Venezuela to spend $1.2bn on slum clearance

The Venezuelan government has announced that it is to invest $1.2bn in schemes to renovate the country’s underprivileged rural and urban communities. 

The money will go into a government programme called the Tricolour Barrio Great Mission, which aims to improve standards of living in Venezuela’s poorest neighbourhoods.

The country’s resources….are going to dynamise the development of this great mission, to multiply it– Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro

The funding will go towards creating public spaces, installing utilities, housing renovation, community policing, risk management, communal production and organisation.

Money would also be made available for improving technical planning in 73 zones, and to train 4,615 "mission participants" drawn from the Battle Units Bolivar Chávez – the activists in the United Socialist Party who are to help deliver the projects. 

According to Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the Great Mission has completed 273 projects this year, which have benefitted an estimated 4.6 million people. The mission is now to be extended to rural and indigenous communities. 

The program was launched by Hugo Chavez in 2009, and resumed by Maduro in 2013.  Structural poverty in Venezuela has reached a record low of 19.6%, down from 30.5% in 2003. 

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