Top UN experts on Latin America and the Caribbean have warned that global economic shocks could throw some 16 million people of the Americas into extreme poverty, threatening important gains toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the region.
Concluding a two-day meeting at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the regional directors of 13 UN agencies promised joint action to ensure continued progress on the MDGs in the Americas over the next two years. MDGs aim at sharply reducing or eliminating several social and economic ills by 2015. They were set by the world leaders at the Millennium summit at the UN.
The region has already reduced the proportion of the population living in poverty from 48% in 1990 to 35% in 2007, thanks to sustained economic growth over the past decade coupled with poverty reduction strategies. But this still leaves 190 million poor people, of which 70 million are extremely poor.An additional 16 million people could be forced into extreme poverty as a result of the economic slowdown that began in mid-2007, primarily due to declining remittances, slower growth in exports, and lower prices on manufacturing exports.
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