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Poverty levels in Guyana still relatively high – IDB Report
According to one of the latest assessments of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), poverty levels in Guyana are relatively high and suggest important regional disparities.
In the March 2020 report which speaks to the state and evolution of inequality in the Caribbean region, it was noted that the poverty rate in Guyana declined from 43.2% in 1992 to 36.1% in 2006, the last year of available data from household surveys.
Pointing to a more recent measure by the Guyana Labour Force Survey, the IDB noted that the estimate stood at 41.2% in 2017 based on a poverty line of US$5.50 a day. With this in mind, the IDB assessed that poverty rates in Guyana exceed the Latin American (LA) and the IDB’s Country Department Caribbean regional averages of 26.54% and 25.23%, respectively .
Expounding on this front, the IDB said that the poverty data capture large disparities within Guyana.
According to the 2012 Census, the Bank said that approximately 89% of the population lives in the administrative regions along the coast, which includes the capital city, Georgetown, with approximately 26% of the population. The remaining 11% of the population resides in the rural interior, also known as the hinterland.
The Bank noted that the urban coastal areas have generally had lower levels of poverty, ranging between 27% in 1992 and 35% in 2017, while rural coastal areas have similar levels of poverty to the national levels.
The financial institution said that the rural interior areas recorded poverty rates greater than 70% in 1992 and 2006 and 55% in 2017. The Bank said that this is indicative of regional and ethnic disparities, as about 65% of the population in hinterland areas is indigenous, based on data received from the Bureau of Statistics.
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