Peru

Overview

Peru is a significant partner in the promotion of democracy, stability, security, and human rights throughout Latin America. Its economy has been among the best performing in the region in recent years, mainly due to strong mineral and hydrocarbons prices. Growth in Peru's gross domestic product slowed from 9.4 percent in 2008 to 2.2 percent in 2009. However, sound macroeconomic fundamentals, adequate fiscal reserves, and a healthy anti-crisis plan have positioned Peru relatively well to weather the global economic crisis.

Despite aggregate economic growth, income inequality persists. Some 2.2 million individuals (8 percent of a population of 29.5 million) live on less than US$1.25/day. Women, children, and indigenous people living in rural areas and the highlands are the most vulnerable.

Peru has embarked on an ambitious decentralization reform process and is addressing regional disparities by bringing decision-making and delivery of public services closer to rural populations. This will address social conflict and manage and redistribute revenues (in large part derived from the extractive industries) so they directly target the poor and marginalized through increased health and education services.

Although Peru has made significant strides in education in recent years, the quality of education remains among the lowest in Latin America and the Caribbean, as shown by below­average scores for math and reading (UNESCO 2008). Peru's government has made it a priority to improve education standards, with special attention to reducing inequality by targeting rural areas and disadvantaged populations such as indigenous groups, women, and girls.

Thematic Focus

In 2009, as part of Canada's new aid effectiveness agenda, Peru was selected by CIDA as a country of focus. The overall goal of CIDA's program in Peru is to reduce inequality in educational and economic opportunities for excluded populations in Peru.

Peru provides a framework for donor alignment through its National Policy on International Technical Cooperation (NPITC) for 2006-2011 (PDF in Spanish, 560 KB, 25 pages), which ties together the national, sectoral, and regional policies that make up the country's development plan. Following an assessment of Peru's key development objectives of human development, economic growth and sustainability, and governance, Canada is responding to Peru's priority needs as expressed in its NPITC.

Children and youth

CIDA focuses on strengthening the quality and efficiency of basic education, including intercultural education, for Peruvian girls and boys in rural areas and among indigenous populations by enhancing the managerial and technical capacity in education at national, regional and local levels.

Economic growth

CIDA focuses on increasing the participation of vulnerable populations in economic development through market-driven skills for employment programs and effective corporate social responsibility initiatives for the sustainable well-being of communities. CIDA also supports the Government of Peru's decentralization reform by strengthening the capacity of regional governments to plan and deliver equitable and inclusive public services to their citizens and to sustainably develop the extractive and natural resources sector (especially mining).

Progress on Aid Effectiveness

Peru adheres to the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (PDF, 317 KB, 23 pages).

Ongoing efforts are required by donors to continue progress on aid effectiveness in partnership with Peru's International Cooperation Agency (APCI) (Spanish only). CIDA is an active member of a number of donor committees, including education; governance; decentralization and modernization of the state; and equality between women and men.

Canada played a key role in creating a joint multidonor initiative in support of Peru's Ombudsman (Defensoría del Pueblo) (Spanish), the key Peruvian organization which addresses human rights issues.

Accomplishments 2009-2010

Children and youth (2008-2010)

• Increased reading comprehension of Grade 2 students―from 3.9 percent in 2008 to 16 percent in 2009―and in mathematics learning outcomes―from 5.3 percent to 15.4 percent over the same period―in La Libertad
• Trained teachers in the Learning Through Play initiative, which focuses on programs for children from disadvantaged and poor communities, and increases parents' knowledge of early childhood development in remote locations. The trained teachers are now training more than one hundred other teachers.

Economic growth

• Supported Percan in its development of methodology to identify and prioritize mining legacies, which the Ministry of Energy and Mines approved, helping Peru obtain a $330 million World Bank Development Loan

Post-earthquake

• Supported CARE's Huancavelica Reconstruction Project, which has built 414 houses in response to the 2007 earthquake and has seen its methodology and technology used in the nationally approved Rural Housing Program

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