Guinea-Bissau currently ranks 176 out of 187 on the UNDP 2011 Human Development Index (HDI). Out of a total population of approximately 1.5 million, a 2010 poverty assessment survey estimated that 69 percent of households in Guinea-Bissau live below the poverty line (US$2 per day) with 20 percent living below the extreme poverty line (US$1 per day).
Based on its 2011 HDI, there has been little to no improvement in Guinea-Bissau’s socio-economic indicators compared to its performance in 1997, before the country entered into an armed conflict in 1998. Since this civil war, recurrent bouts of political instability have hampered recovery and rehabilitation, leaving the country in a ‘structural emergency’ marked by persistently critical socio-economic indicators.
According to a Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Assessment undertaken by WFP in November and December 2010, it is estimated that 20 percent of rural households (179,000 people) are food-insecure, 12 percent moderately food-insecure and 8 percent severely food-insecure. Food insecurity is mostly related to access and utilization of food rather than availability.
Children are the most affected by the persistent socio-economic structural deficits. Twenty percent of newborns are considered to have low birth weight. More than one in ten infants die in the first year and only 55 percent of children are enrolled in primary school. The chronic malnutrition rate for children under five is 41 percent, hence classified as ‘critical’ by WHO, while the level of acute malnutrition is considered ‘poor’ at 7.2 percent. Almost a quarter of school-age children do not attend classes and the completion rate for the primary cycle is one of the lowest in West Africa at 48 percent.
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