Handbook for estimating the socio-economic and environmental effects of disasters.

Taken from Introduction: Disasters have a major impact on the living conditions of the population, the economic performance of the countries or regions affected, and on environmental assets and services, with consequences that go beyond the short term and in some cases even irreversibly impact economic and social structures and the environment. In the case of industrialized countries, disasters caused huge damage to the large stock of accumulated capital, whereas losses of human life are limited thanks, among other factors, to the availability of effective early warning and evacuation systems as well as better urban planning and the application of more strict building codes and standards. In developing countries, on the other hand, the number of deaths is usually high because of greater vulnerability brought about by the lack or inadequacy of forecast and evacuation programs; and although losses of capital might be smaller in absolute terms when compared to those in developed countries, their relative weight and overall impact tend to be very significant,1 even affecting sustainability. Disasters may have natural origins or be man-made. However, their consequences derive from a combination of both processes; that is to say, from human interaction with nature and her cycles or systems. Not only do disasters occur frequently around the world, but it would seem that their incidence and intensity have been increasing in recent years. They cause the loss of many lives, directly and indirectly (primarily or secondarily), affect large segments of the population, and cause significant damage to the environment and large-scale economic and social harm

Harnessing open data to achieve development results in Latin America and the Caribbean

Through research and innovation in open data, this project worked to strengthen the accountability and legitimacy of public institutions, improve public services, and fuel economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean. It supported two initiatives: the Latin American Open Data Institute (Instituto Latinoamericano de Datos Abiertos - ILDA) and the Caribbean Open Institute. These acted as innovation hubs to explore opportunities and challenges of using open data. The report provides a summary of activities, outputs and outcomes of the project. A toolkit was developed for the assessment of open data programs in the region

Latin America’s Domestic Market and the Maintenance of Capitalism

Rodolfo Stavenhagen en su clásico ensayo acerca de las 7 tesis equivocadas sobre América Latina aborda la cuestión del estrecho mercado interno señalando que es esencialmente una cuestión de distribución del ingreso. Ha quedado claro y más en el periodo neoliberal que la prioridad de la clase dominante latinoamericana está en el mercado mundial, no en lo local-nacional. Queda demostrado que en los últimos cuarenta años ha asumido con más determinación su papel de intermediaria, interesada en situarse en el ámbito del intercambio, del comercio y de las transacciones financieras, principalmente especulativas, que le permitan rentabilidades inmediatas. No promueve en el mercado interno las inversiones productivas ni el fortalecimiento de la educación ni la innovación ni el desarrollo tecnológico y por lo tanto el empleo seguro y protegido. La región muestra que la desigualdad se ha acentuado, que se acompaña de una creciente precarización del empleo, que el empleo informal es lo que más destaca y que por lo tanto el mercado interno expresa la segmentación y desigualdad productiva y social

