Timor-Leste In Timor-Leste, around 75 percent of the country’s 1.2 million people live in rural areas where livelihoods depend on the farming of crops and livestock, largely of a subsistence or semi-subsistence nature. More than half of the country’s children under five are stunted and 41 percent of the population live below the national poverty line. The Government of Timor-Leste has made combatting poverty and malnutrition a top priority since the country gained independence in 2002. The government has identified the development of a sustainable fisheries and aquaculture sector as a mea...