Fuente : World Bank
http://www.worldbank.org

Mexico Faces Entrenched Urban Poverty, Makes Progress On Rural Woes: World Bank

/noticias.info/ An economic shift away from agriculture has helped reduce rural poverty, but Mexico still faces staggering numbers of critically poor people in urban areas where low wages and unemployment are prevalent, the World Bank reported Wednesday according to The Associated Press.

Reducing entrenched poverty in urban areas has proven much more difficult, with no change in extreme poverty levels that can effect nutrition between 2000 and 2004, according to the study of income and social protection for the Mexican poor. "In our urban report we see that part of this is a lack of networks and of contacts for the poor when they search for work, the stigma of coming from a violent neighborhood ... a lack of access to transportation and child care and the low quality of education," said Isabel Guerrero, director of the World Bank for Mexico and Colombia.

Dow Jones adds that a shortage of jobs pushes many of Mexico's urban poor into self-employment in menial jobs, beyond the reach of government social services in the past. Meanwhile, a large portion of government spending on health and pension benefits are directed to workers in the formal private and public sectors. As a result, relatively few resources reach the poorest Mexicans, the study found.

The World Bank cited the potential to reach out to Mexico's poorest through a new federal health insurance system, Popular Insurance. But the program, open to the self-employed, was too new to evaluate. The new study was the fourth report the World Bank has conducted on poverty in Mexico, and the second the Mexican government has allowed to be publicized. The unpublished reports were completed in 1994 and 1999. Attending a presentation of the report, President Vicente Fox said, "Poverty does not disappear because you hide it."

EFE notes the World Bank study said that some 5.5 million Mexicans have climbed out of extreme poverty over the past five years. The percentage of the population in extreme poverty - defined as persons living on less than $2.00 per day - fell from 24.2 to 17.6 percent between 2000 and 2004, the report said. "Latin America is the most unequal region on the planet and Mexico is one of the most unequal and inequitable in the region," said the World Bank's vice president and chief economist Francois Bourguignon, referring to the gap between rich and poor. However, he emphasized that social programs such as the so-called "Opportunities" program and Popular Security, the aim of which is to aid the most disadvantaged social sectors, have helped reduce the level of extreme poverty since 2000. Half of Mexico's 106.5 million people are classified as poor, living on less than $4.00 per day, according to official figures.

The Herald and El Universal online (Mexico) also report on the World Bank report on Mexico. notas_de_prensa_archivo