Fighting Rural Poverty in Latin America: New Evidence and Policy

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.