Poverty In Colombia Essay

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1. POVERTY IN COLOMBIA
Over 26% of the world’s population living in poverty, originates In Latin America (The Borgen Project, 2016). Poverty is a very broad subject, but its main factors are: lack of basic necessities such as water, housing, food; dependency on the state for education and healthcare; but also the lack of power to change anything (World Bank, no date). Colombia ranks about mid-scale, with the poverty rates decreasing but still worrying and high compared to the best countries. People living in poverty account for over 30% of the country’s population (Colombia Reports, 2017). The poverty percentage is highly unequal between rural and urban settings, with the first one being nearly 60%, and the following under 20% (Colombia Reports, …show more content…

SOURCES AND CAUSES OF POVERTY IN COLOMBIA
Colombia’s citizens have been ravaged by a war which lasted 5 decades. An abundance of people lost their land and assets, and as much as 5,7million were forced to relocate. In result creating major wealth and population inequalities (Fleter & Renwick, 2017). Following this, the government has often forgotten about its citizens, placing the war as its priority. Some cities in the southwest are nothing compared to their counterparts in the centre of the country. For example, Buenaventura has an official unemployment rate of 18% when the average is 9%, this large inequality also affects poverty, as 80% of people are poor (Dias, 2017). The regions with lower incomes and population density also see lower funding from the government and possess less public institutions. One of the results of the state being so week is that tax revenue only contributes 1% of GDP (Fergusson, Molinaz, Robinson, & Vargas, 2017) leaving little money for reinforcing the law. A different source of inequality might be that educated people in Colombia can expect wages far better than those without education (Ramirez, Bacarreza, & Jetter, 2015). People in rural areas often do not finish school (see: Appendix 1) and as a result cannot expect good wages, widening the gap between cities and …show more content…

It used to be the biggest cocaine producer in the world, while nowadays it sill contributes over half of the world’s production (Colombia Reports, 2018). People in rural areas have little-to-none opportunities and the well-paid jobs apart from the oil trade and mining are very limited. Thus desperate locals were more willing to turn to illegal practices (Worldview Stratfor, 2015). A law from 1994 which divided the country into “stratas” was meant to improve the quality of life for poor people, decreasing taxes and some home costs (Singh, 2013). However this was not the case with the law dwindling social mobility and segregating society, it also shown how unequal the society was, with 89% being in the groups considered “poor” (Hudson,

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