The indigenous economy is the most vulnerable

They are more than 42 million and speak more than 500 languages. Despite benefiting from the expansion of essential services over the previous decade, they remain relegated.

The World Bank’s study on Latin American Indigenous in the 21st Century, proposed the standardization of available data on indigenous peoples and to identify their status after the “golden decade” of the early 2000s in the region.

On the one hand, indigenous peoples have greater visibility and recognition in political decisions, but on the other, the differences persist: without going further, a native family is almost three times more likely to live in extreme poverty than one that is not, according to the World Bank.

In urban environments, for example, indigenous households often live in more insecure, unhealthy and prone to natural disasters conditions than other urban residents. In general, the probability of living in extreme poverty is 2.7 times higher than in the case of the non-indigenous population.

Being born of Indigenous parents markedly increases the likelihood of growing up in a poor household, which prevents the full development of indigenous children and anchors them to poverty.