Actualidad
Approximately exist more than 120,000,000 persons of African descent live in Latin America and the Caribbean, making them the largest population of persons of African descent outside of Africa and as much as 30 percent of all the region's citizens in the Americas.
After all this years, governments and agencies don't give a concrete solution. The condition of this populations still the same, is target of racial discrimination and exclusion, suffering great economic and social deprivation and occupying far fewer leadership positions in society. Afro-descendants, in short, face a host of special problems and a glaring lack of opportunities.
The situation that Afro-Latin Americans is similar at the condition of African-Americans: shorter life expectancies, higher rates of infant mortality, higher incidences of HIV/AIDS, higher rates of illiteracy, and lower incomes than do other populations.
Poverty levels are linked to the complex phenomena of social exclusion based on the traditional forms of race, gender and ethnicity. The condition of African descendant in the world is not an economic problem is a racial problem consequence of an Eurocentric world.
The Conferences of Santiago and Durban was a dream for some many Afro-Latin American organizations but after all this years we don't see serious solutions but we have good examples of development in Colombia and Brazil, thanks to constantly fights that Afro-descendent organizations are doing but need of your support.
Colombia is leading the way on the route that Latin America must take in the new millennium if it wishes to prosper and develop a sustainable social stability. Colombia's constitution [1991] and legal framework [Law #70 and other Laws] acknowledges its multi-ethnic and multicultural nature, firmly values it and provides mechanisms to capitalize it. Along with Brazil, these two nations are the first in the region to address the issue in a such comprehensive manner.
Colombia's processes are still in the experimental stages, its results are still in their Infancy and the general disorder that arises from the availability of new resources for those who had little is still evident, however it can already be observed that these previously marginalized groups [indigenous and Blacks] are settling down to make good use of the constitutional opportunities. They are beginning to participate in the democratic electoral process to influence life in Colombia, contributing to Legislation and generating new economic activities. The long term benefits to the nation will be social harmony and economic growth, coupled with lower Levels of violence and delinquency, Less tension between ethnic groups, and also less economic inequality.
We hope that the governments of Latin America and those of our brethren in the Caribbean, as well as the international donor community will give their political, technical and economic support and will invest in AFROAMERICA XXI, to help us contribute to a better world in the next millennium.
