Fighting Rural Poverty in Latin America: New Evidence and Policy

Abstract

Poverty in most of Latin America is still more rural than urban. In Mexico, Central America and the Andean countries, more than 60 per cent of the poor live in rural areas, and their poverty is deeper than that in urban areas. Paradoxically, however, the most influential analysis on poverty has a strong urban orientation — leaving a big gap in understanding the nature and magnitude of rural poverty. The heterogeneity of the region’s rural poor — in education, per capita income, access to services, security of land tenure — makes this gap a big detriment when designing a strategy to alleviate rural poverty.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the comments of Hans Binswanger, Klaus Deiniger, John Heath, Yair Mundlak, Pedro Olinto, Cora Shaw, Moises Syrquin, Thomas Wiens, and anonymous reviewers. They also thank Tim Thomas, Claudia Binder, Suzanne Gnaegy and Hazel Vargas for comments and editorial support. This chapter benefited from the comments received at a seminar at the World Bank (Latin America Region), September 1997; Brasilia, July 1998 (Brazil); and CEPAL in Santiago, January 1998 (Chile).