Laos

Laos is the least developed country in Asia and one of the poorest in the world: 48% of the population lives below the poverty line (particularly in rural areas).

Laos has numerous ethnic minorities (50% of the population belongs to 47 different ethnic groups). The minorities live in isolated mountain villages where infrastructure is practically non-existent and there is limited access to health, education and other services.

Displaced minorities live with alarming malnutrition, mortality and morbidity rates.

At the end of the 90s the government began a rural development plan for the minorities who live in the mountains but instead of building infrastructure and roads in the most isolated places, it promotes the displacement of people towards the plains. This only worsens living conditions for the most vulnerable people.

Until 1986 Laos was under a Soviet-style totalitarian regime: collectivization of land, centralized planning, authoritarian control of the people, closure of borders, political re-education camps, etc. This situation caused 300,000 refugees to leave for Thailand, France and the EU and the progressive deterioration of the economic situation.

In 1986 the Government began a program of liberalization and economic opening but it remains hermetic in terms of political freedom, systematically repressing dissidents of all types.