These structural impediments exacerbate risk and vulnerability related to food, energy and commodity price increases, as well as to economic instability and slowdown. The need to focus on removing structural barriers to allow domestic demand to contribute more effectively to development is heightened further by the expectation that the export channel to the developed world will be less important for an extended period. However, declines in poverty in the region have been accompanied by greater levels of inequality (see figure 1.19), with the population-weighted mean Gini coefficient for the entire region increasing from 33.5% in the 1990s to 37.5% in the latest available year.