These young girls and their families were displaced by violence to the Tajikan IDP site, near Kandahar City. Most people taking refuge here fled violence in Zabul and some have been displaced for more than six years. They are relieved to be safe, but urgent needs include shelter, farming supplies, water, sanitation and hygiene. One woman said: “Where we came from, we had beautiful green gardens, we had a good life until the conflict." Another said: “You can find malnourished children in every second and third home." This photo was taken November 2019. OCHA/Charlotte Cans
Latin America and the Caribbean is the world’s most economically unequal region and the second-most disaster-prone region. Recovery from the pandemic has been challenging. Despite comprising only 8.4 per cent of the global population, Latin America and the Caribbean has been the world’s hardest-hit region, with 18.5 per cent of all global COVID-19 cases and 30.3 per cent of all deaths.
The pandemic’s effects have had a significant impact on the region’s poverty, displacement, food insecurity and violence. As the response in 2021 pivoted to longer-term operations, it is highly likely that the humanitarian community will be operating in a post-pandemic Latin America and the Caribbean for years to come. Challenges to economic growth, unequal access to or acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines and the threat of severe climate-related risks remain ever present.
The region is still experiencing the impacts of the higher number of sudden-onset disasters and the record-setting Atlantic hurricane season in 2020. Targeted multisectoral response has been mounted to help address the growth in needs caused by the various impacts of 2020. El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras alone saw their populations in need grow by 60 per cent in 2021. This unprecedented increase prompted the launch of Humanitarian Response Plans in these countries, totalling $588 million in requirements for 2021-2022. However, the plans have collectively received only 11 per cent funding so far.
The ongoing presence of La Niña is contributing to disruptions in global climate patterns and to South America’s second warmest year on record. The Gran Chaco lowlands area, which is roughly twice the size of California and spans parts of Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay, saw one of its worst droughts in 60 years. This has aggravated seasonal wildfires and disappearing water supply sources, and it is affecting agricultural production and drying up waterways vital to services, commerce and food security. An estimated 2 million people exposed to severe drought in this area may require humanitarian assistance, leading to a scale-up of monitoring and operational readiness.
These recurring and increasingly drastic climate shocks come against a backdrop of challenging conditions. According to the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the region’s 5.9 per cent growth in GDP and 6.7 per cent growth in employment in 2021 will not be enough to offset the world-leading declines. Many countries in the region are managing to get their economies slowly back on track thanks to COVID-19 vaccination roll-outs - reaching more than 50 per cent of their populations. Despite this, less than half of the region’s population is fully vaccinated, with countries facing obstacles to securing vaccine supplies, logistics challenges and, in some cases, vaccine hesitancy.
Unequal vaccine access is also hampering vaccination efforts. This particularly affects marginalized groups such as rural communities and indigenous people, who already experience long-standing disadvantages in receiving adequate health coverage. The few countries that do provide specific vaccination data on indigenous people cite low numbers. Guatemala reports 134,000 fully vaccinated indigenous people, just 2 per cent of the country’s indigenous population. In Brazil, about one in every three indigenous people was vaccinated as of August 2021.
Chuxolop, Guatemala
A man holds up one of hundreds of fish that have died in Chuxolop lagoon, in Guatamela. Severe drought is causing the lagoon to dry up, and the receding water doesn’t have enough oxygen to keep the fish alive.
WFP/Miguel VargasThere has been a 9 per cent increase in moderate-to-severe food insecurity, which now affects 267 million people across the region — the world’s sharpest increase from 2019 to 2020. State response capacities are becoming increasingly strained due to weakened institutions and significant tax revenue losses, while chronic violence is returning to pre-pandemic levels in certain countries.
Gender-based violence risks are increasing for women, initially caused by prolonged confinements with their aggressors during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns. Women continue to be subjected to unequal labour opportunities during the recovery in 2021, which would otherwise grant them greater autonomy. Latin America and the Caribbean is one of the world’s most dangerous regions for women. The regional rate of 4.6 female homicides per every 100,000 women is double that of the world rate of 2.3. Risks for women are even higher in Central America, which records 5.8 as the subregional rate.
Children are also experiencing hardship. The region has had the world’s longest uninterrupted school closures due to COVID-19-mitigation measures. These closures have left 86 million children out of classrooms and caused the loss of 153 in-person schooldays. Only 22 per cent of the region’s countries have fully opened their schools. This is the lowest number for any region in the world not currently on an academic break.
Gonaive, Haiti
This baby's mother says few buyers brave the insecurity and roadblocks to reach the Plateau market in Gonaives, a primary marketplace for much of northern Haiti, where she sells her produce. "We do not live well, we do not eat well, and we cannot even move around normally because of the chaos in the country," she said. She grows fruit and vegetables on her small plot of land outside Gonaives, the largest city in Haiti's Artibonite Department. "We used to sell what we harvested in our fields, but now we can't."
WFP/Alexis MasciarelliIn 2021, internal displacement flows grew to historic levels. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre placed Brazil, Cuba, Guatemala and Honduras among the 25 countries in the world with the highest number of new displacements due to disaster or conflict in 2020. In Honduras, 937,000 people were displaced due to disasters, almost a tenth of its population.
According to the United States border authorities, the Mexico-US border saw the arrival of a record 1.7 million migrants from October 2020 to September 2021. This is 20 per cent more than the number of arrivals in 2020 and 2019 combined. Children and adolescents accounted for more than 149,000 of these migrants. Throughout 2021, the number of underage migrants has grown each month. An increasing number of migrants in countries across the region originate from Haiti, triggering calls for a region-wide and coordinated humanitarian response. Given its position as a country of transit, joining South America and Central America, Panama expects 150,000 migrants, mostly from Haiti, to cross the treacherous Darien jungle in 2021. This is almost equivalent to the number of migrants who previously entered Panama between 2009 and 2020.
This situation, together with the ongoing plight of millions of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in host countries across the region, may escalate further. An increasingly contentious socio-political landscape in Nicaragua and deteriorating conditions have already caused thousands of people to flee to neighbouring countries since April 2018.
Tapachula, Mexico
A family from Central America waits at a shelter in Tapachula, southern Mexico.
UNHCR/Gabo MoralesThe majority of the region has not seen widespread conflict in decades and has a comparatively higher degree of political stability. However, countries including Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines saw protests or violence in 2021. These were related either to gaps in pandemic response, slow vaccination rates, insufficient measures to offset the pandemic’s socioeconomic impacts, or opposition to political or economic reform.
2022 will be critical in responding to the region’s growing needs, as its various crises continue to play out during an arduous recovery from a global pandemic. Economic rebounds are expected to slow down in 2022 in the context of deepening structural issues across the region and downward pre-pandemic economic and employment rates. Across the region, more than 287 million people (46 per cent of the population) are now in poverty or extreme poverty. Financing in the region must scale up to tackle continued structural problems and limits to Government assistance, as well as growing climate risks, food insecurity and displacement. Action is needed from middle-income countries to scale up, as their Governments face mounting needs among people living in vulnerable conditions facing recurrent shocks and natural hazards.
Source: OCHA
Source: OCHA
