Poverty in Colombia Increases for First Time in 15 Years

Official statistics from Colombia have shown that 2016 – the year that the government came to a peace deal with FARC rebels – was the first year since 2002 where poverty and extreme poverty had increased.

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Wednesday’s release of poverty data from Colombia’s National Administrative Department of Statistics shows that in 2016, poverty increased from 27.8 percent to 28 percent and extreme poverty jumping from 7.9 per cent to 8.5 percent.

Looking deeper at the statistics, urban poverty had increased from 9.1 percent to 10.6 percent, while a notable increase in Colombia’s capital and biggest city, Bogota, had increased.

If there was a silver lining, it was that in the country’s next biggest cities, Medellin and Cali, poverty continued its downward trend as well as for those living in rural areas, where the rate fell from 40.3 percent to 38.6 percent. The Pacific and Caribbean regions of Colombia were still seen to have the highest levels of poverty in the country.

However, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos did not seem phased by the new data, praising the continuing drop in the national GINI coefficient, which measures income inequality of citizens. In 2016, the country’s GINI coefficient decreased from 52.2 percent to 51.7 percent in 2016. Santos also said that since becoming president in 2010, almost 9 million Colombians have risen from poverty.

While Santos has been self-praising of reductions in inequality and of his success in coming to a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ending more than 50 years of civil war in November, other international bodies have warned that violence and war is still rife.

“Alarmingly, in large parts of Colombia, the armed conflict is alive as ever,” said Amnesty International America’s director Erika Guevara-Rosas on Monday. “Hundreds of thousands of people across the country have yet to see any difference in their lives since the peace accords were signed.”

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In particular, the government has been criticized for not carrying through a number of key commitments under the peace accords such as properly setting up transition zones for demobilized FARC soldiers.

Other violent right-wing paramilitary groups filling the power vacuum in territories left by the FARC have also wreaked havoc in rural areas and for human rights defenders. Colombia's second largest rebel group, the ELN, has entered peace talks with the government, but still remains an active force. Right-wing paramilitary groups, such as the Gaitanistas Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, commonly known as “Los Urabeños,” still operate and threaten Colombian citizens.

Last week, a report from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights found that in 2016 there were 389 attacks on social movement and human rights activists, including 127 assassinations. According to the UNHCR, in January and February 2017 alone 3,549 people from more than 900 families were displaced across Colombia. In 2016, a total of 11,363 people from more than 3,000 families were displaced.

The International Committee of the Red Cross had earlier warned that in light of continuing threats from paramilitary groups, “it is too early to talk about a post-conflict phase in Colombia.”