Weekly Report - 24 March 2011 (WR-11-12)

COLOMBIA | Poverty. President Juan Manuel Santos has launched a national social prosperity plan, which aims to reduce extreme poverty to 10% from 16.4% by the end of his mandate in 2014. Santos made the announcement during a public appearance in Quibdó, the capital of the Pacific coastal department of Chocó, one of the poorest regions, with greatest income disparities, in Colombia. An official study last year concluded that 19.8m people were living under the poverty line in Colombia, the equivalent of 45.5% of the total population of 43.7m. The report said that 7.1m of those beneath the poverty line were indigent, which means they earn less than Col$120,000 (US$64) a month. Santos said that previous government plans had merely attacked moderate poverty but his priority was to assist the poorest of the poor.

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