Country Profile Venezuela
Located on the northern coast of South America, Venezuela was the first Spanish-American colony to declare its independence. Despite several periods of governmental turmoil, Venezuela is also one of the only Latin American countries to have avoided military rule in the last 60 years. Although it has suffered from numerous economic and environmental problems in recent decades, this country is making efforts to improve.
More than 28.5 million people live within the borders of Venezuela. A very large proportion of these people live in urban areas – 94 percent compared to an 80 percent regional average. Income per capita is approximately half of average for the area at $12,220. Even though the country has one of the largest oil and natural gas reserves in the world, most of the money from these resources does not filter down to the lower classes.
While life expectancy in Venezuela is average, there are significantly more deaths caused by injury than elsewhere in the region. The country suffers from one of the highest homicide rates in the world, and the capital city of Caracas has the second largest rate of any large city in the world.
Spending on medical services is much lower than the regional average, at $800 per person versus $3000 per person. The number of doctors in the health care field is close to identical with the region, although the number of nurses and midwives is only 11.3 per ten-thousand people, which is less than 20 percent of the 61.5 regional average.
Infant mortality in Venezuela is average for the region and maintains the same trend of decline that its neighbors see. Around 58 percent of these deaths occur due to birth complications and 12 percent because of disease. Unfortunately, there is no data on the inequalities between rural and urban or wealthiest and poorest populations.
Nearly 95 percent of people have their births attended by skilled medical personnel. As is the case with infant mortality statistics, information regarding wealth disparities in this area is unavailable for comparison.
Disease is only a minor problem in Venezuela. Tuberculosis incidents are slightly higher than the region and the number of immunizations is lower, but the differences in numbers are very small.
The availability of clean drinking-water in Venezuela is plentiful in urban areas at 95 percent. Numbers for rural areas are less at 75 percent. Improved sanitation is similar, at 95 percent for urban areas, though in rural areas this number is only 60 percent.
Venezuela is a modern state that suffers from some lingering problems due to its periods of instability. Massive corruption controls the distribution of wealth and prevents the country from properly building up its infrastructure and rising to the level of modernization that could put it on equal footing with the most advanced countries in the world.
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