Next page in this section: Emerging from the lost decade   Key documents: Food security in Latin America and the Caribbean		Embedded poverty threatens growth and stability in Latin America Local projects increase food output Despite steady economic progress across Latin America and the Caribbean in recent years, poverty is still deeply embedded, creating social tensions and conditions that threaten instability. Figures from the early 1990s indicate that about 34 percent of the region's urban population and 53 percent of its rural population are affected by poverty, with 13 and 30 percent respectively living in abject poverty. And it is even worse in the poorer countries such as Bolivia and Haiti - low-income food-deficit countries (LIFDCs) - where poverty affects over 50 and 60 percent of the urban and rural populations. Poverty and the lack of food security go hand in hand. In Latin America it is estimated that the lack of food security affects 64 million people or 13 percent of the region's population, rising to as much as 20 to 40 percent in the poorer countries. Such conditions create a vicious spiral. Rural hardship and unemployment spur urban migration, causing poverty to concentrate in the large cities of the region. Among other things, this results in the loss of good farmland, acute congestion, pollution, violence and crime. The persistence of poverty threatens the very basis of social stability in the region and consequently, the newly-emerging process of economic growth.