THE CONTRIBUTION OF BRITISH NGOs TO TACKLING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY IN PERU

BRITISH NGOs WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP

Alejandro Balaguer, Save the Children. Phil Borges, CARE.

IMPACT ON DISCRIMINATION AND INEQUALITY IN

IMPACT ON DISCRIMINATION AND INEQUALITY IN
THE POOREST REGIONS OF PERU
THE POOREST REGIONS OF PERU
THE REALITY OF PERU
Peru remains blighted by high levels of inequality and social exclusion, despite achieving one of the
highest rates of economic growth in the world over recent years (60.2% from 2002-2009). 34.8% of the
population lives below the poverty line, and 7 of every 10 children under one are anaemic, as are 1 in
every 4 pregnant women. But these national averages hide significant internal differences. In rural areas,
over 60% of the population is poor, nearly three times higher than rates in urban areas (21.1%). Rural
rates of chronic malnutrition in children under 5 (“stunting”) are 40.3% in rural areas, nearly three times
higher than in urban areas (14.2%). Infant mortality rates are 5.3 times higher for the poorest 20% of the
population than for the richest 20%, the largest difference amongst 58 countries for which there is data.
In fact, the poorest regions and sectors of the population face a similar situation to that seen in Africa:
• Stunting in the region of Huancavelica (53.6%) is similar to Burundi, Madagascar or Malawi (53%).
• The population below the poverty line in Huancavelica (77.2%) is higher than in Sierra Leone (70.6%).
• Huancavelica´s Human Development Index (HDI) - 0.539 - is below Kenya´s - 0.541 - and the district
with the lowest HDI in Peru, Yurúa (0.440), has similar levels of human development to Liberia (0.442).
• A higher proportion of people lack access to safe water in the region of Loreto (37.2%) than in Uganda
(36%), while Huancavelica has higher rates of those without improved sanitation (40.7%) than Malawi
(40%).
• Matriculation rates amongst indigenous girls in the Amazon (52.6%) are similar to those in Sudan
(52%).

Sources: IMF World Economic Outlook (2009), National Statistics Agency (INEI) Report on Poverty to 2009 and National Demographic and Family Health Survey 2009
(ENDES), UN MDG Database, UNDP Human Development Report (2009) and Peru Human Development Report (2009), UNICEF The State of the World's Children
(2009), Vandemoortele, J. Taking the MDGs beyond 2015: Hasten slowly (2009), Vasquéz, Chumpitaz & Jara: Indigenous Children in Peru (CARE Peru, Save the
Children, et al)
 THE CONTRIBUTION OF BRITISH NGOs TO TACKLING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY IN PERU

BRITISH NGO RESPONSE

British NGOs working in Peru have adopted three main strategies in their efforts to contribute effectively
to reducing poverty and inequality in Peru:

1.Implementing initiatives that have a significant impact on the most excluded groups.
2.Influencing public policy, to improve government policy, spending and programmes.
3.Cooperating on joint initiatives, to share learning and maximize impact.
Particular focus has been placed on strengthening civil society - women´s groups and movements,
community associations, neighbourhood committees, voluntary agencies, churches and faith groups - and
supporting efforts to promote greater transparency, decentralisation of decision-making and
consolidation of democracy.
AREAS OF ACTION
In this bulletin, produced by some of the British NGOs working in
Peru1, we highlight some examples of how interagency collaboration
through the Latin America Partnership Programme Arrangement
(LAPPA) and other mechanisms has enabled small amounts of funding
to contribute to significant impacts, in the framework of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In particular, we focus on:

• Nutrition, health, education and HIV & AIDS (MDGs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 &

6).
• Climate Change (MDG 7).
• Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergencies.
Jessica Wunderlich, CARE.

NUTRITION, HEALTH, EDUCATION AND HIV & AIDS

Peru still suffers from high levels of chronic malnutrition, and infant and maternal mortality. While the
MDG targets on access to primary school have been met (although not for indigenous children, or for
rural girls at secondary level), the quality of education remains very low, with less than one in four
children reaching standards in reading and writing at the end of second grade and around one in eight in
maths. Figures for rural areas are even worse (11.6% and 7.1% respectively).

ACHIEVEMENTS
• Different coalitions supported by CARE, Plan
International, Save the Children and World Vision have
successfully influenced government to place a higher
priority on tackling these problems, and have provided
technical support as well as monitoring of the quality
and quantity of public expenditure.2
• A broad-based coalition of alliances and organizations
working on child rights (Vote for Children) has been
formed to obtain concrete commitments on priority
indicators from candidates in local and national
elections taking place in 2010 and 2011.
Alejandro Balaguer, Save the Children.
1. This bulletin is an initiative of the Peru offices of Christian Aid, CARE, Progressio and Save the Children, part of the organisations who have a DFID Partnership
Programme Arrangement (PPA) with DFID, focusing on Latin America. The partnership has a specific emphasis on shared learning and collaboration.

