POVERTY IN VALPARAISO

According to the article "Human Development in the Communities of Chile", written by the Chilean government, the line of poverty is defined as such: The situation of poverty is considered as those homes whose income is insufficient to satisfy the basic necessities, food, water, supplies, or other, of its members. The extreme poverty is considered those homes which, although putting the entire income towards the satisfaction of the most basic necessities of their household, does not succeed in satisfying them adecuately. A home is considered poor when its per capita income is less than two times the value of a basket of basic necessities, in the urban area, and 1.75 times in the rural area, where spending in the service areas has less importance. A home is considered to be in extreme poverty when the per capita income is less than the value of a basket of basic necessities. The value of the necessities in a rural area is less than the value in an urban area.

I decided to include many measurements to give an idea of the economic situation of Valparaiso, not only the poverty itself, but the economic and human development. From these measurements, one can have an idea as to the economic situation of the city, and the region of Valparaiso in general. This is not focused specifically on the poverty within the city and its location in the hills, but it is aimed at giving a view of the situation that exists, in regards to the poverty and human development.

INACER
INACER is the calculation of the Indicators of the Regional Economic Activity. It is a measurement aimed at showing the economic growth. INE, in conjunction with other organizations, designed this methodology. It has been applied in all regions of Chile, and some regions have received technical support from private and public groups to provide an even more complete version of the economic situation.

The objectives of INACER is to contribute to the permanent progress of the economic measurements, look for a system of signs to analyze and evaluate the evolution, tendency and dinamics of the regionel economic activity, and provide information to the authorities about the economy.

INACER is a synthesis of indicators and statistics produced by INE, at a regional level. It tries to identify the rhythms and tendencies of the economic activity, either acceleration, lack of movement, and or desceleration. It incorporates subsectors that are more relevant to each region.

There are 11 principal sectors that INACER takes into consideration, and some examples are fishing, mining, industry, construction, living property, and transportation. Its periodicity is monthly.

In Chile, some regions have succeeded in a dynamic economy, while others stay consistently behind. In 1998, the Fifth Region showed a decline economically, and in Valparaiso, there was a great fluctuation in the fishing area. In 2006, there was growth, led by the sectors of "Other services" (social, community and personal services), transportation and communication, and manufactural industry.

The Index of Human Development

Human development is the process of the amplification of the capacity of the people. All efforts should have at the center the people, and they have to be considered not only beneficiaries, but true social subjects.

The Index of Human Development (IDH) bases itself in the equality, potential, cooperation, sustainability, security, and productivity.

The difference between poverty and human development is that the IDH gives a more comprehensive vision of reality. The IDH shows the accumulation of human capacity and poverty emphasizes what the population lacks. The IDH has multiple dimensions, and poverty is limited to economic aspects. The IDH indicates how far or near an area is to an ideal goal, and poverty shows the percentage of the population that is below a certain "minimal" level of material opportunities.

In Chile, the IDH is based on three aspects, health, education, and income.

The results show that Chile has increased consistently its IDH in the period 1990-1998, and the successes of the human development have not been equally distributed throughout the regions. A relationship between human development and economic advances does not eist. The results of the IDH have been more homogenous in the regions than the evolution of economic successes.

Regarding the IDH on the community level, this reinforces the existance of important territorial inequalities in the advances of the human development in Chile, when the profiles of the advances in IDH of the regions show homogeneity. The communities with the greates presence of rural population show consistently lower levels of human development.

The community of Valparaiso occupies the fourth place in the classification regional, with an IDH of 0.780. The levels of advances are high and equal in regards to the health and education, but the income is behind. 95% of the population of the region pertain to communities with a high to very high level of IDH. The Greater Valparaiso area maintains a homogenic standing in regards to the human development in all of the dimensions. Only the city of Valparaiso itself differs from this group in the health dimension. The population has 93.1% in between an IDH of 0.7-0.79.

Through the research, I have found that the poverty situation is improving in the region as well as the city. The percentage of the poor and extremely impoverished continues to fall every year, and the level is currently below the national level.

The following maps show views in two dimensions and three dimensions of the poverty in Valparaiso. The green colors correspond to the areas with the least amount of poverty, and the red colors correspond to the areas with the most amount of poverty. I will present my conclusions in the next entry.