Peru in the 21st century: crisis and opportunity. Case study of the Cajamarca region

This brief essay analyzes the reasons why 204 years aher the Peruvian indepen- dence and 32 years aher the implementation of the neoliberal policies of Western capitalism our country has still not achieved the expected development in eco- nomic, technological, academic, social, and cultural terms that was predicted for peripheral countries under the Western model based on liberal democracy aher the Cold War.

Peru in figures

It is enough to consider some data on Peru as a whole, as well as macroeco- nomic level data, analyzed fr om the perspective of the present situation of a coun- try suffering from poverty in order to better understand the failure of the neoliberal model and the economic policies of liberal capitalism. The Peruvian Ministry of Economy and Finance reports that by December 2024, Peru’s economy has expe- rienced accelerated growth over the past eight months, with a 3.9 % growth rate in June of the same year — the highest rate in three years. However, this macro- economic growth has not resulted in poverty reduction, increased access to a food

basket, increased official employment, and bridging the infrastructure gaps in water supply, which, in my point of view, constitute the foundation for social, eco- nomic, and human development. Let me further provide some figures demonstrat- ing the failure of the economic system. In 2024, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Information (INEI), the population of Peru is 34,039,000 people, including 16,876,000 men (49.6 %) and 17,163,000 women (50.4 %). According to the Peruvian Institute of Economics, 9.8 million Peruvians are in poverty, which is a one-third of the entire population. According to the National Youth Secretar- iat of the Ministry of Education, the total number of young people aged 15 to 29 in 2023 was 7,875,000 (i. e. a quarter of the national population). However, only
30.9 % of them have access to higher education, which is equivalent to 2,362,000 people. Meanwhile, 25 % of university students are in poverty, which means that more than half a million future professionals, politicians, and civil servants live in poverty, studying in universities with outdated laboratories and without access to advanced technologies. I believe this indicator is important because young peo- ple are the human capital, as well as the labor and political reserve of the coun- try. According to the Peruvian Research Institute, in 2023, 9,780,000 Peruvians were in monetary poverty, which means that 29 % of the population had income insufficient to cover the minimum consumption basket. Meanwhile, 1,922,000 people earn less than 251 sols per month (less than 8 sols per day), which means they live in extreme poverty. Comparatively, the cost of a lunch in Peru is 7 sols. In 2022, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Information, 58.8 % of employed Peruvians worked in the informal sector, without social protection, labor contract or stable employment. Only 26 % of the population had an offi- cial job, registered in accordance with labor law, social insurance, benefits, and labor rights. In terms of gross value of production, the informal sector of the Peru- vian economy accounts for 28 % of national monetary value. According to Alex- andra Ames Brachowicz, head of the Policy and Governance Observatory at the University of the Pacific School of Public Administration, in the article published in 2022 in “Evidencias” magazine, states as follows: “…the informal agricultural sector provides 23.3 % of employment at the national level; these jobs are, of course, also informal. In addition, it should be noted that the agricultural sector consumes the largest share of the labor force in the country’s economy, i. e. 27.5 % of the total quan- tity…” In other words, only 4.2 % of agricultural activity in Peru is official, which is a contradiction of the neoliberal economic system, since Peru is a predominantly agrarian country in a historical, cultural, and economic context. According to the INEI, the economically active population employed in the agricultural sector at the regional level is concentrated in Cajamarca, Puno, and Cuzco (26.6 % of the total number), while Moquegua, Madre de Dios, and Tumbes represent the lowest proportion — 1.4 % of the total number. It should also be taken into account that 54 % of all agricultural units are concentrated in the highlands, 31 % — in the for- est area, and 14 % of the country’s total number — on the coast. According to data

published on the official website of the regional government of Cajamarca, 64 % of the population lives in rural areas and is engaged in agriculture, which amounts to 900,000 residents of the region. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Information, the provinces with the highest percentage of rural population are San Miguel (90.4 %), Santa Cruz (86.1 %), and San Pablo (83.5 %). Cajamarca covers an area of 32,000 km². Agriculture in the region is largely self-sustaining and does not use rain-fed irrigation technologies, i. e. rainwater dependent. In this regard, Cajamarca engineer Andrés Castro, in a recent 2024 publication for the Cajamarca Regional Information Network, notes, “The deficit in water infrastructure is very significant, we do not have rainwater retention tanks. These are political decisions that require the involvement of the three levels of government, as well as the private sector and local communities. We will have more capacity to do a number of things if these things are done”. In this sense, we note that the lack of water infrastructure does not enable the development of the agricultural sector, and thus the elimina- tion of food security gaps.