2. These include the Child Malnutrition Initiative, the Newborn Health Collective, the Alliance for Safe and Secure Motherhood, the Florecer Network (on rural girls
and adolescents´ education), the Children, Youth and HIV / AIDS Roundtable, and the working groups for consensus-based monitoring of the three priority results
based budgeting programmes (the Articulated Nutrition programme, the Maternal Newborn Health programme, the Strategic Programme for Learning Results),
coordinated by the National Poverty-Fighting Roundtable (MCLCP).
 THE CONTRIBUTION OF BRITISH NGOs TO TACKLING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY IN PERU

The coalition is based on the model for target-focused pre-electoral advocacy successfully developed by
the Child Malnutrition Initiative in 2006.
These efforts have contributed to increases in public spending in social programmes, and to
improvements in key national indicators:
• Spending on the Government´s three priority Results-Based Budgeting programmes rose from $819m
in 2008 to $1,119m in 2010 (3.2% to 3.8% of total public spending).
• Chronic malnutrition in children under five fell from 28% in 2005 to 23.8% in 2009.
• Maternal mortality fell from 185 per 100,000 live births in 2000 to 103.3 in 2009.
• Children reaching standards in reading rose from 15.9% in 2007 to 23.1% in 2009, and in maths from
7.2% to 13.5%.
Millennium Development Goals & International Commitments NGO participants
 Erradicate Hunger  Reduce Child Mortality  CARE, Plan International, Save
 Achieve Universal Education  Improve Maternal Health the Children, World Vision
 Promote Gender Equality  Combat HIV & AIDS

CLIMATE CHANGE
CLIMATE CHANGE
Peru is one of the few mega diverse countries in the world: 27 of the 32 different types of climates found
on this planet can be found in Peru. It is the haven to a diversity of unique fragile ecosystems and
species, and to 71% of the world’s tropical glaciers. But it is also one of the 10 countries most vulnerable
to climate change (Tyndall Centre, 2003), and the area covered by glaciers has shrunk by a quarter over
the last 30 years.
Climate change is expected to reduce GDP by 6% by 2030, and by 20% by 2050. The poorest and most
excluded regions and populations are least prepared to adapt to such changes, and in 21 out 25 regions
of Peru agriculture is at critical risk, particularly due to water shortages.

ACHIEVEMENTS
• CAFOD, Christian Aid and Progressio have signed an agreement to work together to strengthen local
partner organisations and alliances working in the area of climate change, including MOCICC, the Citizens
Movement on Climate Change, which has also been supported by CARE and Oxfam GB.
• In the run-up to the local elections in 2010, regional
forums have been supported on themes of rural
development, climate change and natural resources,
enabling civil society and rural communities to generate
proposals and influence candidates. The process of advocacy
will continue during the upcoming national elections.
• CARE and WWF, meanwhile, have been working with the
Environment Ministry and local governments to develop
pilot Payment for Watershed Services initiatives in
Cajamarca in the North, and Cañete, south of Lima.
Reforestation and agroforestry contribute to improved
livelihoods in the upper parts of the river basin, while
sedimentation into the middle and lower parts of the basin
is being reduced, and in the medium-term, peaks in
Cindy Krose, Progressio.
seasonal rainfall patterns can be smoothed.

Results and impacts so far include:

• Several other organisations and networks have joined the MOCICC initiative, covering 10 of the most
vulnerable regions to climate change in Peru. The $10,000 contribution of British NGOs has been
matched more than 6-fold by other funders.
 THE CONTRIBUTION OF BRITISH NGOs TO TACKLING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY IN PERU

• MOCICC successfully lobbied the Ministry of Agriculture in August 2010 to include civil society
representatives in the National Climate Change Council.
• 629 hectares of agroforestry plantation and 218 hectares of forest planted in Cajamarca, with nearly
250,000 trees planted, supported by CARE, WWF, Regional Government, the private sector operator of
a hydroelectric plant (CAHUA) and irrigation users in the lower part of the river basin.
• CARE, WWF and Progressio partner SER are part of a group of organisations working with regional and
local governments in Cajamarca on subnational climate change adaptation strategies.

