LIMA, Peru: Around 130 million people in Latin America have never known anything but poverty, subsisting on less than US$4-a-day throughout their lives.
These are the region´s chronically poor, who have remained so despite unprecedented inroads against poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean since the turn of the century. Their situation is becoming more precarious as the economic boom that significantly contributed to reduce poverty dwindles. Regional GDP growth has slowed, from about six percent in 2010 to an estimated 0.8 percent in 2014.
The contraction will likely take away one of the biggest drivers behind the strong reduction in poverty: an improved job market.
A report takes a closer look at the region’s entrenched poor, who and where they are, and how policies and thinking will need to change in order to more effectively assist them.
Jorge Familiar, World Bank Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean, said, “Poverty exists and persists due to constraints within and without the households, everything from lack of appropriate skills and motivation to the lack of basic services such as clean water. In other words, supporting individuals is necessary but not sufficient. An enabling context that provides appropriate services is also crucial. Therefore, social policies and regional development need to go hand in hand.”
