Pico Bonito - "Beautiful Peak" La Ceiba, Honduras

Honduras Poverty

The Honduran population is approximately 7.1 million with an income per capita of US$1,030. Forty percent of the population is less than fifteen years old and the annual population growth rate is two and a half percent.¹ Currently, almost thirty percent of Hondurans are unemployed² with forty-eight percent living below the national poverty line and more than twenty percent living on less than US$1 a day.³ In December 2005, Honduras was the poorest country in Central America and the second poorest country in the western hemisphere behind only Haiti.⁴ In Honduras, a total of seventy percent of the population lives in rural areas and eighty percent of rural people live below the poverty line5.⁵
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Political Situation
During the 1980s Honduras was considered a political linchpin in United States Central American politics, with the contra infusion funded directly by the U.S., bringing economic and political attention to the largely unnoticed nation. Since the disintegration of such political passion, substantial United States aid and attention has drastically diminished. To this end, there is also a large disparity in Honduran national governmental attention to rural areas. Most rural areas and populations get little attention or assistance from the "far-away" government, which is focused on attracting capital and interest internationally rather than domestically.

Honduras is a stable political democracy, with a popularly elected president and an elected Congress.

Hurricane Mitch, October 1998
The destruction caused by Hurricane Mitch, the fourth most powerful hurricane ever measured in the Atlantic, left much of the nation in shambles. Causing over 7000 deaths, destroying 80% of agriculture, and leaving nearly 20% of the population homeless (Honduras Institute of Tourism), Hurricane Mitch halted the economic progress of Honduras, bringing economic progress down from approximately 6.0% to 4.0% per annum (World Bank). Exacerbated by decades of unsustainable extractive industries and deforestation, mudslides caused catastrophic damage to the nation's transportation and communication infrastructure by destroying crops, livestock and homes. Mitch decimated what little capital and material resources rural towns had to begin with.

Honduras Today
The social programs in Honduras are inadequate to support the population, particularly in rural areas that are typically less addressed than the more densely populated urban areas. Women are not provided with enough equal opportunities to better themselves. In the absence of local opportunities, bright, motivated young people must leave their communities to expand their horizons, thus depriving these towns of another valuable resource. Additionally, migration of the uneducated to the cities simply shifts the scenario of poverty from a rural to an urban setting, causing increased begging and crime in the cities. Little capital means little to build from. There is little to no infrastructure to promote trade. Rural economies are at a base level and unable to grow.

Hope for the Future
The future wealth of Honduras will require the proper utilization of its natural resources: the land and the people. For the rural micro-entrepreneur, there is no lack of desire to raise a happy and healthy family, raise the standard of living, become literate and make their business flourish: the non-material means are there. What the population lacks is the economic assistance to accomplish their goals. The window is now; the opportunity is the Adelante Foundation.

1	Source: World Bank Report on Honduras, 2006
2	Source: 2007 CIA World Factbook
3	Source: United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Human Development Report 2006
4	Source: UNDP, Human Development Report 2006; Based on per capital income using US$ PPP
5	Source: International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD)