frabottablock5 - Guatemala

GUATEMALA

Economic Status:

Guatemala is a member of two economic unions. They are the Central American Common Market, a union of five nations, and the Association of Caribbean States, a union of 25 nations. These organizations work to establish closer economic ties between member nations. Guatemala's leading trading partners include the United States, El Salvador, and Mexico. (CIA)
Work done is 50% agriculture, 13% industry, and 35% services (CIA)
Roughly the most populous country in Centeral America but has the lowest GDP per capita is nearly one half the average of Latin America and Caribbean. GDP is 5,200 per capita and is ranked 144 in the world. (CIA)
Guatemala's national debt, $15.75 billion (31 December 2010 est.) country comparison to the world: 77 (CIA)
UNICEF Emergency Needs for 2011 (in US dollars) Total $2,650,000 (Unicef)

Evidence of Poverty and Human Rights Violation:

In rural Guatemala, many children (particularly girls) do not complete their basic education, speak only their native Mayan language, and grow up functionally illiterate. Adolescent females marry as young as 12 years of age and have an average of seven children. All of these factors serve to reinforce the vicious cycle of poverty unless investments are made in children at a very early age.
46 percent of the Guatemalan population is chronically malnourished. For children of indigenous families, the rate is almost 80 percent. (Save the Children)
56.2% of the the population is below the poverty line (CIA)
Illiteracy, infant mortality and malnutrition are among the highest in the region, life expectancy is among the lowest and, in common with many of its neighbours, the country is plagued by organised crime and violent street gangs. It is a major corridor for smuggling drugs from South America to the United States. (BBC)
Social inequality is a major feature of Guatemala. Poverty is particularly widespread in the countryside and among indigenous communities. (BBC)
Save the Children has been helping poor populations to overcome the impact of that civil conflict through integrated programming in education, health, nutrition, asset growth and protection, livelihoods, disaster risk reduction, natural resource management and democracy and governance. By targeting its resources on development programming for rural, poor, and indigenous populations in three departments of the western highlands of Guatemala (Save the Children)
Save the Children aims to provide life saving assistance to disaster affected populations in the form of food, water, medicine, and essential non-food items such as blankets, plastic for shelter, and chlorine tablets for water disinfection. (Save the Children)

Reasons and History of Situation of Country:

In the late 1970's, violence became widespread in Guatemala. Various groups of leftists fought government forces. The antigovernment groups included Indians and other rural people who have little economic and political power. Warfare between rebels and government forces caused many Indians in the west and north to flee deeper into the mountains, to Mexico, or to the United States. (Euraque)
During the second half of the 20th century, it experienced a variety of military and civilian governments, as well as a 36-year guerrilla war. (CIA)
In 1996, the government signed a peace agreement formally ending the conflict, which had left more than 100,000 people dead and had created, by some estimates, some 1 million refugees. (CIA)
In 1999, three years after the Peace Accords were signed, 36 years of a brutal civil war actually ended. (Save the Children)
Major transit country for cocaine and heroin, the major drug they develop is cocaine (major staging areas of drugs.) Corruption and money laundering is a serious problem. (CIA)
In 2010, Tropical Storm Agatha and the Pacaya volcanic eruption also hit, causing US$1.5 billion in damage and loss to the country and affecting 911,000 people, nearly 4 per cent of the population. (UNICEF)
Structural vulnerabilities in Guatemala, including limited land planning processes, poor economic and territorial development and the decline of existing ecosystems pose challenges to effective disaster recovery and preparedness. (UNICEF)

Geography:

The Pacific Lowland consists largely of farmlands. Many forest-lined streams that rise in the Highlands flow through the lowland to the Pacific Ocean. The lowland has been thinly populated, but its farmlands have been developed since the late 1940's. The Pacific Lowland has sugar cane and cotton plantations, cattle ranches, and farms. (Euraque)
The Northern Plain is the most thinly populated and least developed part of Guatemala. Tropical rain forests of hardwood trees cover most of the plain, and there are some grasslands. Some chicle, a natural latex that was once widely used in making chewing gum, is taken from the trees. (Euraque)
Most Guatemalans live in the Highlands, and most of the coffee- and corn-growing farmland is there. The region has many volcanoes, some of which are active. Earthquakes sometimes occur in the Highlands. (Euraque)
Guatelamala has a tropical climate. The rainy season in Guatemala generally lasts from May to November, and daily showers fall during most of this period. Most of the Northern Plain receives from 80 to 150 inches (200 to 381 centimeters) of rain annually. There, rain falls throughout most of the year. The edge of a hurricane sometimes hits Guatemala, causing some damage to the country's banana and coffee crops. (Euraque)

Quotes:

"Justice does take time, even if it skips a generation.” Erick Arbenz The grandson of former Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz, now deceased, who will be granted the treatment afforded to historical heroes by Guatemala's government nearly six decades after it branded him a Communist and reversed his policies. (TIME)
"There are a lot of dead people. The roads are blocked. The shelters are overflowing. We need water, food, clothes, blankets — but above all, money. " Erick de Leon The governor of Chimaltenango, Guatemala, on the destruction left by the season's first tropical storm, which killed at least 150 people in Central America (TIME)

Works Cited
Caistor, Nick. “Guatemala Comes to Terms with It’s Past.” BBC.
BBC, 8 July 2008. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
CIA. “Centeral America and Caribbean: Guatamala.” CIA - The World Factbook.
CIA, n.d. Web. 9 Nov. 2011. <https://www.cia.gov/‌library/‌publications/‌the
-world-factbook/‌geos/‌gt.html>.
Euraque, Dario A. “Guatemala.” World Book Advanced. World Book, 2011. Web.
16 Nov. 2011. <http://www.worldbookonline.com/‌advanced/‌article?id=ar2387
20&st=guatemala>.
Save the Children. “Guatemala.” Save the Children. Save the Children , Oct. 2011.
Web. 11 Nov. 2011. <http://www.savethechildren.org/‌site/‌c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E
/‌b.6151425/‌k.F449/‌Guatemala.htm>.
Time. “Guatemala.” Time News. Time, 2011. Web. 16 Nov. 2011. <http://topics.time
.com/‌Guatemala>.
UNICEF. “The Americans and Caribbeans: Guatemala.” UNICEF - Humanitarian Action
for Children. UNICEF, n.d. Web. 9 Nov. 2011. <http://www.unicef.org/‌hac2011
/‌hac_guatemala.php>.