Indigenous Peoples, Poverty and Human Development in Latin America

Indigenous people constitute a large portion of Latin America's population and suffer from widespread poverty. This book provides the first rigorous assessment of changes in socio-economic conditions among the region's indigenous people, tracking progress in these indicators during the first international decade of indigenous peoples (1994-2004). Set within the context of existing literature and political changes over the course of the decade, this volume provides a rigorous statistical analysis of indigenous populations in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, examining their poverty rates, education levels, income determinants, labour force participation and other social indicators. The results show that while improvements have been achieved in some social indicators, little progress has been made with respect to poverty.

GILLETTE HALL is an economist at the World Bank. Raised in Latin America, she developed an early interest in issues of poverty, and later faced these challenges first hand as a volunteer in the small rural village of Nepena, Peru. Her work at the Bank focuses on helping partner governments development successful policies for poverty reduction. She holds an undergraduate degree from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a Ph.D in Economics from the University of Cambridge, UK. She has taught at the University of Oregon, in her hometown of Eugene, Oregon, and at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. She has published journal articles and papers on poverty and development in Latin America.

HARRY ANTHONY PATRINOS is Senior Education Economist at the World Bank. He manages several projects in the Latin America region and specializes in the economics of education. He is one of the main authors of the report, Lifelong Learning in the Global Knowledge Economy. He has many publications in the academic and policy literature and is co-author of the books: The Policy Analysis of Child Labor: A Comparative Study, Decentralization of Education: Demand-Side Financing, and Indigenous People and Poverty in Latin America: An Empirical Analysis (with George Psacharopoulos). He has also worked in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America and has previously worked as an economist at the Economic Council of Canada. He has received a doctorate from the University of Sussex.