Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is the world’s second-most disaster-prone region. The persistent threat and cyclical impact of natural hazards run parallel to structural poverty and inequality, endemic violence, struggling economies and limited government response capacities.
In 2022, climate shocks linked to La Niña, droughts, floods, earthquakes, landslides, tropical storms and hurricanes affected millions of people in several countries. As households across the region continued to struggle to bounce back from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has drained governments’ resources, the effects of the conflict in Ukraine spurred an increase in fuel and food prices, severely affecting livelihoods and exacerbating food insecurity. Following the trend initiated in 2021, the flow of irregular migrants transiting through South and Central America increased exponentially throughout 2022, triggered by political, social and economic deterioration in several countries in the region. The current surge in migration is overwhelming countries’ reception capacities and fuelling an unprecedented rise in humanitarian and protection needs.
In 2022, the pandemic’s lingering effects in LAC — the region most affected by the pandemic — continued to impact the most vulnerable people, including women and children. Women in the Americas have been disproportionately impacted by increased gender inequality in development and health, including aggravated maternal mortality. LAC also hosts three out of five children worldwide who missed a year of school during the pandemic, becoming the region with the largest increase in the learning poverty rate. Those effects were compounded by the impact of several disasters, including climate-induced shocks such as droughts and floods. The cumulative effects of excessive rainfall and hurricanes aggravated the already complicated humanitarian situation for millions of people. In Central America, about 2.4 million people were affected by hazards directly associated with Hurricane Julia, adding to the dozens of people killed and the millions already affected amid an active rainy season. Hurricane Julia’s trajectory was similar to that of Hurricanes Eta and Iota, which devastated parts of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua in November 2020, affecting many of the same communities still reeling from the impact of the back-to-back hurricanes. Overall, the 2022 rainy season affected more than 188,000 people in Honduras and more than 7.2 million in Guatemala, the equivalent of 40 per cent of these countries population. The anticipated impact of those events on food security is particularly concerning.
Las Manos, border with Nicaragua, Honduras
Migrants illegally cross the border with Nicaragua, on their way to reach the USA.
OCHA/Vincent TremeauThe effects of the conflict in Ukraine on global oil and grain markets are unravelling in a region where food insecurity has increased the fastest in recent years, driven by the combination of worsening socioeconomic conditions, recurrent extreme weather events and the rising prices on world markets. The number of moderately to severely food-insecure people rose to more than 267 million in 2021, but this figure could increase by as much as 640,000 by the end of 2022. Northern Central America, in particular, is a hotspot of food and nutrition insecurity. In Guatemala and Honduras alone, more than 7.2 million people are projected to face acute levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or worse) between May and September 2022.
In Haiti, about 4.7 million people - almost half of the population - now face acute hunger, and for the first time, some 19,000 people in the country are suffering Catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5). In the English-speaking Caribbean, the number of people estimated to be moderately to severely food insecure rose by 46 per cent between March and August 2022, with nearly 4.1 million people, or 57 per cent of the population, now facing food insecurity.
In South America’s Gran Chaco lowlands – an area that spans often-neglected parts of Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay – humanitarian partners estimate that up to 1.2 million people exposed to the area’s worst drought in 80 years may require humanitarian assistance. Exacerbated by La Niña, the drought is unfolding in a context of pre-existing vulnerabilities, where long distances and poor road conditions pose a major challenge in terms of access to basic services.
Limbé, Haiti
Dozimène’s house has flooded twice due to climate-related disasters.
WFP/Theresa PiorrCountries are facing preparedness challenges as climate-related events show shifting patterns, such as the late onset of the Atlantic hurricane season and more powerful and devastating hurricanes. Additionally, mounting debt in LAC – the world’s most indebted region — limits access to financing, and growing fiscal deficits leave governments and communities less economically resilient in the face of future shocks.
Caribbean Small Island Developing States, in particular, are among the world’s most disaster-prone countries and territories, with climate change making hydrometeorological events increasingly more frequent and intense. Each year the hurricane season presents severe threats, potentially displacing thousands or even millions of people in a region where countries and territories are up to seven times more likely to experience a disaster than larger States and incur as much as six times more damage.
Displacement presents ever greater challenges for LAC. It hosts more migrants per capita than any other region, with 18.4 million refugees, asylum-seekers, displaced and stateless people registered. As desperation grows across the region, people continue to use increasingly more dangerous, irregular migratory routes. After nearly 1,240 migrant deaths and disappearances were recorded in the Americas in 2021 – the highest number on record — almost 500 missing migrants were registered between January and September 2022, a year that could be the deadliest for migrants crossing at the US-Mexico border, where the US authorities have reported record numbers of encounters.
In El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, humanitarian needs are growing due to continuing poverty, the ongoing effects of COVID-19, extreme weather, chronic violence and limited services. Humanitarians are targeting millions with essential supplies.
By October 2022, more than 150,000 migrants had crossed the dangerous Darién jungle that straddles the Colombia-Panama border, surpassing the record number for the whole of 2021 (133,726). Venezuelans accounted for more than 70 per cent (112,943) of these new arrivals, followed by Haitians, Ecuadorians and Cubans. The increasing trend in numbers of people transiting through the Nicaragua-Honduras border continues, where the number of registered arrivals up to August 2022 was five times the total number of crossings registered for 2021.
Mexico and Central American countries have registered record numbers of asylum applications, with more than 86,000 applications lodged in Mexico by September 2022.
Across the region, the increasing number of people on the move continues to put significant pressure on reception capacities, including the availability of protection services and shelter capacities. Governments are struggling to keep pace with rapidly growing humanitarian needs and protection risks faced by migrants, including sexual and gender-based violence or human trafficking especially affecting women, children, the elderly, people with disabilities and LGBTIQ+.
As one of the world’s most violent regions, LAC saw chronic violence rise to pre-pandemic levels as pandemic-related restrictions were lifted, with a surge in homicide rates since 2021. The region has 14 of the 25 countries in the world with the highest female homicide rates; the regional rate of 4.6 female homicides per every 100,000 women is double that of the global rate of 2.3. Six countries alone represent 81 per cent of global cases of sexual and gender-based violence. LAC is also home to the top five countries in the world with the highest homicide rates among children and adolescents; the regional homicide rate of 12.6 per 100,000 among minors is four times the global average of three homicides per 100,000.
El Chocó, Colombia
María Victoria, an Afro-descendant trans woman, has worked for the rights of the LGBTI population for nine years through the organization she leads, Latidos Chocó.
UNHCR/Catalina Betancur SánchezAs a result of this multidimensional crisis, the number of people in need in the region maintains its upward trend, from 27.9 million in 2022 to 29.2 million in 2023. One million more people in Northern Central America require critical humanitarian assistance compared to the previous year, and 300,000 more in Haiti. The number of people targeted to receive assistance rose from 13.4 million in 2022 to 14.7 million in 2023. While overall funding increased in 2022, growing requirements were not met, with only about 35 per cent of the Humanitarian Response Plans funded by November.
In 2023, economic activity in the region is projected to slow to 1.4 per cent, down from a projected 3.2 per cent for 2022 as the conflict in Ukraine continues to generate negative spillover effects.
Multidimensional vulnerabilities and increasingly interconnected protection risks and humanitarian needs are likely to continue and even worsen in 2023. They include food insecurity, recurrent disasters exacerbated by climate change, displacement within and across borders and chronic violence, aggravating sectoral needs such as food security and nutrition, protection, WASH and health.
