so that people in poverty or extreme poverty can have access to basic social services (...) but we must also promote initiatives to enable people to obtain their own income and be self-sustaining.
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