Poverty

Poverty

The poorest departments in Colombia

The departments with the most people in conditions of extreme poverty are Chocó, with 49.9 percent; La Guajira, with 47.9; Córdoba, with 40.3, followed by Magdalena, with 36.1, and then Sucre, which has 35.7.

Colombia learned last Thursday of the second report of this government on its results against poverty. According to DANE, 32.7% of Colombians are in this condition (a decrease of more than 4.5 points in two years), while in the multidimensional poverty index (which considers different living conditions of people) 27% of nationals are located.
The director of the Department of Social Prosperity, Bruce Mac Master, is the one who heads the task of lowering those figures and can already say that he fulfilled a first goal: to remove the country from the list of the ten most unequal nations in the world.

The country starts uphill the tasks to lower poverty

The Iván Duque government's navigation chart outlined the defeat of reducing the poverty level to 21 percent in the four-year period ending in 2022, reaching 4.4 percent of extreme poverty and locating the inequality index (Gini coefficient) at 0.47, a level that has never been reached.

The figures revealed by the Dane in these indicators show that the State will have to redouble its efforts on these fronts, since, for example, while between 2014 and 2018 the indicator of monetary poverty fell 1.5 percentage points, the The Government's objective, under the goals outlined in the Development Plan, is to push it back 5.9 percentage points, to locate it at 21 percent by the end of 2022. In other words, down from the nearly 13 million people who in 2018 were in poverty to 9.9 million people at the end of 2022.

What the Plan will give

The poverty and unemployment data do not take the government by surprise, Alonso told EL TEMPO. That is why he warned that the big bets of the plan - which will have investments of 1,100 billion pesos - are focused on people, with very specific goals and plans to crash against informality.

“We knew that the migratory shock could make the country lose that path of poverty reduction, but as people enter the productive apparatus they will begin to generate income and demand products. Everything is reflected in our goals and we believe that Colombia will be able to grow at rates of 4.5 percent after 2022 ”.
 

The Government is fully convinced that what is approved in the plan will not only be enough to set the country on a very long-term growth path, but also to connect it with the so-called fourth industrial revolution.

5 high-impact measures to combat poverty and inequality

Through an analysis of the behavior of poverty and inequality at a global level, a World Bank study proposes these high-impact strategies in the fight against these factors. Access to quality education and progressive taxation are part of them.

1. Development and nutrition in early childhood

These measures help children during the first 1,000 days of life, since nutritional deficiencies and lack of cognitive development during this period can cause delays in learning and lower school performance in later stages.

2. Universal access to quality education

Although access to education has improved in recent years, emphasis now needs to be placed on ensuring that all children receive a quality education. "In the education of all children, priority must be given to universal learning, knowledge and skill development, as well as the quality of teachers."

3. Universal health coverage

According to the World Bank, coverage of affordable and timely health care services reduces inequality and at the same time "increases the capacity of people to learn, work and progress."

4. Progressive taxation

Equitable progressive taxes allow financing the government's policies and programs that are necessary to equalize conditions and transfer resources to the poorest inhabitants. In addition, tax systems can be designed to reduce inequality while keeping efficiency costs low.

5. Rural infrastructure

Rural road construction reduces transportation costs, connects farmers to markets, and promotes access to schools and health centers.

"It is rare for there to be a rapid decrease in rural poverty without rapid structural and / or rural transformation taking place," says a study by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

"Some of these measures can quickly reduce income inequality and others generate benefits more gradually, but none is a miracle solution," said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim.

Despite the financial crisis, in 60 of the 83 countries included in the new report to track shared prosperity, between 2008 and 2013 there was an increase in the average income of people who are part of the poorest 40% of your respective country. It is important to note that these countries represent 67% of the world population.

Technical Bulletin Monetary Poverty in Colombia Year 2018 Research carried out by the DANE

1. MONETARY POVERTY

Monetary poverty line The poverty line is the minimum per capita cost of a basic basket of goods and services (food and non-food) in a given geographic area2 . Table 1 presents the domain-level results that correspond to the population-weighted lines of the areas that make up each domain. Differences between changes in the CPI and those of Poverty lines are explained by the dissimilarity of the geographical weightings that assign each investigation. In 2018, the national poverty line was $ 257,433, which is equivalent to growth 2.7% compared to the 2017 line located at $ 250,620. According to the above, if a household is made up of 4 people, it will be classified as poor if the total income of the home is below $ 1,029,732. If the family lives in the headwaters this value is $ 1,132,956; if you live in populated centers and dispersed rural areas, it is $ 676,740; if you live at thirteen cities and metropolitan areas is $ 1,135,312 and if you live in other cities it is $ 1,129,580.

2.  Incidence of monetary poverty

Poverty incidence measures the percentage of the population that has an income per household capita below the poverty line according to geographic domain. In 2018, the percentage of people classified as poor with respect to the total population national was 27.0%. In the headwaters this proportion was 24.4% in populated centers and dispersed rural 36.1%, thus, the incidence of poverty in populated centers and dispersed rural Equivalent to 1.5 times the incidence in the headers.

3.Incidence of monetary poverty by cities

The Large Integrated Household Survey (GEIH) allows disaggregation of poverty information monetary for 23 capital cities. In 2018, the cities that experienced the highest increase in their incidence of monetary poverty were Pasto, where it went from 20.2% to 25.4% and Cúcuta, where monetary poverty increased from 33.5% to 36.2%. The cities that They stood out for the reduction of monetary poverty were Manizales, where it decreased 13.8% to 11.9%, and Villavicencio, where it fell from 19.5% to 18.1%.

4. Poverty gap

The poverty gap or intensity measures the amount of money a person lacks poor to stop being in that situation, that is, to reach the poverty line. It is calculating the difference between the income of each person classified as poor and the line of poverty and is weighted by the number of poor people. In 2018, the monetary poverty gap reached a value of 9.8%, while in 2017 the poverty gap was 9.7%. For the domain of headers, it registered a value of 8.7% and in Populated centers and dispersed rural areas of 13.8%. During 2017 these rates were 8.6% and 13.4%, respectively.
In 2017, the poverty gap in populated centers and scattered rural areas was equivalent to 1.6 times that of the headers and in 2018 this equivalence was maintained. In 2018, the lowest gap was presented in the thirteen cities and A.M., where it registered a value of 5.3%, followed by headers with 8.7%. Finally, the widest gaps are registered in populated centers and dispersed rural with 13.8% and other headwaters with 13.4%.

5. Decomposition of changes in monetary poverty

This section shows the results of the decomposition of the variations in the incidence of poverty between 2017 and 2018, following the Shorrocks and Kolenikov methodology.
This methodology evaluates the effect of three components on changes in the incidence of poverty: change in the poverty line, income growth, and redistribution.
The variation of the poverty line produced an increase of 1.1 percentage points in poverty at the national level. The highest effect of the variation of the line was presented in populated centers and dispersed rural areas (1.4 percentage points).