Institutionalities of the social protection system in border lines: methodological experience and results obtained

Abstract

This is text presents the methodological process and the main results of an evaluation carried out for the MERCOSUR Social Institute (ISM) on social protection systems in six pairs of twin cities located on the borders of the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) countries. To this end, information on MERCOSUR's and MERCOSUR's political and administrative mechanisms and states parties, services, programmatic actions and local demands covering the health, social security, education and social assistance sectors, whose indicators have a negative impact on the international borders MERCOSUR. Methodologically, we used the approach developed by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean to evaluate the institutionality of social policies, which identifies four dimensions that concretize the level of citizenship in regional, national and local spaces - legal and normative, organizational, technical-operative and fiscal. The results point to the slow legal implementation of the regulations and bilateral agreements between the States Parties. On the organic-ministerial dimension, the distinct form of national public organization in social protection in the countries of the bloc stands out. In the substantive dimension, the controversies regarding the criteria of access of national and non-national to services in the field of health and social protection were frequent, which signals to the divergence among managers as to the degree of universality to be obtained. It is concluded that the methodological approach used favored the construction of the proposed diagnosis favoring the elaboration of a plan of action to overcome the challenges identified.