The persistence of indigenous poverty and exclusion is one of the main challenges for social policy in Latin America. Social protection programmes, in particular conditional cash transfers, have been among the main instruments used by governments over the past two decades to respond to the high incidence of poverty in indigenous contexts. The inclusion of indigenous peoples as social protection beneficiaries remains a largely unexplored topic, despite its relevance to understand social policy trajectories in the global South. This article discusses the expansion of poverty alleviation social programmes in the Peruvian Amazon. Although the expansion of these programmes increased the state’s capacity to deliver welfare services in historically excluded areas, it also revealed the limitations of existing social protection instruments to effectively respond to indigenous poverty and vulnerability. Addressing this challenge constitutes a key opportunity to promote transformative approaches in social protection systems in Latin America.
Indigenous peoples, social protection, inclusion, poverty, Amazon, Peru.
The 2030 Agenda4 emphasises the role of social protection systems in reducing inequalities. The first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), dedicated to the elimination of global poverty, includes the implementation of adequate social protection measures for all, with an emphasis on expanding coverage for the poor and vulnerable. SDG 10 highlights the importance of social, economic, and political inclusion measures, regardless of gender, age, disability, origin, race, ethnicity, religion, economic, or other status. Ethnicity is mentioned in four of the 169 SDG targets as one of the disaggregating variables (Madden and Coleman 2018).5
The 2018 Report on the World Social Situation highlighted a gap in social protection coverage for indigenous peoples globally, due to services being unavailable, inaccessible, or culturally inappropriate (DESA 2018a, 2018b). Moreover, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has called for policy measures linked to the 2030 Agenda to be culturally relevant and to promote respect for indigenous peoples’ self-determination, traditional ways of life, and collective rights. It has also warned about the tensions arising from the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in indigenous contexts (PFII 2017). For example, there are increasing pressures on indigenous territories due to the expansion of renewable energy and agrarian transformation projects.
Approximately 10 per cent of the population in Latin America and the Caribbean is indigenous, which is equivalent to 58 million people (ECLAC 2020a). Indigenous territories occupy 404m hectares, 60 per cent of which is in the Amazon Basin (FAO and FILAC 2021). Poverty rates among indigenous peoples are, on average, twice as high as among the non-indigenous population in Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, and Bolivia (World Bank 2015).
The incidence of poverty in indigenous contexts is a result of historical inequalities combined with marginalisation (Eversole, McNeish and Cimadamore 2013). Indigenous peoples are affected by opportunity gaps that create deprivations and limit the realisation of their individual and collective rights. For example, the lack of access to universal and targeted services, physical capital, and credit generates a pattern of low income and low assets that hinders the improvement of their living conditions (Patrinos and Skoufias 2007).
The Covid-19 pandemic generated a dramatic increase in poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean and exacerbated pre-existing gaps that disproportionately affected the most excluded sectors, including indigenous peoples (ECLAC 2020b). Barriers to access public services (health, education, social protection), markets, and agricultural lands increased due to strict lockdowns, with negative repercussions in indigenous household income (ibid.). Moreover, illegal activities (drug trafficking, timber, and gold extraction) expanded in indigenous territories during the pandemic, escalating insecurity and violence against indigenous leaders and communities (FAO and FILAC 2021). Indigenous organisations and communities across Latin America demonstrated a remarkable capacity for adaptation and organisation during the health emergency, generating local solutions as a response to delays or inaction from government agencies. For example, a series of collective care initiatives emerged, including community isolation practices, use of traditional medicine, and distribution of food to vulnerable members (ECLAC 2020b).
As post-pandemic recovery agendas emerge in the region, social protection systems face increasing demands: (a) to respond to vulnerable populations that fell into poverty during the pandemic shock; and (b) to support social groups affected by chronic poverty and historical conditions of exclusion. Given long-standing and new patterns of deprivation and marginalisation, addressing the persistence of poverty and exclusion among indigenous peoples is one of the main challenges for social policies in Latin America. However, it also constitutes a key opportunity to innovate and renew social protection systems in the region.
This article explores the expansion of social protection in the Peruvian Amazon and the inclusion of indigenous peoples as programme beneficiaries. Although the expansion of social protection programmes – before and during the pandemic – increased the state’s capacity to deliver services in historically excluded areas, it also revealed the tensions and limitations of existing interventions to effectively respond to indigenous poverty and vulnerability.
