The ILO’s specialist, Helmut Shwarzer, highlighted that Uruguay is one of the leading countries in social security issues in America.

Last Thursday Schwarzer participated in the memorial of the 22º anniversary of the creation of the positions of director representatives of workers, businessmen and retired people, in the board of the Social Security Bank (BPS)

The expert talked about the social dialogue role in Uruguay. “In Uruguay, social dialogue experience is in the core of the model and praxis of social security, which is a pioneer country in America”.

He pointed out that the BPS model, with a social director for each sector (employers, workers, retirees), which is the most advanced in Latin America and the Carebeean, and at the same time, “it allows an effective participation, high levels of transparency in decision making and performance evaluations of the programs to the constituents”.

The expert also stated that the dialogue has enable “to negotiate important changes during the past decade”.

Social security

Schwarzer said that the social security policy in Uruguay “has developed in a positive way during the past ten years.”

“The incidence of poverty measured through income continues to show a decreasing trend which took it from 39, 9% to 11,5% among people throughout the country during the period 2004-2013”, mentioned the ILO’s expert.