Venezuelans’ Quality of Life Improved in UN Index Under Chavez

[Purveyor]

By Charlie Devereux and Raymond Colitt - Mar 7, 2013

Venezuelans’ quality of life improved at the third-fastest pace worldwide and income inequality narrowed during the presidency of Hugo Chavez, who tapped the world’s biggest oil reserves to aid the poor.

Venezuela moved up seven spots to 73 out of 187 countries in the United Nation’s index of human development from 2006 to 2011, a period that covers the latter half of Chavez’s rule, which ended with his death March 5. That progress trails only Cuba and Hong Kong in the index, which is based on life expectancy, health and education levels.

The improvements financed by his government’s oil profits will aid Vice President Nicolas Maduro’s bid to succeed him. Yet rising crime and inflation, crumbling infrastructure, oil output that dropped 13 percent since 1999 and food and power shortages may derail economic growth and undermine support for Chavez’s policies in the longer term, said David Smilde, a sociologist at the University of Georgia in Athens who lives in Venezuela.

“He gave a third of the population a sense that they mattered, the material benefits they got are part of his legacy,” said Julia Sweig, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said by phone from outside San Francisco. “But he destroyed the village in order to rebuild it, taking property, spending oil money without reinvesting, mismanaging the resources.”

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-07/venezuelans-quality-of-life-improved-in-un-index-under-chavez.html

[malaise]

1. We were discussing this yesterday

under democracy and development

[The Magistrate]

2. But...But...He Was...Tyrant...Dictator...Killed Puppies, Cute Cuddly Innocent Puppies! By the Dozen!

[Wilms]

4. Sir! I am aghast at your dissemination of such lies!

It was kittens. Cute, cuddly, innocent kittens.

[The Magistrate]

6. I Am Sure I Read It In the Telegraph, Sir

But perhaps it was something to with oil? Rendering puppies down for oil, which he wanted foreign companies to pay more for? To finance his fiendish schemes to see poorer people have more to eat?

"The mind wobbles...."

[killbotfactory]

3. No, no, no. He bought the votes of the poor with food and homes....

He squandered the massive oil wealth of Venezuela by using the money in ways which were POPULAR! This is what socialist dictators do!!!!

It is all quite disgusting if you are a rich person, employed in the oil industry, or an op-ed page in a mainstream news publication.

[Mnemosyne]

5. Damn him!

[Mnemosyne]

7. Kick

[Mosby]

8. poverty in venezuela

Under the government headed by President Hugo Chavez, in office since 1999, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has pursued a political programme based on the creation of a more egalitarian society and the sustainable integration of rural poor people into the national economy. The government invests considerable resources in rural poverty reduction.

Although the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is one of the most highly urbanized countries in Latin America, poverty in the country has a prevalently rural dimension. About 11 per cent of Venezuelans live in rural areas, and in those areas more than 50 per cent of the population is poor, compared to about 40 per cent in urban areas.  Widely accepted poverty indicators (2005) from the National Institute of Statistics show that over 38 per cent of the total population lives below the poverty line and that 10 per cent of poor people live in extreme poverty. In rural areas about half of all households are poor and about 30 per cent of them live in extreme poverty.

In absolute terms, the number of poor rural households has been estimated at 286,000, including 172,000 households living in conditions of extreme poverty. The poorest segments of the rural population include indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, inhabitants of semi-arid territories and landless households headed by women. All of the groups are targeted by IFAD projects.

Most studies of the causes of the persistence of poverty in the country conclude that in the short term poverty is closely related to inflation and unemployment. But in the long term, according to the studies, structural poverty is related to education, economic growth and productivity. Poverty rates have been closely connected to economic cycles. The total poverty headcount ratio has risen from an estimated 33 per cent in 1975 to 53 per cent in 1988, 64 per cent in 1990 and a peak of 70 per cent in 1995. Later it decreased to 53 per cent in 1997, 41 per cent in 2000 and 39 per cent in 2001. The economic crisis in 2002 pushed rural poverty to more than 55 per cent in 2003, after which it declined to the most recent estimate of 38 per cent in 2005. The incidence of extreme poverty, or indigence, has shown similar trends but has been much more sensitive to inflation.

Agriculture generates about 5 per cent of the country's GDP and satisfies about 40 per cent of domestic demand. Only one tenth of the country's 2.7 million hectares of arable land are irrigated and is usually comprised of large farms. Smallholders commonly have no title to land and they lack access to irrigation, technical assistance and markets. Because their income from agriculture is not sufficient to meet their basic needs, farming households sell their labour for wages. About one third of the active poor population, including members of small-scale farming households, work for wages in agricultural or non-farm activities.

Despite recent efforts to promote national food security, the country is still a net importer of many basic foods, including grain, meat and milk. Between 2005 and 2007, the volume of food imports rose by 44 per cent from 3.1 million tonnes to 4.5 million tonnes, but the cost of those imports soared 208 per cent, from US$1.9 billion in 2005 to US$5.8 billion in 2007. Meanwhile, growth in domestic food production has been modest, amounting to about 6 per cent in 2007. These data show the vulnerability of the economy to global food price inflation. If economic growth decelerates in the medium term, and if the exchange rate is devalued significantly – both of which are likely – shortages of key basic foods could become more severe.

Although there has been a rapid and drastic deterioration in the country’s fiscal position during 2009, the ongoing period of pro-poor policies, programmes and social spending presents an opportunity to secure the access of vulnerable rural groups to key productive assets and services and supporting policies financed by abundant resources from oil revenues. The challenge for policymakers is to make good use of present financial resources to correct inequalities and generate a productive base that may be more competitive and less dependent on oil. To help the government respond to this challenge, IFAD projects are introducing innovative approaches for the social and economic development of vulnerable rural groups. The approaches include furthering development of key agro-productive chains, assisting rural women and youth in strengthening their social and economic organizations through leadership training and support services, and improving sociocultural cohesion levels.

Gender and rural women

Among poor rural people, women and indigenous peoples are particularly vulnerable. Only 1.6 per cent of economically active women work in agriculture, yet women account for 14.2 per cent of the country’s rural labour force. They work as wage labourers in medium-size and large farms and industrial enterprises. Women are hired in large numbers to harvest traditional crops such as coffee, cocoa, fruit and vegetables. They work as graders and dryers during the tobacco harvest, and in livestock production, processing and marketing.

The country has made outstanding progress in reducing gender disparities in recent decades. Women obtained the right to vote in 1946. The Law of Equal Opportunities for Women was enacted in 1993, and the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution prohibits gender-based discrimination. In adjudicating rural land the Land Law of 2001 gives preference to women who are heads of households. And women are guaranteed a food subsidy during pregnancy and after childbirth. Several institutions have been created to assist women. They include the Ministry of Popular Power for Women, the Development Bank for Women and the National Prosecutor for Women’s Rights. In addition, a Basic Law on the Right of Women to a Life Free of Violence was passed in 2006.

A lower fertility rate in recent decades has facilitated women's entry into the labour market. Women constitute more than 36 per cent of the economically active population. A greater proportion of women are literate, compared to men. Enrolment at the primary school level is approximately equal for boys and girls, but more women than men are enrolled in secondary school and in universities. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that women occupy 61 per cent of highly qualified jobs. But women's salaries on average are only 42 per cent of men's salaries in equivalent jobs. There are more women than men in the informal labour market and women have higher unemployment rates. The number of households headed by women is growing rapidly, and these households are more likely to be poor or extremely poor than others. In rural areas the proportion of households headed by women is higher than in urban areas.

http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/country/home/tags/venezuela