ABOUT US Who we are and how we work
In late 2011, Andrónico Luksic, a Chilean businessman, invited professor Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel to form a working group to think about Chile’s broad development challenges and develop reform proposals on a wide range of public policies. Thus Grupo Res Publica Chile (GRPC) was born, with personal financial support provided by Mr. Luksic and coordination by Schmidt-Hebbel. GRPC worked with full independence from the financial provider, who learned about the group's proposals, jointly with the general public, at the time of their release. The purpose of GRPC was to think about our country, identifying its major challenges and weaknesses in the light of a technical and political diagnosis and, fundamentally, preparing proposals for reforms that contribute to the ultimate goal of a better Chile. This book is the result of our work and presents 95 proposals related to our political, economic, and social reality. Our aim is that our ideas contribute to the public discussion required to drive the reforms that our country requires to be more broadly developed, more socially inclusive, more politically stable, and better represented, and with happier individuals and communities. Grupo Res Publica Chile hopes to contribute to broad agreements that will allow Chile to move along this path. To that end, Grupo Res Publica Chile convened a group of professionals of diverse political standings and expertise. GRPC certainly does not reflect the wide range
of positions and viewpoints of all Chileans. But its members represent different technical, value-based, and political views about Chile’s challenges, its priorities, and the ways to address them. The group’s diversity has contributed to the significance of the analysis and discussion, reflected by the 95 proposals presented in this volume. Although the proposals presented in the chapters are signed by individual authors, they were revised and refined over fifteen months of weekly plenary meetings of GRPC. Diagnoses and policy proposals were intensely discussed to collect critiques, suggestions, and contributions of all members of our Group. Therefore, while the proposals represent the views of each chapter’s authors, they reflect collective inputs to the widest possible extent. Close to one hundred top-level experts, politicians, parliamentarians, government officials, and academics were also involved at the different stages of the project. We are very grateful for their valuable contribution. Their names are listed below. In particular, we thank Fernando Flores for his contribution to the discussion and analysis of proposals and diagnoses, and Rodrigo Terré for his assistance in the project’s management. We are also grateful for event management and consulting provided by María de los Angeles Ferrer throughout the project. Our work started in late 2011 with an overall diagnosis of Chile’s challenges, for which both GRPC members and outside experts presented their views. Then we se-
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95 propuestas para un Chile mejor