UN General Assembly
2005

education and to improve the well-being of the elderly. This year, 500,000 families will be involved in Colombia’s programme — poor families that receive a State subsidy to feed and educate their children. In the near future, that number will rise to 1 million, in addition to the increase budgetary efforts undertaken under the aegis of the educational revolution. In 2006, 10 million children will benefit from our nutrition programmes, and 570,000 elderly citizens will receive stipends to cover their most pressing needs. Our social policy also comprises ongoing efforts to strengthen alternative development programmes in order to allow us definitively to overcome the problem of illicit drugs. Through such programmes, the international community has a unique opportunity to contribute to and implement the principle of shared responsibility. The “forest-keeper families” programme, involving some 33,000 families committed to maintaining their areas free from drugs and to supervising the recovery of the tropical forest, as well as a programme to provide care to the displaced and reintegrated, will cost Colombia some $300 million dollars next year.