Draft first regional report on the implementation of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development

<strong>Draft</strong> <strong>first</strong> <strong>regional</strong> <strong>report</strong> on the implementation of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development
Chapter III
in the Social Panorama of Latin America, 2017 (ECLAC, 2017c). This provides an up-to-date examination of
poverty in the countries of Latin America that includes the evolution of income poverty and the factors in its
recent trends, among other aspects. 4
Figure III.1 presents the percentage of the working population living below the international poverty line
of US$ 1.90 a day (at 2011 international prices), by sex, in the subregions of Latin America and the Caribbean. 5
The Caribbean has the largest proportion of the working population below the poverty line; nonetheless, this
proportion declined greatly in the period 2013-2016 for both men and women. Among employed women,
those of the Caribbean remain the most affected by extreme poverty, with a figure of 9.5% in 2016, although
this represents a drop of 17% from 2013. This reduction in poverty between 2013 and 2016 occurred in all
the countries of the subregion, usually to a greater extent among men than women. The greatest decline in
poverty among the employed population was in Haiti, a country with high poverty levels, where 29.5% of
employed women and 24.5% of employed men were below the poverty line in 2016.
Figure III.1
Latin America and the Caribbean: proportions of the employed population living below
the international poverty threshold, a by sex and subregion, 2013-2016
(Percentages)
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Total Female Male Total Female Male Total Female Male
The Caribbean Central America South America
Source: United Nations, SDG Indicators Global Database [online] http://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/database/ (accessed on 20 February 2018).
a
US$ 1.90 a day at 2011 international prices.
2013
2014
2015
2016
The situation also shows some positive signs in Central America, as there has been a tendency for extreme
poverty to decline for both men and women, and since 2013 the proportion of employed people living on less
than US$ 1.9 a day has been less than 3.5%. This sub<strong>regional</strong> average masks differing trends at the country
level, such as the 2.4% rise in poverty among employed women in Belize and the levelling off of declines in
Costa Rica and Mexico. The largest reductions in the period studied were in Nicaragua (-17.1%), Honduras
(-12.6%) and Panama (-11.9%).
In South America, although only a small proportion of the employed population (some 3%) lives in extreme
poverty, estimates indicate an upward trend since 2014, largely driven by Brazil (3.8%) and the Bolivarian
4
“Figures obtained from national measurements are used to describe the levels and recent trends of poverty in the individual countries, in most cases, drawing
on the official statistics used to monitor this issue. (...) The poverty figures estimated by ECLAC are generated with the aim of achieving the greatest possible
comparability for various analytical purposes; and, given their different objectives and uses, they certainly do not seek to replace the national figures to describe
poverty levels and trends in each country. As both data sets display similar trends, it is considered appropriate to use the national figures to describe the behaviour
of poverty in each country. Meanwhile, comparable poverty measurements are used to construct <strong>regional</strong> aggregates and analyse the drivers of poverty and how
different population groups are affected by it” (ECLAC, 2017c, p. 79).
5
These subregions are divided up according to the definition used by the United Nations for the SDG indicators, with Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti being
placed in the Caribbean subregion, Belize in Central America and Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname in South America.
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