In 2000, world leaders developed the Millennium Development Goals – eight targets intended to eradicate global poverty and human suffering by 2015. See Tables 1.1 for a summary listing of the targets and Table 1.2 for more detail.

Because of word limit for ‘The Violence of Development’ book, discussion of the MDGs was omitted from Chapter 1. In-depth comment is also reserved for 2015, the MDG target year.

Paul Oquist, Nicaraguan presidential advisor, has noted that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has claimed that Nicaragua will achieve the UN MDGs, including reductions in poverty and malnutrition by 2015. CEICOM (Centre for Research into Investment and Business, El Salvador), on the other hand, estimated that the global economic crisis of 2008 added 39 million new people to the tally of those living in poverty in Latin America, giving a total of 189 million out of a grand total of 550 million Latin American population (34%)[i]. It is highly unlikely that Central America will have escaped this effect of the global financial crisis.

There have been varying reports about progress made towards the MDGs by Central America nations, and the official (?) verdicts are awaited in the target year 2015

[i] Figures from the United Nations’ Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).