Access to water: key factor in human development

•    Poor access to high-quality water is a serious obstacle to the development of human capital. In Peru, this problem is still unresolved, despite the existence of government programs to reduce the gap in access to this basic and vital ser- vice that ensures the health of the national population. This is a public policy set out in article No. 7 of the Political Constitution: “Everyone has the right to healthcare” (access to quality water guarantees health protection).
•    Inadequate access to water adversely affects the development of the human abilities of the population and directly affects health, education, and the envi- ronment. The National Superintendency of Sanitation Services (SUNASS) reports that 10 % of the Peruvian population does not have access to drinking water, which is more than 3 million 400 thousand people. Furthermore, 23 % of the country’s population, which is more than 6 million Peruvians, do not have access to sewerage networks.
•    According to the National Superintendency of Sanitation Services, diarrhea cases are reduced by 10 % in homes connected to a water supply, and the rate is reduced by up to 20 % when sanitation facilities are available.
•    According to the Latin American Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (LATAM) from the Latin American Researchers Network, issue No. 5 dated March 2024 titled “Social and Environmental Impact of Sanitary Sewerage Systems” confirms that access to potable water reduces chronic childhood malnutrition by 13 % by preventing acute intestinal infections. Furthermore, a 10 % increase in water supply coverage reduces the anemia rate in the com- munity by 7.9 %. The situation of water access remains unfavorable in the Caja- marca region. According to the data from the Peruvian Institute of Economics,

between 2022 and 2024, water and sanitation coverage increased from 27.8 % to 45.5 % among 1,468,000 citizens. This means that more than a half of the population of the Cajamarca region does not have access to water and sewer- age, which makes the region the most disadvantaged in northern Peru in terms of the provision of this vital service. Analysis of the situation in rural areas of the Cajamarca region shows that, according to official data from the National Institute of Statistics and Information, only 22.5 % of rural households have access to water supply. Taking into account that 60 % of the region’s popula- tion lives in rural areas, this means that approximately 352,320 (three hundred and fihy-two thousand three hundred and twenty) residents of the Cajamarca region have no access to either water or sewerage.

Conclusion. International arena. Opportunities for Peru

The twenty-first century increasingly brings us into a post-Western world wh ere neoliberal hegemony and the increasingly obsolete Westphalian nation- state have already played their part in history, and the predatory interests of the Davos Forum techno-plutocracy and Anglo-Saxon capitalist hegemony are moving to the end. Meanwhile, aher the dark night of savage capitalism, which consid- ered South America and certainly Peru as its backyard, the light of a new century is now being predicted fr om the Cajamarca region in the new international relations of the BRICS countries, which at their last meeting in 2024 at the Kazan Forum denounced the illegal application of discriminatory economic sanctions, required to transform the international financial system, reorganize the World Trade Orga- nization in order to better represent the interests of developing countries such as Peru. It is crucial for Peru to launch the opening of academic, political, and gov- ernance spaces wh ere we will discuss commercial opportunities with (Eurasian) countries such as the Russian Federation and Asian countries such as the People’s Republic of China, which are at the forefront of technological innovation and eco- nomic, scientific, and human development. In this regard, we highlight the words of the General Secretary of the United Nations at the Sixteenth BRICS Forum in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024. He called for the acceleration of the international financial architecture reform, emphasizing the same point reflected in the Kazan statement that the current financial system does not provide many vulnerable countries (such as Peru) with the necessary safety net and level of support we need, stressing the need for a transformation that reflects the economic realities for the most vulnerable in the 21st century. We also emphasize the opportunity provided by the BRICS area to strengthen development cooperation by seeking interna- tional cooperation to address the gaps highlighted in this paper. We are confident that the area, represented by me today (Cajamarca Province Municipality, the local government body of our country’s government), is bringing my region, Cajamarca, closer to the new global economic dynamics of the 21st century, which, based on

the ideas of a multipolar world, reflect a collective vision of a fairer world within the framework of a new cultural paradigm. For us, people from the Cajamarca region, it is also important to seek technology transfer to our institution of higher education, the National University of Cajamarca, as well as student mobility with universities of this new paradigm of human development, which will strengthen the human capital of those 30 % of Peruvian young people who are the academic, intellectual, and labor reserve of our country. In terms of trade, Peru has a lot to offer this new world. Under the appropriate technological conditions, we could engage more than 500,000 hectares just in Cajamarca, which are currently not used for agriculture production due to the lack of water infrastructure and technology in the agricultural sector. This paper is just a sketch of the opportunities in the tech- nological, academic, political, and administrative spheres that we are considering in line with the new paradigm of the BRICS countries. In this sense, our search for international co-operation for development is carried out from the positions I am currently engaged in. I am Coordinator of the Social and Human Develop- ment Department of the Cajamarca Province Municipality, Chairman of the Inter- national Cooperation and Foreign Trade Committee of the Cajamarca Chamber of Commerce, and Director of the Centre for Research for Development “Social Strategy” of the National University of Cajamarca. We are always eager to establish international relations with states in the new paradigm of a multipolar world and seek international co-operation for development.