Weekly Report - 19 December 2006

PANAMA: Poverty challenge. The World Bank released a detailed report on poverty in Panama on 14 December, which concluded that "Panama does not need more social spending, what it needs is to invest the money better". The report focused on the period 1997 to 2003 during which time, despite average growth of 3.5%, poverty remained stuck at 37%, with indigence down slightly from 19% to 17%. On the plus side, the report hailed the Red de Oportunidades, launched in 2005 to provide direct subsidies to poor families. Shortly after its release, the national assembly approved a US$7.38bn budget for 2007, up more than 9% on 2006. Of this total, the same amount (20%) was assigned to social programmes as debt servicing. The Red will be widened to include 30,000 more families on top of the 24,000 that received assistance in 2006.

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