Population, territory and sustainable development

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E. RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES IN ACCESS TO SERVICES, INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGIES AND EDUCATION
Although there are differences within rural areas as regards access to basic services, the averages show a
notable gap between rural and urban areas in the countries of the region (ECLAC, 2010b). With respect to
information and communications technologies (ICTs), coverage of some, especially mobile telephony,
has increased, yet the rural-urban gaps remain very sharp. In education the situation is not much different:
although education policies in all the countries aim for complete coverage in primary schooling, lags
remain in rural areas owing to accessibility issues or early dropout. In addition, follow-up of progress
towards the Millennium Development Goals shows that in all aspects advances have been slower in rural
areas (ECLAC, 2010b).
1. Access to drinking water and sanitation
The past decade has seen improvements in access to basic services, yet large disparities remain between
countries and between rural and urban areas. According to data from the 2000 census round, nationwide
over 80% de of the population of six (Argentina, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Costa
Rica and Mexico) of the 16 countries has access to drinking water within the home (see figure IV.10),
although these figures mask access lags in these countries’ rural populations. The largest urban-rural gaps
in these countries occur in Chile, Brazil, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and, to a lesser extent, in
Argentina and Mexico. The smallest gap in this regard occurs in Costa Rica, which has the highest
percentage of rural population with access to drinking water within the home. Rural-urban gaps are also
considerable among the countries which have lower rates of access to drinking water within the
household at the national level (Nicaragua, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, the Plurinational State of
Bolivia and Honduras) (see figure IV.10). The situation is similar with regard to sanitation: although the
percentage of the population with access to improved sanitation at the national level is highest in
Argentina, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Chile, rural-urban gaps —of around 50%— remain.
Gaps also remain where access is more limited, i.e. where less than 40% of the total population has access
to this facility: for example in the Plurinational State of Bolivia around 5% of the rural population has
access to improved sanitation, compared with 60% of the urban population. Nicaragua shows a similar
trend: 2% of the rural population has access to sanitation, compared with 43% of the urban population.
So, regardless of the level of access to these services, the gaps between urban and rural areas persist (see
figure IV.10).
On the basis of information from household surveys conducted around 2009, Rodriguez and
Meneses (2011) arrive at similar findings. They note that several countries have made considerable gains
both in improved supply of drinking water and in sanitation and rural electrification, but gaps remain with
respect to urban areas, especially in access to piped water. The authors find that the widest gaps are found
in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Nicaragua and Peru, where the differences are over 50 percentage
points in the case of piped drinking water and over 40 percentage points in electrification, although there
are also large gaps in access to piped water in Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador; and in access to electric
lighting in Honduras. They also confirm that Costa Rica is the only country with no significant
differences in urban and rural access to these services.