Colombia’s capital city Bogota has experienced a 1.2% drop in poverty rates since 2007, according to the index of Unsatisfied Basic Needs (NBI).
Aware of the multidimensional nature of poverty, the NBI gathered information by surveying three factors: quality of life, income and living conditions.
Bogota’s interim mayor, Clara Lopez Obregon, explained that the number of poor households decreased 9.1 points from 21.9% in 2007 to 12.8% in 2011. Poverty rates decreased from 26.5% to 25% during the same 4 years.
Lopez Obregon said that the government “achieved a huge reduction in the percentage of people in poverty in the capital of the republic, which is great news and is primarily due to the great social investment that was introduced in 2004 in the capital (…) We went from an average of $2.06 billion to $2.58 billion in health, education, food, childcare [spending], which has generated a huge impact on this indicator.”
Bogota has also seen increases in the number of students enrolled in public education as well as improved performance on standardized state tests.
Infant mortality rates per 100,000 live births fell from 48.6 in 2007 to 39.1 in 2010, and pneumonia fatalities dropped from 17.6 per 1,000 inhabitants in 2007 to 14 in 2011.
Almost 2,000 acres of land were also generated for public housing between 2008 and 2011.