Do Our Children Have a Chance? A
Human Opportunity Report for Latin America and the Caribbean

This book reports on the status and
evolution of human opportunity in Latin America and the
Caribbean (LAC). It builds on the 2008 publication in
several directions. First, it uses newly available data to
expand the set of opportunities and personal circumstances
under analysis. The data are representative of about 200
million children living in 19 countries over the last 15
years. Second, it compares human opportunity in LAC with
that of developed countries, among them the United States
and France, two very different models of social policy. This
allows for illuminating exercises in benchmarking and
extrapolation. Third, it looks at human opportunity within
countries, across regions, states, and cities. This gives us
a preliminary glimpse at the geographic dimension of equity,
and at the role that different federal structures play. The
overall message that emerges is one of cautious hope. LAC is
making progress in opening the doors of development to all,
but it still has a long way to go. At the current pace, it
would take, on average, a generation for the region to
achieve universal access to just the basic services that
make for human opportunity. Seen from the viewpoint of
equity, even our most successful nations lag far behind the
developed world, and intracounty regional disparities are
large and barely converging. Fortunately, there is much
policy makers can do about it.