The U.S. will help Colombia improve the living conditions of Afro-Colombians on the Pacific coast, the U.S. embassy in Bogota announced Wednesday.
According to a press release, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) signed an agreement with Colombia’s deputy Interior and Justice Minister to “strengthen the ministry’s response in providing care to displaced and vulnerable communities” in the predominantly black Pacific region.
The International Organization for Migration, an IGO, was asked to support efforts that seek “to improve living conditions through the development of initiatives that promote respect and the guarantee of rights, especially of the Afro-Colombian communities.”
The Pacific region is one of Colombia’s most poverty-striken regions, with a high presence of drug gangs and left-wing guerrillas. The region has the highest poverty and child-deaths rates of the country.
