Ministers and advisors of the closest presidential circle of Lenin Moreno, President of the Republic of Ecuador, visited Paraguay with the intention of adapting and implementing the Poverty Stoplight in their country, with agricultural producers. Lourdes Berenice Cordero Molina, Minister of Economic and Social Inclusion; José Gabriel Martínez Castro, General Secretary of the Vice Presidency of the Republic; Esteban Patricio Sosa Cruz, Adviser Secretary of the Presidency; and Xavier Enrique Lazo Guerrero, Minister of Agriculture and Livestock visited the Cerrito Agricultural School of the Fundación Paraguaya (Benjamín Aceval), in an intense day of work.

During their stay in our country, the representatives of the Ecuadorian government were accompanied by the Executive Director of Fundación Paraguaya, Martín Burt; and the General Manager, Luis Fernando Sanabria. This visit was possible due to a meeting last January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, between Dr. Burt and President Moreno, who showed interest in the methodology of the Fundación Paraguaya and delegated a delegation to carry out the visit.

At the Cerrito Agricultural School, Ecuadorian visitors learned more about the work developed by the Fundación Paraguaya. “We found at least 6 areas and 50 dimensions that we have captured in the Poverty Stoplight,” said the General Manager of Fundación Paraguaya, Luis F. Sanabria, during the presentation of the tool to the delegation. “It is the families who make the decisions about the way they want to transform their situation,” said at another time.

After this presentation, they went to the Cerrito community, where 70% belong to the Qom indigenous community, with whom they are working through the Cerrito Poverty Stoplight Initiative, which was presented to the visitors. “What we are building here together is an example for the world to follow,” said Fernando Pfannl, coordinator of the Cerrito Poverty Stoplight Initiative. “Do not get discouraged in seeking progress, those desires are also what our farmers in Ecuador want,” was the message given by the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Xavier Enrique Lazo Guerrero, to the community members.

They also visited clients of the Fundación Paraguaya in the area where they apply the Poverty Stoplight; to finish the day back at the Cerrito School, where some other presentations were made of the other programs that the host organization is carrying out, such as the program of self-sustaining schools developed in Cerrito and Belén (Concepción), Entrepreneurial Education, and Microfinance, as well as exhibitions of the work developed with the Poverty Stoplight in different areas, such as the civil society, companies and vulnerable sectors. The Minister of National Agriculture, Denis Lichi, was also there during that time.

This visit marks a very important milestone, as it is an official representation of a government, with the desire and commitment to solve their problems of poverty, by implementing a multidimensional poverty measurement tool developed in our country, by Paraguayans, and which is currently being replicated by national and international organizations and companies in more than 28 countries. The Poverty Stoplight not only measures the multidimensional poverty of the families, but also seeks, strategically and with the help of trained technicians, that the families themselves design their way out of poverty, and this tool, it is applicable to the realities of each country or region.