There’s a song by T-Rextasy, an up and coming punk-rock band, that goes: "saw that you spent 7000 bucks farming in Peru." The name of the song is “Gap yr boiz” and it’s a good one, filled with witty and humorous lyrics. “Gap yr boiz” talks about preppy American tweens that go off to exotic lands and engage in some Instagram-worthy voluntourism. And T-Rextasy, a group of enlightened college students, sings the storyline of voluntourism for us.

Voluntourism is a relatively new phenomenon and it has spurred a lot of controversies. On the one hand, voluntourists are well-intentioned, and they contribute to the institutions in which they volunteer. Voluntourists are usually young adults between the ages of 20-25, and they help with choirs, the building of "infrastructure," mentoring, etc. However, a voluntourist’s profile isn’t that of a technically skilled folk who can build major infrastructure or make big repairs, and they don’t usually stay for prolonged periods of time, so their contributions are usually minimal. As for voluntourists who volunteer in orphanages, it’s been proved that they contribute to child institutionalization, and their monetary contribution incentivizes orphanages to operate as businesses, as these institutions usually run with little donations and see a profitable business in selling experiences to foreigners. So, weighing the ups and downs, it’s altogether an unethical practice.

This rant about voluntourism is only to preface my experience coming back to my hometown for summer break. I’m from Lima, Peru, and I’ve spent my summer back home. Last weekend, my dad took me on a helicopter tour of the city. The trip was beautiful but it was also a wake-up call. We flew and hovered over the coastline and the financial district of metropolitan Lima, but we also took a ride over the shantytowns of Lima, which are similar to Brazil’s favelas but on a much smaller scale.

I’ve always known that there is spatial discrimination and heterogeneity among the different districts in Lima. I’ve known that emerging Lima is way different from traditional Lima, which comprises the “richer” segments of the population. Flying over the shantytowns of Lima; however, was a tangible reminder. The route we took was the same as the one tourists go on when they take helicopter tours of the city, and much like a tourist, I felt a sense of alienation and shock to what I was witnessing. That’s when I realized that I was worse than the college graduate who came to Peru and spent 7000 bucks farming because I was the privileged college kid who toured her own city and got shocked at witnessing the inequities she reads about every Sunday at breakfast, minus the volunteering part.

Peru is a country in western South America. Its capital, Lima, hosts about 9 million inhabitants. Peru’s demographics are a bit irregular because even though the coast is the territorially smallest region out of the three regions (the highland and the jungle, being the remainder two), it hosts more than half of the population, 55% to be more precise. And out of that ±55%, 60% lives in Lima. So, it’s safe to say Lima is overpopulated. Hence, the presence of shantytowns, which grew rapidly in the 50s due to mass migration from other regions.

After the 80s, and the changing patterns of immigration, people started moving out of the center of the city to the peripheries because of the cheaper land, and that’s how the upper classes started living next to the lower classes on the outskirts of the city. It is also how inequality became more tangible. Irresponsible urbanization grew rampant, and that’s where we are now.

What next?

I refuse to be a pessimist, but we must do better. It’s not possible that a country with such a strong GDP is still growing unequally. If we want to stop seeing inequality and heterogonous growth, then we must address the factors that lead to those results. We must stop thinking that change will come as a byproduct of economic growth because it won’t. If we want to see change, then we must improve our human development indexes. Even though our GDP might rise in the next quarter, and the annual predictions seem favorable, we need to stay skeptic. In Peru, monetary poverty has experienced a steady decrease in the last decade, but multidimensional poverty hasn’t experienced the same drop. Underemployment still runs rampant and working conditions and securities are still meager.

Productivity, which is the driving force of long-term change, has undergone minor improvements in the last couple of decades. Our exports are not sophisticated, which makes us more vulnerable to negative shocks and price drops. We need to engage in some serious export sophistication, or else we won’t be able to compete for too long, and we’ll grow vulnerable. Never mind, that this also makes those employed in unproductive jobs more vulnerable to enter poverty. Just to throw a number out there, 56% of the employed population in Cajamarca, a Peruvian department, is employed in the least productive industry of the region. And according to the UNDP, 46.3% of the employed population has a vulnerable employment.

We must also strengthen our bureaucracy because otherwise, we’ll be stuck in a vicious cycle. We can’t adopt “one-size fits all” fixes to problems like the regionalization fix because our root problems haven’t been solved. True, regionalization would give more power to regional and local governments, which should technically help because small jurisdictions tend to reflect the needs of their populations more accurately than larger ones. However, if the bureaucracy of Lima isn’t qualified to design, implement, and monitor policies, neither is the bureaucracy of regional governments, which tend rank worse in all the qualifications.

What is the answer?

I think part of it is to be informed and stay skeptic. When you hear that poverty is going down, ask yourself: really? What about those who don’t qualify as poor by the officially disbursed statistics but are, by all means, and practical ends (they lack access to basic services, education, etc.) When you read that we are making major improvements in education, ask yourself: is it private education or public education? Is it just in Lima or is it nationally? It’s 2017 and in Loreto, a department in the jungle region of Peru, only 1.4% of the students can perform basic mathematic operations. When you hear that our GDP is growing, think if that’s only because the price of natural gas is on the rise, making us, once again, more vulnerable? Let’s not remain inactive under an illusion of wealth and rising macro economic indicators because while strong GDPs and counter-cyclical fiscal policies are desirable and represent true progress, if we don’t address the indicators that are directly related to our population’s well-being, well then, we might just be exacerbating all our problems.