International Trade Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean

This edition of International Trade Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean covers 2020 and is divided into three chapters. Chapter I reviews the performance of global and regional trade following the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in January 2020. The rapid spread of the virus and the drastic measures taken by governments to reduce the risk of contagion have hit the global economy hard, and in 2020 it will experience its worst recession since the 1930s. In this context, global trade in goods and services contracted heavily in the first half of the year, although an incipient recovery began to take shape in the second half. For the year overall, the volume of world trade in goods is projected to fall by nearly 9%, not as sharp a fall as occurred in 2009 during the global financial crisis (-13%). Although the region’s external trade in both goods and services has been hit hard by the pandemic, there has been a recovery in goods exports since June, driven mainly by an upturn in demand in China and the United States. Conversely, imports have yet to show signs of significant upturn, reflecting the severity of the recession in the region. For the year overall, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) projects falls of 13% and 20%, respectively, in the value of regional exports and imports of goods. Intraregional trade, which will be particularly badly affected, is projected to fall by 24% in value terms, with highly adverse impacts on the region’s manufacturing exports. Chapter II analyses the evolution of intraregional trade from a long-term perspective. The share of this category of trade in total exports from Latin America and the Caribbean has tended to fall since 2014, and is projected to dip to 12% in 2020. The analysis shows that integration of the region’s value chains is limited and concentrated in a few countries. In addition to low growth in the region, this has to do with the fragmentation of the regional economic space, the lack of solid institutional arrangements, the emergence of China as a trading partner and the centrifugal force exerted by trade agreements with extraregional partners. At the same time, underinvestment in infrastructure has prevented closure of provision, quality and access gaps with regard to transport infrastructure services, hampering growth, integration and competitiveness.The weakening of intraregional trade is very worrying, since for most Latin American and Caribbean countries this is the type of trade most conducive to productive and export diversification. In this context, ECLAC proposes targeting three fronts: convergence in trade facilitation; improvement of regional transport and logistics infrastructure to support a shift in investment towards more resilient, efficient and sustainable works; and cooperation on digital matters. These three areas have clear synergies and offer the potential to support the environmental big push that ECLAC has proposed for the region. Chapter III examines how international trade, supported by the right policies, can contribute to gender equality. The links between the two may be attributed in part to the intersection between productive and trade specialization, gender-based labour segregation and the sexual division of labour in different countries. Changes in the intensity of trade, in the export and import structure, and in the prices of traded products and services have differentiated distributive effects between men and women, and between different groups of women.This chapter presents new findings on the very different situations existing among export sectors with respect to female employment and its conditions. It shows that the gender wage gap is wider in export-intensive sectors than in less export-intensive ones.The COVID-19 pandemic and the temporary closure of retail commerce has affected female employment in several global value chains, in particular in tourism and the clothing industry. Chapter III also looks at how the countries of the region have gradually incorporated gender equality into their trade policies, particularly in trade agreements and in the programmes and instruments of trade promotion agencies. At the fourteenth session of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in January 2020, the countries of the region agreed to implement policies and mechanisms to promote, strengthen and increase production and international trade, with a gender approach, as a pillar of countries’ economic development, and to pursue programmes to foster the creation of quality employment for women and female-led enterprise in international trade, conducting assessments of the impact on human rights of trade and investment policies and agreements from a gender equality perspective

Generational economy, transfer systems and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean

As part of a look at the intergenerational reproduction of inequality throughout the life cycle, this chapter takes the observed differences between generations and examines how public and private transfers target two periods of life: youth and old age. In this framework, analyses based on National Transfer Accounts for a set of countries in the region are provided as a basis for comparing the generational nature of such transfers in countries of Latin America and in developed countries

A Matter of Development: How to Reduce Vulnerability in the Face of Natural Disasters

This document was prepared by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) for the "Confronting Natural Disasters: A Matter of Development" Seminar held in New Orleans on 25 and 26 March 2000. Vulnerability reduction is a key investment, not only to reduce the human and material costs of natural disasters, but also to achieve sustainable development. This document deals with vulnerability reduction and the related aspects of democratic governability

Report on the economic impact of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Latin America and the Caribbean

On 26 March 2020, the Government of Mexico convened a virtual ministerial meeting on health affairs for response and follow-up to the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean, which was attended by foreign ministers and health representatives from 30 countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), as well as regional organizations. As a result of the meeting, CELAC formed a strategic alliance with the Economic Commission for Latin America and te Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to complement the regional strategy for the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean. In response to te request made by CELAC, on 3 April ECLAC launched the COVID-19 Observatory in Latin America and the Caribbean: Economic and Social Impact, to continue providing support to track the spread of the virus in the medium and long terms, as well as the policy measures that countries are adopting to contain the pandemic and reduce its economic and social impacts. As a regional public good, the Observatory generates and disseminates information to support evidence-based decision-making, by governments, businesses,academic institutions and civil society organization in the 33 countries of the Latin American and Caribbean region