Poverty, acculturation and ethnicity

In Ecuador, as in all Latin America, the indicators for poverty, health and education have improved significantly over the past 20 years, such that less than 4% of the population live below the international poverty line.

Indigenous groups have gone into free universal schooling and healthcare, but differences remain in the average length of primary education, which is around 6.9 years among non-indigenous populations as compared with 2.6 among the indigenous ones. The rapid pressure of a change to a modern monetised economy generates specific problems for indigenous groups, whose over-18s lack the training and resources to escape the poverty circles they join.

The inhabitants of Mushauasí, an indigenous settlement in Equatorial Amazonia, on the river Napo, organise visits for cultural tourism, as an economic alternative which slows down acculturation.

Aim 8.9 of objective 8 pf the SDO 2030 proposes putting in place policies to promote sustainable tourism which creates employment and promotes local culture and products.