Quito, Ecuador. Flickr. Some rights reserved.
A strong state. This is one of President Rafael Correa’s successes: the return of the state as a major economic player. Such is the perception, and in the regime’s early years there probably was some reason for thinking that this was indeed the case. The reality today, however, is quite different and it does not match with what is, in fact, an increasingly irrelevant impression.
Let us take the national health system as an example. The evidence offered in a recent report by the Economic and Social Rights Centre, Privatización de la Salud en Ecuador (Heathcare Privatization in Ecuador), suggests that while the healthcare system is outwardly public, the role of the private sector is increasingly a leading one, and its revenues are growing accordingly. Is this a contradiction? Maybe, or perhaps a tale of two realities.
