REGIONAL FACT SHEET FROM THE WORLD DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS 2007
Latin America and the Caribbean
Many countries in the region have made impressive gains in
social indicators. With 98 percent of the children completing
primary school, the region has effectively reached the MDG
goal of providing universal primary education to its children.
The region has achieved a secondary school enrolment rate
of 86 percent in 2005, an increase of 35 percentage points
since 1991. Except in three countries, over 80 percent of the
population had access to an improved water source in 2004.
With over 90 percent of its children immunized against
measles and DPT, the region has also made impressive
gains in reducing child mortality. The child mortality rates
declined from 54 per 1,000 in 1990 to 31 in 2005, the lowest
child mortality rate among all regions।
Despite impressive achievements in health and education, poverty rates remain high. In 2004 8.6 percent of the people in Latin America and
the Caribbean were living on less than $ 1 day, and between 2002 and 2004, the number of people living on less than $1 a day fell by only
one million people, leaving approximately 47 million people in extreme poverty. Another 74 million were living on less than $2 a day.
Macro conditions improved
Macroeconomic indicators show positive signs. Inflation has been brought down
to single digit levels in most countries where double digit rates were common
in the 1990s. The region as a whole ran a trade surplus for the last three years,
reaching $45 billion in 2005. As a result, many countries were able to reduce their
external financing needs. The public debt profiles of many countries improved:
total debt service was 22.5 percent of exports in 2005, 9 percentage points lower
than 2003 and 16 percentage points lower than 2000. Similarly debt service ratio
to Gross national income has also fallen by 2.6 percent to 8.8 percent in 2005
compared to 2000.
Latin America and the Caribbean: the most urbanized developing Region
Today, half the world’s population lives in urban areas.
Urban populations are expected to grow by 1.8 percent
a year through 2030—almost twice as fast as the total
global population. Most of this increase will occur in
developing regions. No region is more urbanized than
Latin America and Caribbean. In 2005, 77 percent of the
region’s population lived in urban areas—almost as high
as high-income economies’—and the region has four of
the ten largest cities in the world in the region. However,
as cities grow the cost of meeting basic needs increases, as
do the demands on environmental and natural resources.
Between 1990-2005, Latin America had the highest investment in infrastructure projects with private participation
Private participation in infrastructure projects in developing countries plummeted after the 1997 Asian financial crisis and declined for
several years afterward. But in 2004 and 2005 infrastructure investment increased. During 1990-2005 Latin America and the Caribbean
accounted for more than 40 percent of total investment in infrastructure projects with private participation. By 2004-2005, as investment
in other regions increased, Latin America & the Caribbean’s share fell to about 23 percent of global investment in infrastructure projects
with private participation. Three Latin American and Caribbean countries—Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, are among the top five
countries with total investment in infrastructure projects with private participation, 1990-2005.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
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