UN Wire
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20030722/449_6821.asp
Few Latin American States On Track For Millennium Goals
Just seven of 18 countries in Latin America could cut extreme poverty in
half by 2015 ? a key target of the Millennium Development Goals agreed to
by U.N members in 2000 ? without significant reforms, according to a report
by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the United
Nations Development Program and Brazil's Institute for Applied Economic
Research.
According to the report, Meeting the Millennium Poverty Reduction Targets
in Latin America and the Caribbean, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Panama, the
Dominican Republic and Uruguay could achieve this goal if economic growth
and reductions to inequalities continue at the same pace as in the 1990s.
Argentina would also have been on target to reach the goal, if not for its
recent economic crisis.
The study found that by reducing the Gini index ? which measures income
concentration ? by a couple of points, most of the countries studied would
achieve the same reduction in poverty as would result from many years of
economic growth. If conditions from the past decade remained the same, the
report said, extreme poverty in Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Mexico and Nicaragua would decline slowly. However, without a significant
change in conditions, poverty levels would rise in Bolivia, Ecuador,
Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela due to either increased inequality, declining
income or both (ECLAC release, July 21).
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