On Wednesday August 19, we held our third seminar entitled ‘Social security and the constitutional process: Towards an inclusive social pact’. The right to social security has been at the core of citizen demands in the past decades and its guarantee has become even more visible in the wake of last October's social unrest and the COVID-19 pandemic. In this seminar,  the panelists addressed the relevance and effectiveness of public and private social security systems, their relationship with public policies and fiscal spending, the principles and values that should inspire the construction of an inclusive social security system, as well as the obstacles and challenges to its constitutional incorporation.

One of the central topic of the seminar was presented by Isabel Ortiz on the experiences of reversing pension privatisations (more information in: REVERSING PENSION PRIVATIZATIONS. REBUILDING PUBLIC PENSION SYSTEMS IN EASTERN EUROPE AND LATIN AMERICA. Geneva, ILO, 2018)

 On this point, Isabel said:

"Of the 192 countries in the world, only 30 privatized their pension system. It was an experiment. Of these, 18 countries have reversed fully or partially the privatization. Chile is one of 12 countries left. ”.

Panelists:

Isabel Ortiz: Economist. Director of the Global Social Justice Program at Joseph Stiglitz's Initiative for Policy Dialogue, based at Columbia University. In 2013-2019, she was the Director of the Social Protection Department at the United Nations' International Labour Organization (ILO).

Jaime Bassa: Lawyer. Professor of constitutional law at Universidad de Valparaíso (Chile).

Luis Vargas Faulbaum: is a DPhil Candidate in International Development from the University of Oxford, an MA in Public Policy from King’s College London and a BSc in Sociology from the University of Chile. He has a broad experience as a researcher and consultant on social protection in developing regions with a particular focus on Latin America.

Chair:

Magdalena Sepúlveda: Former UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

You can check the video on our youtube channel HERE.