About Poverty in Colombia. Multidimensional and Monetary.

To measure multidimensional poverty, several aspects are included, which are the following: the educational conditions of the home, the conditions of childhood and youth, health, work and access to public services. With these parameters, the official source has presented the results for the year 2.023 in Colombia, where it appears that 12.1% of the Colombian population is in the condition of multidimensional poverty.

There are 6.3 million people in this condition, of which in the Caribbean region there are 2.4 million, in the Eastern region 1.1 million, in the Pacific 0.7 m, in Antioquia 0.7 m and in the Central region 0.6 m.

The main characteristics of this poverty are informal work 71% of the population, low educational attainment 39%, school backwardness 24% and long term unemployment 14%.

Multidimensional poverty, measured with respect to the local population, is higher in the departments of Vichada 65%, Vaupés 56%, Guainía 52%, Guajira 43% and Chocó 37%. The departments with the least multidimensional poverty are Bogotá 4%, San Andrés 5%, Caldas and Valle del Cauca 7%, Cundinamarca and Quindío 8%.

Likewise, by region, those with the highest multidimensional poverty are Orinoquía Amazonía 25.6%, Caribbean 21.4% and Pacific 21%. The regions with the lowest records are Bogotá 3.8%, Eastern 11% and central 12%.

On the other hand, the official source also calculates monetary poverty, which, unlike multidimensional poverty, measures the value of the basic basket of food and services below which the population whose income is not enough to acquire it is considered poor. This population for the year 2.022 was 36.6% of the total number of Colombians, that is, 18 million inhabitants are in monetary poverty.

The cities with the highest percentage of population in monetary poverty are Quibdó 62.3%, Sincelejo 49.5%, Riohacha 48.8%, Valledupar 48.5% and Florencia 45.8%. For their part, the cities with the least poverty are Bogotá 28.1%, Cali 24%, Manizales 20.6% and Medellín 24.8%.

In absolute values, as mentioned, there are 18 million poor inhabitants, of which there are 2.2 million in Bogotá and 1 million in Medellín.

At the level of Latin America, according to International Organizations such as the World Bank, a comparison of the percentage of monetary poverty shows the following order of the poorest countries for the year 2.022: Guatemala 59%, Haiti 58%, Honduras 48%, Argentina 39%, Colombia 36.6%, Bolivia 36.4%, Mexico 36.3%, Peru 27.5%, Salvador 26.6% and Costa Rica 25.5%.

On the contrary, the countries with the least poverty are Uruguay 9.9%, Chile 6.5%, Jamaica 19.9% and Panama 21.5%. On this issue, of the OECD countries, Colombia and Mexico are the first.

It should be noted that in this group Colombia is the country with the greatest inequality (Gini of 0.55) followed by Costa Rica (Gini 0.47) and Turkey (Gini 0.42).

Of the Latin American countries, those that are closest to being considered developed countries are Chile first, then Uruguay and later Panama. Where some world organizations already include Chile at the level of Europe, North America and Asia, which has a Gini of 0.43 lower than others in Latin America. That of Uruguay is 0.41 and Panama 0.51.

The case of Brazil is that the country is outstanding in terms of the size of its GDP as it ranks 11th in the world, but it needs to overcome inequality (Gini of 0.52) and monetary poverty (31.6%) considered medium high.