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After 40 years of return to democracy and ten general elections, Hondurans have seen little change in their fragile economy. Fighting corruption and creating jobs are some of the challenges for whoever assumes the Presidency.
Poverty, unemployment, insecurity and corruption, among other scourges, have worsened in Honduras since the return, in 1980, of the constitutional order to the country. Therefore, improving these indicators is the main challenge of the next presidential term.
40 years ago, poverty affected 60% of the population, while today seven out of every ten Hondurans are poor, according to public and private sources cited by the EFE agency.
According to the state National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), poverty in the Central American country increased to 70% in 2020, with an increase of 10.7 percentage points compared to 59.3% in 2019.
Meanwhile, unemployment at the end of 2020 was about to touch double digits, double that of a year ago, when the unemployment rate was just over five percent. The Gross Domestic Product contracted 8.9% in 2020 due to the pandemic, while the immediately previous year had grown 2.6%.
Also in the context of the pandemic, remittances have increased and represent 20% of the country’s GDP and come mainly from the United States – with more than 93% -, Spain, Canada and Panama.
In 2020, shipments from abroad totaled more than 5.7 billion dollars, 3.9% more than in 2019. This year, until July, transfers from Hondurans abroad to their families were already growing by more than 36% .
With EFE and local media
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