In order to provide a regional policy context, Section 2 discusses the expansion of social protection in Latin America since the 2000s. Section 3 analyses the inclusion of indigenous peoples in poverty alleviation social protection programmes in the Peruvian Amazon. Finally, concluding remarks and policy implications are presented in Section 4 to contribute to the discussion on transformative social protection (Devereux and Sabates-Wheeler 2004) in the global South.
Since the 2000s, Latin America has seen a period of expansion regarding social protection (Arza et al. 2022; Cecchini et al. 2015; Pribble 2013). Inspired by social inclusion approaches, governments in the region expanded targeted social programmes among rural populations, informal workers, and the unemployed, as a means of including ‘outsiders’ (Garay 2017) in social protection systems. This trend also encompassed indigenous peoples and materialised through the expansion of targeted social programmes in their traditional territories. Yet the extent to which and how indigenous peoples benefit from inclusion in social protection systems remains a largely unexplored topic.
Social protection programmes, in particular conditional cash transfers (CCTs), have been among the main instruments used by governments across the region to respond to indigenous poverty and vulnerability. Since their creation in the early 2000s, CCTs have expanded within and outside Latin America following a standardised model based on a structure of conditionalities linked to health, education, and identification (Fizsbein et al. 2009; Ferguson 2015). In the case of the Amazon, CCTs have also been applied in environmental mechanisms, conditioning the access to monetary incentives to the fulfilment of conservation targets by indigenous communities (e.g. Programa Bosques in Peru).
There are some positive examples with countries such as Colombia, Panama, and Paraguay having incorporated early adaptations in the design and implementation of CCT programmes for indigenous contexts (Robles 2009). The case of Colombia is particularly relevant from a comparative perspective, since it developed a pioneer experience of social protection adaptation for ethnic groups, which can be traced back to the 1990s. A key development was the 2015 ruling by the Constitutional Court, which defined the ‘differential approach’ as a guiding framework for public policies:
The differential approach is key to the development of the principle of equality, in that it treats unequal subjects differently and seeks to protect people who are in circumstances of vulnerability or manifest weakness, so as to achieve real and effective equality, with the principles of equity, social participation and inclusion.
(Corte Constitucional de Colombia 2015)
This legal development was essential for institutionalising programme-level innovations led by the National Planning Department (Bonilla Ovallos and Torres Torres 2018). For example, the Intervenciones Rurales Integrales programme (Integral Rural Interventions Programme, IRACA) – a leading regional experience of social protection adaptation for indigenous and afro-descendant communities – promotes food security and productive practices through two components: (a) social and organisational strengthening, aimed at promoting leadership and empowerment, and (b) community productive projects, where technical support is provided to improve food security and revive traditional production systems. Another example is the Red de Seguridad Alimentaria (Food Security Network, ReSA), a programme that promotes food security through the strengthening of household production and local nutritional culture. It combines the transfer of productive assets with technical assistance to improve crop productivity, promote healthy lifestyles, and enable access to safe water.
Nevertheless, comparative experiences from across Latin America show that on the whole, adaptation of national social protection programmes in indigenous contexts has been limited. Governments prioritised expanding the coverage of existing social protection and productive development programmes rather than adapting solutions for indigenous contexts (Correa Aste 2018). While the presence of social protection programmes in indigenous territories and the expansion of coverage for indigenous peoples has contributed greater territorial scope of national poverty reduction strategies, their effectiveness in indigenous contexts has been limited due to various factors.
First, the provision of public services that support social protection delivery in indigenous contexts is limited. For example, health and education services that underpin adherence to CCT conditionalities face severe coverage gaps and weaknesses in terms of quality, opportunity, and cultural pertinence, undermining access to and benefits of social protection for indigenous peoples (see, for example, Ulrichs and Roelen 2012).
Second, official statistics and targeting systems do not adequately capture and reflect the situation of indigenous peoples. The inclusion of indigenous peoples as social protection beneficiaries has been guided by monetary poverty measurements that do not address the determinants of indigenous exclusion and vulnerability. Insufficient availability of disaggregated data on the economic and social situation of indigenous peoples has limited the design of specific measures (ILO 2018). Despite the advances made by various countries to improve the representativeness of ethnic groups in official statistics (Del Popolo 2018), censuses and social surveys do not provide sufficient disaggregated socioeconomic information on indigenous peoples.
