Healing the world: Guatemala

WASHINGTON — Here’s a fact-based snapshot of Guatemala, one of the eight countries that the U.S. government has spotlighted in its initial work through the Global Health Initiative:

GUATEMALA

Total GHI spending:
FY 2009: $14 million
FY 2010: $14.6 million

Total population: 14 million
GDP per capita: $2,848

Percentage of births attended by a doctor or nurse: 51.3
Chronic malnutrition among rural population: 59 percent

Major health concerns in the country:
1) Very high maternal and infant mortality in rural, indigenous areas
2) Serious malnutrition and stunting in rural, indigenous areas

GHI's main goals: Help Guatemala overcome longstanding inequalities by extending health services, including food distribution, to rural and hard-to-reach areas; reduce maternal mortality, child mortality and child malnutrition all by about one-third by 2014

GHI on the ground: GHI funding will help the Guatemalan government continue some of the programs it already has in place to reach rural Guatemalans. One program provides conditional cash payments to women in exchange for maternal and child health visits, and another one contracts nonprofits to set up clinics in remote areas.

(Sources: CIA; GHI country strategy documents; Kaiser Family Foundation; UN; www.foreignassistance.gov)

Funding for this project is provided by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation as part of its U.S. Global Health Policy program.

This story is presented by The GroundTruth Project.