Caribbean & Central America - February 2012 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Poverty: Aside from security, Pérez Molina has also moved on his other main electoral promise, the establishment of a new social development ministry to institutionalise the anti-poverty programmes begun under Colom. The new ministry will oversee programmes such as Colom’s flagship conditional cash transfer (CCT) scheme ‘Mi Familia Progresa’ (Mifapro), on which the former president claimed to have spent Q$2.195bn (US$373m) during his four-year mandate. Hailed as one of the main successes of the previous government, the programmes are credited with reducing the rate of extreme poverty to 13.3% in 2011 from 15.2% in 2006. (The overall poverty rate was 53.7% in 2011).

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