CEPAL's last report, presented on November 7 th 2002, indicates that 214 million people in the region live in poverty; 92.8 million of them are in severe want.Colombia is no exception to these figures. The CEPAL report also indicates that a total of 214 million people (54.9%) live in poverty; 9 million (26%) of them are in severe need.

Other research efforts made using various methodologies to measure poverty indexes believe that the figures could be higher. The National Comptroller's Office was even more pessimistic in its report, stating that 60% of Colombians live below poverty lines.