Third, while social protection programmes can have a long-lasting presence in households and communities (for example, children’s participation in CCTs can extend from birth until completing basic education), government agencies have limited understanding of the impacts of social protection programmes in indigenous contexts. Literature on the implementation and effects of cash transfers in indigenous contexts highlights the importance of looking beyond indicators of conditionality compliance and service delivery (e.g. school attendance) to understand the direct and indirect effects of CCTs on social cohesion, consumption patterns, intra-household dynamics, monetisation of indigenous economies, gender relations, and relations with the state actors, among others (Olivier de Sardan and Piccoli 2018; De La Rocha and Latapí 2016; Ferguson 2015; Correa Aste and Roopnaraine 2014).
Peru is one of the countries with the highest concentration of indigenous peoples in Latin America: 25.8 per cent of its population, approximately 5 million citizens, identify as indigenous. The incidence of monetary poverty in the population who speak the indigenous mother tongue is 33.5 per cent, in contrast to 25.6 per cent in the population who have Spanish as their mother tongue (INEI 2023). Fifty-one of 55 ethnic groups in Peru are from the Amazon (Ministry of Culture n.d.). Indigenous peoples are affected by significant gaps in public service access and key socioeconomic indicators (nutrition, education, poverty), which are more prevalent among women and children (World Bank 2015).
In Peru, the expansion of social protection programmes began in the 1990s, as part of national poverty reduction strategies. Cash transfer schemes were introduced in 2005 in three Andean regions and were gradually expanded nationwide. In 2011, the creation of the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion (MIDIS) promoted the restructuring of existing poverty alleviation programmes. During the decade of the 2010s, a new generation of social protection programmes began to be implemented (e.g. early childhood development, school feeding, graduation). Due to the high incidence of extreme poverty, rural areas were prioritised.
Since the mid-2000s, the coverage of targeted social programmes began to expand in Amazonian regions (Correa Aste, Roopnaraine and Margolies 2018; MIDIS 2013, 2016). This process was guided by poverty and geographic targeting. In 2014, a normative change was introduced in the official targeting system to accelerate the incorporation of Amazonian native communities in social programmes (MIDIS 2014). It was established that all residents of Amazonian indigenous communities were, by default, considered as extreme poor and potentially eligible for social programmes. The official state narrative presented this process as a mechanism to: (1) advance social inclusion, through the incorporation of indigenous peoples as ‘beneficiaries’ of welfare services; (2) reduce coverage and provision gaps by stimulating the demand of identification, health, and education services; and (3) strengthen territorial control, through increased ‘presence of the state’, particularly in remote and border areas.
Despite the advances in social protection, public service and programme delivery remained precarious in indigenous contexts, with severe coverage, quality, and cultural pertinence limitations (Alcázar 2019). In addition, multisectoral normative instruments, developed to promote the articulation of public services in the Amazon (such as the ‘Social Action with Sustainability Strategy’ launched in 2016), faced implementation and administrative bottlenecks, budget restrictions, and inconsistent political priority.
Moreover, programmes were not designed to respond to poverty and vulnerability dynamics in Amazonian indigenous contexts. Their theories of change, design, and implementation rationale were piloted in Andean contexts, particularly in peasant communities. Since the mid-2010s, the MIDIS began to introduce some implementation adjustments, based on official intercultural policy guidelines. For example, schemes began hiring local staff with knowledge of indigenous languages and cultures, developed training materials in indigenous languages, and promoted linkages with some indigenous organisations. However, these improvements did not imply adaptations in programme rationale, design, and implementation.
During the pandemic, the delivery of all social protection programmes was done remotely, which deepened access barriers in indigenous contexts due to insufficient connectivity and limited digital skills. Moreover, access to emergency vouchers and regular cash transfer payments (such as part of Pensión 65 and Juntos) during national lockdowns generated risks for rural indigenous populations, since they had to travel to payment points in cities.
Despite these challenges, some collaborative initiatives between indigenous organisations and government agencies emerged. The government of Peru implemented temporary social programme interventions, as a response to the adverse economic and social effects of the pandemic. Under this emergency normative framework, the Noa Jayatai Mujer pilot was developed to promote the economic empowerment of Amazonian indigenous women, contribute to local food security, and strengthen the productive capacities of indigenous households, based on cash plus models. Noa Jayatai Mujer was implemented by MIDIS, through a flagship national social programme (FONCODES), resulting from a collaboration with the Asociación Interétnica para el Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP), the most prominent national indigenous organisation. This pilot was a pioneering example of programme co-design with indigenous leaders. It was implemented in the northern Amazon (Loreto Region) between 2021 and 2023, with the participation of 1,200 women from native communities and districts.
