Social Policy, Territorial Development or Poverty Trap: Case of Mártir de Cuilapan, Guerrero

Abstract

Social policy is a mechanism whose purpose is to establish or create conditions of social equity, promoting the exercise of social rights and the incorporation of the beneficiaries to a development model based on entrepreneurship. The objective of this research is to analyze whether the public expenditure exerted in Mártir de Cuilapan, Guerrero, in the framework of the National Crusade Against Hunger (CNCH), met the purpose of developing and strengthening the main economic branches of the municipality. Theoretical approaches to social policy, sustainability, territory, territorialization and poverty trap were reviewed, basic concepts for the analysis of social policy. In addition, information was collected through structured and semi-structured interviews; and databases of the beneficiaries of federal agencies, as well as information from the 2014 economic census of the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (Inegi). As a result of the interviews and the elaboration of the typology of the economic activities of the municipality, it is observed that the impact of the public expenditure carried out within the framework of the CNCH was not as expected. Most of the economic sectors of the municipality are part of the non-basic sector of the economy, have a non-dynamic position and do not have a competitive performance; only economic sectors 31-32, referring to manufacturing industries, are part of the basic sector of the economy. Therefore, most economic sectors have a dynamic position and non-competitive performance. The highest public expenditure was directed to the rural communities of the municipality, and the results obtained show that the territory and its reality are elements that impose the need to rethink the approaches of social policy.