Millennium Development Goals & International Commitments NGO participants

 Ensure environmental  United Nations Framework  CAFOD, CARE, Christian Aid,
sustainability Convention on Climate Oxfam GB, Progressio, WWF
Change

EMERGENCIES AND DISASTER RISK REDUCTION

On 15 August 2007 Peru suffered an 8.0 magnitude earthquake, affecting over 600,000 people. Poor
families in rural and peri-urban areas in the regions of Ica, Huancavelica and the southern parts of Lima
were especially hard hit, and more than 75,000 houses were destroyed or made uninhabitable. Following
the earthquake, many NGOs worked to provide immediate humanitarian aid and to support rehabilitation
and reconstruction. Housing in rural areas is particularly vulnerable to earthquake damage, due to
construction with unreinforced adobe and other precarious materials. Prior to 2008, Government
programmes to support social housing only worked in urban areas.

ACHIEVEMENTS
• Christian Aid and Progressio, with local partner Asociación
Casas de la Salud, developed an innovative project promoting
collective reconstruction of housing for 16 families, using
alternative, low-cost anti-seismic technology based on local
materials like quincha (cane stalks) and traditional building
methods. The project was awarded an international architecture
prize in 2008, the experience was systemized, and other families
nearby are opting to build their new houses with the same
technologies developed.

• An advocacy coalition set up by CARE, Practical Action, local

universities and others after the earthquake - the ‘Safe and
Healthy Housing Group’ (GVSS) - has used their collective
experience in working with national and local government to
lobby for a new rural housing programme, whereby the Housing
and Construction Ministry would support safe and healthy
housing in rural areas, using anti-seismic technologies and
participatory constructive methods developed by GVSS members Maria Eugenia Lacarra, Progressio.
in their reconstruction programmes.

In September 2010, this was converted into a law, and approved by the Congress. Lessons and materials
on promoting disaster risk reduction in schools have also been shared between CARE, Practical Action and
Save the Children.
Other significant impacts and results include:
• Community cohesion and solidarity has been strengthened thanks to the collective building efforts.
 THE CONTRIBUTION OF BRITISH NGOs TO TACKLING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY IN PERU

• GVSS members have built 3,800 houses in rural areas, using quincha and reinforced adobe, with a
further 200 under construction.
• The Housing Ministry has announced the financing of 20,000 grants for housing for 2011, after the
passing of the Rural Housing Law.
• The Education Ministry launched a teachers´ manual on Risk Reduction in Schools in 2009.

Millennium Development Goals & International Commitments NGO participants

 Ensure Environmental Sustainability  Hyogo Framework for  CARE , Christian Aid,

 Develop a Global Partnership for Action (2001-2015) Practical Action, Progressio,
Development Save the Children

CONCLUSIONS
This document summarises some of the main coordinated actions of British NGOs in Peru. The examples
mentioned here are a snapshot of what we do in Peru, focusing in particular on where we have worked
together to increase results and impacts. In the context of a highly unequal middle income country such
as Peru, we believe that there is still a very important role for international NGOs to catalyse and
support the efforts of society as a whole towards greater equity. The social indicators presented on the
first page show how the principal challenge Peru faces is ensuring that growth generates significant
benefits for all sectors of society, particularly for the most excluded groups, who currently face similar
indicators of deprivation and violation of economic, social and cultural rights as the poorest countries in
Africa.

Three quarters of the world’s approximately 1.3bn poor people now live in middle income countries,
many of which face similar problems of inequality to Peru. We believe that there are lessons from efforts
to promote pro-poor political change that the British NGOs have been supporting in Peru that are highly
relevant to efforts to tackle inequality and exclusion elsewhere in the world. Those efforts will require
active collaboration amongst the NGO and donor community, to ensure shared learning and increased
cost-effectiveness of the results and impacts of our work. This has been our experience in Peru over the
last three years; we are firmly convinced such collaboration will need to continue if we are to remain
relevant to efforts to promote a fairer, more equal Peru in future years, and we are determined to work
together to achieve this.

¨For us, the Christian Aid-Cafod-Progressio alliance has been critical in

enabling us to start Regional Fora with Candidates, for which we have
received $50,000 in additional funding and so expanded to 12 regions
(half the country).¨ Julia Cuadros, Partner Organisation CooperAcción.

¨…parents have bring ancestral knowledge to us...children are learning

about their culture, they are learning to love their culture…¨ ¨…children
are happy to learn about their own culture…¨ Teachers´ Group Interview,
Ayacucho.

¨My children tell me: ´Dad, we now have a house.´ This has helped
motivate them after the earthquake. They were quiet and afraid, but I
have explained to them how buildings can withstand an earthquake.
They are much calmer now and feel safe in our house, because they The Governance Agenda developed
watched it being built.¨ Luis Maldonado, Tepro Alto, Ica. by civil society in the region of Puno,
with support from British NGOs

3. Sumner, A; Global poverty and the new bottom billion: Three-quarters of the World’s poor live in middle-income countries, Institute of Development Studies,
September 2010 - http://www.ids.ac.uk/download.cfm?objectid=F1D7952B-DE56-E3B4-B7282EC89A733915.