Social Advances of the Chavez Administration

Interview with Alicia Barcena of ECLAC
CNN en Español (English Transcript)
February 7, 2009

A few days ago our CNN en Español lead anchorwoman Patricia Janiot spoke with President Hugo Chavez about whether or not Venezuela is affected by the global economic crisis. He spoke about some specific data from ECLAC. We invite you to discuss what we heard President Hugo Chavez say, to corroborate that data to see what we're discussing, whether it is correct or incorrect. We're going to show the part of the interview with President Hugo Chavez. Thank you. Chavez: According to ECLAC, Venezuela in the last 10 years has passed from being one of the most unequal countries in this continent, and now we are the least unequal country. In 10 years, poverty has decreased from 51 percent to 26 or 25 percent. Extreme poverty has decreased from 25 percent to 7 percent. Well, these are some figures, nothing more. It is a great leap forward. CNN: Ma'am, these figures, are they correct? Barcena: Effectively, let me tell you, Venezuela has progressed from 2002 to 2007 in an important way. According to the data, I can corroborate that unemployment has decreased from 11 percent to 7.4 percent. Poverty, effectively, was at 25 percent and is now at 8.5 percent, according to the data we have up to 2007. Perhaps they have more recent data for this year, but up to 2007, poverty went from 25 percent to 8.5 percent. Definitively, extreme poverty and poverty went from 51 percent to 28.5 percent. I believe that Venezuela has implemented social programs that we ought to evaluate. We at the ECLAC are very interested in participating in the evaluation of the Missions. He has given a great support to social spending. Actually, Venezuela is one of the countries that contributes the most to social and public spending. Practically 14 percent of what we call "public spending" is in the form of social spending. That is to say, yes, I can confirm that there are very positive indicators in the social arena.