Poverty and child mortality increased in Colombia in 2018, according to the government.
Statistics agency DANE said Friday that the country’s poverty rate increased slightly last year to 27%.
Poverty went in cities with 0.5 percentage points to 16.2% and in the countryside with 0.1 percentage point to 36.1%.
Colombia’s poverty rate
The increase in poverty was echoed in the GINI index, which measures the level of inequality. According to the DANE, this index went up from 0.51 in 2017 to 0.52 last year.
The slight increase in poverty took place amid skyrocketing child mortality rates released earlier this year.
According to the National Health Institute, 346 children died of preventable diseases related to malnutrition in 2018, which is 36% more than the year before.