Salvador Escobedo, head of the hugely successful poverty-alleviating program Oportunidades, said that the number of poor in Mexico increased from 42.6 to 47.4 million in Mexico, in the years 2006-2008.
Also, more people moved into the "extreme poverty" category- the figures went from 13.8 to 18.2 million - and Oportunidades are reporting a very disturbing increase in malnourishment and anemia.
These are some brutal and shockingly high figures, as they don't even reflect the full impact of the economic crisis that began in 2009 and lasted almost through 2010.
While Oportunidades, a conditional cash-transfer program under the ministry of social development, has in general been highly successful in areas such as reducing infant mortality, improving nutrition for children, raising school enrollment and reducing drop-out rates, and so forth, where a cash subsidy from the federal government is conditioned on mothers enrolling their children in school and taking them (and themselves) for vaccinations and check-ups, it is only, as Escobedo rightfully noted, a program of poverty relief, but not a program to eradicate poverty itself: it's full budget still does not exceed 5 billion dollars. Perhaps congress should consider raising its budget, as well as temporarily loosening the enrollment criteria to cast as wide of a net as possible:
In Mexico in 2011, millions are literally starving.
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