Improved coordination for poverty reduction

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According to the World Bank, the country's gross national income was US$3,020 per capita in 2011.
even though more than 90 per cent of all holdings are still in the hands of small-scale family farmers. Indeed,
Paraguay is characterized by high levels of inequality.
A third of the population was living below the poverty line in 2009, including about 20 per cent in extreme poverty.
While poverty has declined in the country's urban centres over the last few years, rural poverty is still pervasive.
Approximately 1/2 of the rural population lives in conditions of poverty, with women and indigenous peoples disproportionately affected.
The principal causes of persistent rural poverty include:

•   Poor access to land, markets and financial services
•   Deterioration of natural resources and loss of soil fertility
•   Limited access to appropriate technologies and quality technical assistance
•   Insufficient productive assets at the farm level
•   Absence of essential public goods and services
•   High levels of dependency on commercial agriculture and agribusiness.

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BBC World Challenge 2008 - Agricultural School of Paraguay

Paraguay is one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Two-thirds of the land is in the hands of two percent of the population. The rest is shared out among the majority: the smallholder 'campesinos'. Martin Burt - a former mayor of the capital Asuncion - set up the Escuela Agricola to help these campesinos overturn decades of economic disadvantage. As Martin explains, "We target the poorest of the poor, and we aim to turn them from peasants into rural entrepreneurs."

Escuela Agricola teaches its students to make the most of their families' land through the latest organic techniques. It also teaches more general life skills such as literacy, numeracy and sexual health. The school is entirely self-sufficient, growing much of its own food and selling value-added products such as cheese and yoghurts. There's even a hotel on site where city folk can experience life in this rural idyll.

City visitors see the students not as poor peasants but in an atmosphere of modernity, prosperity and wealth," says Martin. "For some reason the official curriculum of the ministry of education avoids how to teach kids how to earn money. We believe that teaching how to save, to invest and to earn money is very important in real life and this school teaches them that."

NBC Children's Fund- Success Despite Poverty (Paraguay)

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