News stories by Darío Montero

'Now it's just a matter of showing the projects to the governments so they can transform them into public policies,' said Martín Hopenhayn, director of social development for the Latin American and Caribbean economic agency ECLAC, at the close of a conference here that showcased thousands of community-based development initiatives.

'On Dec. 15, we will make the great leap ahead when we present our health programme, our hospital boat, to the country,' Caetano Scannavino announced in the name of a community project that has achieved one of its aims: to be included in the Brazilian government's social policies.

Left-wing candidate José Mujica was elected president of Uruguay with nearly 52 percent of the vote Sunday, seven to eight percentage points ahead of his rival, the right-wing Luis Alberto Lacalle, according to projections by pollsters.

Community control of public funds will no longer be just an effective local idea, put into practice by social activists and community leaders in a town in southern Brazil. Now that it has won first prize in ECLAC's fifth Social Innovation Contest, it is likely to spread throughout Latin America.

The streets of the Uruguayan capital are a blur of white, red and blue in the final stretch to Sunday's elections, which the governing left-wing Broad Front coalition stands a good chance of winning.