Venezuela was once the envy of Latin America, an oil-rich country whose people enjoyed both democracy and prosperity. But in recent years, it has become the region’s basket case, with a repressive government, soaring hyperinflation, a 60 percent drop in GDP, and deadly shortages of food, medicine, and other essentials.

This week on And Now the Hard Part, we trace the roots of the problem and talk about how to fix it.

“Venezuela is probably home right now to the largest humanitarian crisis that this hemisphere has seen, perhaps the world, in modern history,” said Dany Bahar, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“This is a man-made crisis. It was manufactured by those in power for the past 20 years as a result of many things including, perhaps, [Venezuela] being one of the most distorted economies in the world.”

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