Secretary General of the Organisation of American States (OAS) José Miguel Insulza says more than 70 million people have been lifted out of poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean in recent years.
Speaking to the Sunday Guardian at the Hyatt Regency hotel, Port-of-Spain, recently, Insulza said, “The explosive growth of the last decade has lifted a lot of people, more than 70 million, out of poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“Most of it occurred in 2009. This period was marked by economic growth, decline in poverty, and more stable democracies.
“These levels were not equal for every country however, some may have had critical moments, others grew at a double digit pace, but in general the decade provoked a reason of optimism for Latin America and the Caribbean.
“During this period, some economists felt that the world had turned upside down and that it was the era of Latin America.”
“The reason for that was basically the fact that some countries were better managed from an economic point of view, they had saved a lot of reserves in the previous years, had a lower rate of debt, banks were not exposed, but what played a major role was the large increase in exports.”
He said in that decade, the price, volume and frequency of commodities grew. Mining and food products increased to a great extent for the export market.
Insulza said trade and exchange with China also grew exponentially during this period—from US$4 billion to a staggering US$71 billion.
He said trade between China and the region was still ongoing, but not on the scale from that period.
The secretary general said despite the progress, the economies of Latin America were going to be faced with more difficulties since internal consumption had not risen, probably because of the distribution of income and the slowdown of foreign investment in the region.
He said several countries were already tackling some of the problems. Some of the measures undertaken are: more economic reforms, an improvement of the quality of education, improvement in the investment in science and technology, and more progressive tax systems that will increase the value and power of middle class people.
Insulza said there was a social danger that needed to be address—that of the vulnerable people who had left poverty but were on the threshold, if the economy declined, of slipping back into poverty.
He said there was good news forecast for the future. Insulza said even though the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted a slowdown in economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2014, there will be recovery in 2015, according to the organizations latest report called “Legacies, Clouds, Uncertainties.”
Insulza said the IMF predicted that an increase in oil prices will benefit the region’s oil exporters as Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, and will also affect the rest of countries.
14 and under and female headed households in T&T are high risk groups—Ahmed
Minister of State in the Ministry of Gender, Youth and Child Development Raziah Ahmed in a telephone interview with the Sunday Guardian said that in T&T the percentage of people living below the poverty line—of US one dollar per day —stood at 14.8 per cent. She also said only 1.2 per cent of the population fell below the minimum dietary consumption.
Ahmed said the population aged 14 and under totalled some 273,280, while female headed households accounted for some 33 per cent or 27,098 of households in the nation. These are the two high risk groups in the country, Ahmed said.
She said based on poverty data the world over, women and children were most likely to be vulnerable and defenceless against the scourge of risky behaviours that lead to noncommunicable diseases, adolescent pregnancy, inadequate schooling, illicit drug use, alcohol abuse, delinquency, and other similar matters.
In addition, Ahmed said those that preyed upon young women and teenagers making them drug mules, gang members, or illicit traders of varying kinds continued to be a burning problem.