Assessment of energy sector reforms: case-studies from Latin America

This article discusses three main issues. The first is the particular nature of poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) related to the growing importance of the urban poor. The second is the difficulty of analyzing the direct impact of energy reforms on the poor because most of the indicators studied could easily measure the impacts of phenomena other than those directly resulting from the reforms. The third is the reforms' indirect impact on poverty, which results from many of them having been carried out through macroeconomic schemes that caused local currencies to appreciate significantly. This monetary change undermined the productive system and increased foreign indebtedness and structural unemployment in these countries, leading to an increase in poverty.