Colombia saw poverty increase in 2018. At least 346 children died of hunger last year while the country’s three richest men reportedly owned more than 10% of the country’s GDP.
Colombia poverty rate
Poverty in Colombia increased in 2018. According to statistics agency DANE, some 190,000 people slipped into poverty while some 26,000 were able to raise their income to above the poverty line.
Authorities began measuring poverty in 2002 and have since diminished the national poverty rate from 49.6% to its lowest level ever in 2017.
Source: World Bank / DANE | More data on Colombia’s GDP and economic development
Undernourishment
Lowering poverty and income inequality in Colombia are most visibly urgent when looking at the country’s undernourishment rate, which has only been effectively tackled since 2010.
Source: United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization
Income distribution
The 2018 World Inequality Report said Colombia’s extreme inequality has decreased over the past decade, but continues to be “stubbornly high.” The country’s top 10% earners received 39% of the country’s income in 2017, according to the World Bank.
Source: World Bank | More data on Colombia’s GDP and economic development
GINI coefficient
The extreme disparity in wealth between the country’s elite and the 346 toddlers who died of malnutrition in 2018 has been difficult to combat. The country’s 2018 GINI coefficient increased to 52.
Sources: DANE / CEPAL
Urban vs. rural Colombia
Poverty in Colombia’s countryside has traditionally been considerably higher than in the cities.
Source: World Bank | More data on Colombia’s GDP and economic developmentt
Regional poverty distribution
Colombia’s poorest province in 2017 was the western Choco province, exactly like the years before. Many parts of of the country’s peripheral regions have effectively been excluded from the country’s formal economy.
Source: DANE | More data on Colombia’s GDP and economic development
Infant mortality rate
Poverty and communities’ lack of access to health care was blamed for the death of at least 346 children who died of preventable diseases in 2017, according to Colombia’s National Health Institute. The majority of these cases were related to malnutrition, which killed more than 14 children per thousand births that year, according to the World Bank.
The regions most affected by high child mortality are historically neglected regions on the Pacific coast, the Caribbean coast and the Amazon jungle.
Source: World Bank | More data on Colombia’s GDP and economic development
Infant mortality rate per province
Urban poverty in Colombia
Bogota was Colombia’s only big city that succeeded in maintaining its poverty rate in 2018. Both Medellin and Cali saw their poverty rates increase.
Source: World Bank | More data on Colombia’s GDP and economic development
Colombia’s urban wealth disparity
Colombia’s failed to reduce extreme wealth inequality in 2018. Particularly Medellin saw a major rise in the GINI coefficient that measures levels of wealth disparity.
Source: DANE | More data on Colombia’s GDP and economic development
