Since alleged elec­tion fraud in 2008, aid com­ing into Nicaragua has been halted. The aid stop­page from the US and the EU cou­pled with the global reces­sion has caused a crum­bling economy.

Instead of try­ing to strug­gle within the nation’s bor­ders, young peo­ple migrate to other nations. Experts say this fur­ther causes a drag on the Nicaraguan econ­omy as the youngest and most tal­ented work­ers leave.

From the IPS, writer José Adán Silva explains why 60 per­cent of young Nicaraguans say they would leave if they could.

Between 1990 and 2005, more than 800,000 Nicaraguans left the coun­try, and 400,000 more could migrate by 2010, accord­ing to the United Nations Devel­op­ment Programme’s Human Devel­op­ment Report 2009, devoted this year to the topic of migra­tion. But local pro­jec­tions put that fig­ure even higher.

The report, “Over­com­ing Bar­ri­ers: Human Mobil­ity and Devel­op­ment”, adds the caveat that its esti­mates for 2010 of migra­tion for eco­nomic rea­sons are based on long-term trends, and may not exactly pre­dict the effects of unex­pected short-term fluc­tu­a­tions like the ongo­ing global eco­nomic crisis.

Accord­ing to Bayardo Izabá, the head of the non-governmental Nicaraguan Human Rights Cen­tre (CENIDH), the sta­tis­tics in the UNDP report are an under­es­ti­mate. Although the report was released this month, it is based on sur­veys car­ried out by the Eco­nomic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­ica and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in 2007.

“Over one mil­lion peo­ple have left the coun­try because of poverty,” Ibaza told IPS. “No one leaves the coun­try for any other rea­son, and there are another mil­lion or more young peo­ple who want to migrate.”

CENIDH pub­lishes an annual report on the gen­eral sit­u­a­tion in Nicaragua, includ­ing the num­ber of peo­ple who migrated and those who were deported back to the country.

The Human Devel­op­ment Report indi­cates that Nicaraguans liv­ing abroad rep­re­sent 13 per­cent of the country’s pop­u­la­tion, which was 5.5 mil­lion in 2007. Nicaragua is ranked 124th out of 182 coun­tries in terms of its human devel­op­ment index, a mea­sure of a country’s suc­cess in pro­vid­ing cit­i­zens with a long, healthy life, edu­ca­tion and decent liv­ing standards.

Nicaragua has the low­est human devel­op­ment index in Cen­tral Amer­ica and the sec­ond low­est in Latin Amer­ica after Haiti. The UNDP puts the poverty rate in Nicaragua at 48 per­cent, and extreme poverty at 17 percent.

The head of the non-governmental Per­ma­nent Com­mis­sion on Human Rights, Mar­cos Car­mona, told IPS that peo­ple migrate for two main rea­sons: chronic poverty that was aggra­vated by the 1979–1990 civil war, and gov­ern­ment neglect because the administration’s eco­nomic poli­cies are focused on meet­ing finan­cial oblig­a­tions to mul­ti­lat­eral lenders.

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