While Curaçao reached an athletic milestone by becoming the smallest country to compete in a FIFA World Cup, recent data has hinted at failures in other, more pressing aspects of the small island country’s society. Despite its growing tourist industry and GDP, the country is also one of the most unequal in its region, according to recent government reports and projections have determined that the situation will likely only become worse. Here is more information about poverty in Curaçao and efforts to address it.

Extreme Poverty in Curaçao Despite Growth?

While Curaçao’s economy has recovered from its COVID-era recession, with inflation peaking at 7.4% in 2022 according to its Centrale Bank, the country’s most recent GINI index of 46% reports extreme income inequality. With its booming tourist, hospitality and financial sectors dominating approximately 75% of GDP, Curaçao has seen lower unemployment rates since the COVID years due to job growth solely within its low-skilled and informal sectors.

This places Curaçao’s economy in a precarious state with more than 30.4% of households below the monetary poverty line in 2023, a 5% increase from 2011. Furthermore, a recent publication by its Central Bureau of Statistics is similarly disturbing, reporting 37.7% of the country—more than a third of all households—are vulnerable to multidimensional poverty. Thus, top leadership has recently started to meet these challenges as external events continue to have negative effects on fuel and food prices.

Response From Top Leadership

Top ministers within Curaçao’s national government have not ignored its status as an increasingly impoverished Caribbean country. In 2021, Charetti America-Francisca became the first woman to serve as the President of the Parliament of Curaçao, and has recently championed efforts to combat poverty in Curaçao through her new role as the Minister of Social Development, Labor and Welfare (SOAW). Emphasizing the government’s commitment to “working on a new approach focused on targeted and active intervention, aimed at creating lasting change rather than temporary relief,” Minister America-Fransisca stressed “the two most important pillars for combating poverty are education and work” during a parliamentary question hour.

In April, she heavily advocated for creating “an interministerial task force together with NGOs, so that the problem can be addressed in an integrated, more effective and more efficient manner.” America-Fransisca recognized varying forms of poverty citing relative, social, cultural and temporary poverty, all of which represent structural barriers apart from just financial instability that can inhibit upward mobility.

Furthermore, her recent investigation into poor working conditions in the island’s large retail industry has only furthered her experience with fighting poverty in Curaçao. In May, following reports of retail workers alleging that they are required to stand continuously for eight or more hours, she “instructed the labor inspectorate to carry out inspections and further investigations into the alleged practices.”

Looking Ahead

Curaçao is a testament to poverty’s existence as a multidimensional problem. Despite promising economic stability from its booming service industries, important voices like Minister America-Fransisca have cited the shortcomings of solely using financial measurables to understand Curaçao’s more structural issues: “A person can have an income and still be poor, can work and still be unable to make ends meet. Although we do see that the economy is partly recovering and unemployment is declining, poverty remains high.”

– Thaddaeus R. Rios

Thaddaeus is based in Washington, DC, USA and focuses on Good News and Technology for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Unsplash