A recent diagnosis prepared for the United Nations Development Programme (Correa Aste 2022)6 evidenced that although social protection programmes met their operational targets, their transformational effects in indigenous contexts were limited. This was due to low-quality public services and fragmented operations in indigenous territories. Moreover, programme design focused on households and did not include collective subjects that are part of indigenous governance systems, such as communities and extended families. Indigenous representatives and local authorities value social protection programmes as a mechanism to improve the household economy (cash transfers), access to services (e.g. technical assistance, school feeding), and access to new opportunities for learning, training, and temporary employment.
However, this positive assessment coexists with concerns about the long-term impacts of social protection programmes on consumption patterns and attitudes; in particular, risks of generating dependency on government handouts and loss of autonomy. From the perspective of the consulted indigenous representatives, social protection should contribute to increase the autonomy of indigenous peoples. To move forward, social protection should not only work with targeted households but also include actions at the community level, with emphasis on economic inclusion, productive development, and natural resource management.
In sum, although the expansion of social protection programmes in the Amazon increased the capacity of the Peruvian state to deliver services in historically excluded areas, it also revealed tensions and limitations when operating in indigenous contexts. Social protection programmes are not conceived to respond to the specificities of poverty, exclusion, and vulnerability in indigenous contexts. Despite the expansion of social protection coverage in the Amazon over the past two decades, poverty and exclusion remain high in indigenous territories.
The persistence of indigenous poverty and exclusion is one of the main challenges for social policies in Latin America. Responding to it constitutes a key opportunity to promote innovation in social protection systems. The transformative social protection approach (Devereux and Sabates-Wheeler 2004) is relevant to address the situation in indigenous contexts, since it implies going beyond coverage indicators to promote multisectoral, articulated, and comprehensive measures aimed at changing the conditions that deepen inequalities and expand the empowerment and agency of beneficiaries.
Faced with the challenges of post-pandemic recovery, social protection in Latin America needs to be expanded, strengthened, but above all, renewed in ideas, approaches, and policy instruments. Addressing indigenous poverty and exclusion requires transcending the prevailing sectoral approach in the region’s public administrations, which produces fragmentation of interventions on the ground. Moreover, the expansion of social protection coverage in indigenous contexts will not be effective if the quality of public services is not improved, particularly education and health. On the other hand, given the centrality of land and natural resources for the reproduction of indigenous livelihoods, social protection strategies need to address environmental dimensions; for example, recovering and protecting traditional knowledge to strengthen resource management and food systems (Correa Aste 2019).
The Peruvian case study illustrated that, while expanding the coverage of social programmes in indigenous contexts contributed to increased access to targeted and universal public services, it was not sufficient to generate significant improvements in the wellbeing of indigenous households and communities. As such, to enhance social protection effectiveness in indigenous contexts, governments need to change the focus from expansion of coverage to adaptation of programme design and implementation. Promoting social protection adaptation implies assessing whether the services offered are relevant and if they contribute to overcoming the disadvantages affecting vulnerable groups (DESA 2018, 2018b).
Moreover, social protection in indigenous contexts must go beyond individual users and households to include indigenous collective subjects. To move in this direction, it is necessary to broaden our understanding of the social protection functions of indigenous institutions (extended family, communities, etc.) and representative indigenous organisations (local, regional, and national). The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of community-based social protection mechanisms, which can serve as a platform to improve the provision of existing social programmes and generate new solutions for social inclusion, economic development, and climate change mitigation that are cost-effective, sustainable, and complementary to existing provision.
Beyond rhetorical recognition, indigenous peoples require effective participation in the definition of social protection strategies in their territories. This is key to respect their right to self-determination and prior consultation laws. It also constitutes an opportunity to improve the social legitimacy of public policies in indigenous territories. Finally, further research is required to understand the long-term impacts of social protection programmes in indigenous contexts and to develop adequate metrics of indigenous wellbeing to inform social policy design, implementation, and assessment.
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Copyright © 2024 The Authors. IDS Bulletin © Institute of Development Studies | DOI: 10.19088/1968-2024.128
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited, any modifications or adaptations are indicated, and the work is not used for commercial purposes.
The IDS Bulletin is published by Institute of Development Studies, Library Road, Brighton, BN1 9RE, UK. This article is part of IDS Bulletin Vol. 55 No. 2 October 2024 ‘Reimagining Social Protection’; the Introduction is also recommended reading.