By IANS
Caracas : The Venezuela government said Wednesday that it has met some of the benchmarks laid out in the United Nations’ Millennium Goals programme, which aims at reducing extreme poverty by half, much ahead of the 2015 deadline.
Planning Minister Jorge Giordani said, “Extreme poverty in Venezuela currently stands at 7.8 percent” of the population, down from 21 percent in 2002, Spanish news agency EFE reported Thursday.
Speaking at a press conference Wednesday, attended by a number of ministers as well, he said the figures show that Venezuela has reduced extreme poverty by more than 50 percent, eight years ahead of the target date.
Education Minister Adan Chavez said an existing illiteracy rate of just over four percent proves Venezuela has also met the goal of universal primary schooling.
“By 2008 we should have, if not everyone literate, all (illiterates) in the classroom environments” provided by the government’s literacy programme, the minister added, referring to an initiative that draws heavily on techniques developed in Cuba.
The leftist government of President Hugo Chavez, first elected in 1998, has channelled a significant amount of Venezuela’s huge oil revenue in the wake of rising global crude prices into social programmes, but some petroleum industry observers say Caracas is not re-investing enough in state-owned oil company PDVSA.
Besides poverty-reduction and education, the Millennium Goals include gender equality, reducing infant mortality, battling AIDS and other infectious diseases and promoting sustainable development, among other things.