Chavez Calls For $1 Billion Poverty Fund

by Jarrett Martineau | May 15, 2008 at 07:30 pm | 154 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

Understanding constitutional reform in Venezuela (a background)

Hugo Chavez has committed $365 million of Venezuela's oil income to establishing a global fund to provide food and medicine to the poor and urged other nations to help raise that total to $1 billion. Will other nations heed Chavez's call?

Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has called on European and Latin American nations to set up a $1bn fund to help provide food and medicine for the poor.

Chavez said on Thursday that he was willing to commit $365m of the country's oil income to the fund, as global food and energy prices continue to rise.

"[The fund] will allow us to produce, buy and distribute food and medicines to the homes of the poorest families," he said at a news conference in Caracas.