Its huge external debt does not allow the country to develop. At the beginning of the year 2000, the debt amounted to 6,500 million dollars (three times the national GDP).

 

The exploitation of natural resources and the introduction of genetically modified products involves the reduction of forest resources, an excessive working of mines and the loss of agroexport resources.

 

The crisis of the agroexport model (for instance, the coffee crisis) provokes death by starvation in rural areas. Over one million people (24,2 % of the population) survive with less than one dollar per day.

 

The unequal distribution of wealth has resulted in an increase of sources of marginality, and this, in turn, is forcing more and more people to immigrate to the USA.

 

The privatisation of basic resources (electricity, health, water,) benefits only a few and increases inequalities.