9781422283882

Every person has the right to the preservation of his health through sanitary and social measures relating to food, clothing, housing and medical care, to the extent permitted by public and community resources. As members of the OAS, the seven Central American countries and five Caribbean island nations covered in this volume have agreed to work toward this goal. To see how well these and other countries are providing for the most basic of human needs, the Social Progress Imperative looked at 133 countries around the world and ranked them on the Social Progress Index (SPI) in four categories: Water and Sanitation: Can people drink the water without getting sick? Nutrition and Basic Medical Care: Do people have enough to eat? Can they see a doctor? Shelter: Do people have housing with basic utilities, such as electricity? Personal Safety: Are people safe from violence? Do they feel afraid? The following table shows the countries with the highest and lowest overall scores and their rankings among the 133 SPI countries. The red and blue numbers in the table show how the size of a country’s economy is not the only thing that determines social progress. Sometimes countries score higher (relative strength) or lower (relative weakness) than expected when compared to other countries around the world with similar economics, considered in terms of GDP and GDP per capita . Costa Rica, for

16 C ENTRAL A MERICA AND THE C ARIBBEAN

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