Figures from INCAE’s Social Poverty Index released on June, 27th are worrisome in 4 important aspects: obesity, traffic accidents, access to education and waste collection.
Jaime García, INCAE’s representative, explained that the first aspect is a great pending task for the country, since it ranks sixth Latin American most overweight countries and it is within the 25 most obese nations in the world.
Regarding the second aspect, and according to the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), traffic accidents are the leading cause of death in the country.
The most worrisome indicator is in education, because the country ranked 50 out of 133 countries. Currently, only 46.3 percent of young people between 17 and 21 years old complete secondary education and only 34.2 percent between 18 and 24 years old are going to college.
All these challenges caused the Government and multinational companies to join and launch the campaign Reto País, led by the Vice President of the Republic Ana Helena Chacón Echeverría.
The initiative’s details are in www.retopaiscr.com aiming to create a space where people can provide concrete solutions to these problems for Costa Rica, until July, 24th.
The registered proposals will be assessed and the 15 best proposals will move to the next stage, which consists of a series of workshops, training and consultation with entrepreneurs and organizations.
The finalists will then have one more week to improve their proposals and present them to the jury. On August, 11th 5 winners will be announced and they will receive the support needed to start developing their proposals.