April 10, 2020

Latin America must cooperate to overcome COVID-19 crisis

topic:	Democracy
located:	Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador
editor:	Ellen Nemitz

Coronavirus is like a wave directly affecting almost all countries in the world, but the damage is not the same for all nations. Even though the virus does not differentiate between rich and poor, there are several equation variables that make a different result.

The economic measures announced by most governments are currently focusing on minimum wages for people who lost income sources and preventing companies from going bankrupt by paying stipends or releasing aid and credit with low interest rates. In addition, of course, they aim to guarantee resources to overwhelmed health services. Entire budgets are being redesigned day and night but there is still more to be done: countries will need to work together.

Latin America is a huge mosaic of different people, languages, cultures and economies. The COVID-19 outbreak hit us at different intensities, as well: statistics from John Hopkins University (updated on April 9) point out almost 18,000 confirmed cases in Brazil; almost 6,000 in Chile, less than 2,000 in Argentina, only 456 in Uruguay and 515 in Cuba, while Venezuela has just 171 – taking into account that the numbers can be underreported due to testing policies in each region.

Bringing the numbers to real life in a horrifying way, Ecuador faces one of the worst sceneries, a collapse in its funeral system has led the population of the city of Guayaquil to coexist with corpses in the streets or inside the houses for days. In the politically unstable Venezuela, coronavirus is paving the way for attacks on democracy: "The pandemic has given Maduro an excuse to step up repression, especially in low-income areas. Recent footage shows police and National Guards humiliating dozens of people that disobeyed lockdown orders to earn a living”, denounced the Open Democracy.

The days following this pandemic will not be easier. Coming from an already weak economy, Latin American countries will be massively impacted according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean report: more unemployment, informal jobs and even child labour, lower salaries and profits, poverty and extreme poverty rates are set to increase by up to 3.5 percentage points and less access to the health system are some of the short term effects. Also, for the medium and long term we can expect enterprises bankruptcy, less private investments and lower growth rate (2020 forecast for the region was revised from 1.3 per cent to at least -1.8 per cent — or even under 3 or 4 per cent).

Such a big challenge, which obviously hits harder the most vulnerable and exposes our society wounds, demands a real and collective effort to rebuild the economy. “No country will be able to fight this pandemic without global and regional cooperation. At the end of the day, what we really need to consider is what will happen to multilateralism.

There must be more integration”, assessed Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. “We need to rethink everything, the entire economy. We need a new vision to focus ourselves on how to cope with the extremely difficult scenario that lies before us”, she completed.

Image by Christo Anestev

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