![]() A Six-Point Plan to Help the Region Rebuild Strongerġ. Goals of a Regional COVID-19 Recovery Strategy: Prosperity, Security, and Democracy Regional Recovery: Why It’s a US Foreign Policy Priority One Year After the Region’s First COVID-19 Case: Where Are We? House Foreign Affairs Committee Table of Contents By working with our hemispheric partners during this moment of great need, the United States itself will be stronger, safer, and better positioned to lead this hemisphere into a post-pandemic future.Ĭivilian Security, Migration and International Economic Policy The United States has the opportunity to position itself as the most important partner for its neighbors by supporting the region’s sustainable and inclusive recovery. It highlights specific short- and long-term actions that can be taken by the United States to help achieve security, accelerate prosperity, and strengthen democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean. This publication comes at a critical moment to advance our long-term thinking about how the United States can partner with the region in its COVID-19 recovery. But the administration should also prioritize long-term thinking on assistance to the region that strengthens democratic institutions and health systems, combats corruption, bolsters economies to create more formal jobs, and ends the epidemic of violence against women. I will be working with the Biden administration and my colleagues in Congress to ensure US assistance helps address immediate needs such as vaccine procurement and deployment, emergency food insecurity, and poverty. We need to work closely with our allies to advance an inclusive recovery that reaches historically overlooked groups, including indigenous and Afro-descendant populations. The United States, as a hemispheric neighbor, has an important role to play in this recovery.Īs vaccine deployment begins, we must redouble our efforts to ensure US assistance gets to those who need it most. The pandemic certainly presents a historic opportunity for the region to embrace a transformative agenda, but a long road ahead remains to repair the damage this pandemic has caused. Hemispheric trade and potential nearshoring could stimulate investment, employment, the diversification of economies, and regional integration. Its natural endowments offer unparalleled opportunities to invest in a sustainable recovery. Latin America and the Caribbean remains a region of boundless economic potential. Nearly a year later, there are reasons for cautious optimism. ![]() While the population of the region represents less than 9 percent of the world’s population, Latin America and the Caribbean has had over a quarter of the world’s deaths. Nearly 60 million people fell out of the middle class. ![]() A recent United Nations (UN) report concluded that in 2020, an additional 22 million people in the region plunged into poverty. Economies throughout the region shrunk, with the prospects for a full recovery appearing to be several years, if not a decade, away. Some governments used the pandemic to curtail freedom of expression or take advantage of emergency powers, which accelerated the erosion of democratic norms and institutions already underway in some countries. Calls to domestic violence hotlines skyrocketed and countries like Mexico saw record-breaking femicides in 2020. Stay-at-home orders also exacerbated an epidemic within a pandemic-that of gender-based violence. ![]() Weak health systems in many countries led to unequal access to essential health services and disproportionate impact on more vulnerable communities. ![]() The pandemic’s impact on Latin America and the Caribbean has exposed vulnerabilities particular to the region, such as high levels of informality that made it difficult for governments to manage the disease’s spread, despite both public closures and expanded testing efforts. As someone who has spent fifteen years in Congress advocating for the United States to work more closely with our friends in Latin America and the Caribbean, I was deeply saddened as this region became an epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. In April and May, Venezuelans who had fled the Maduro dictatorship were forced to return home after having lost their jobs in neighboring countries. In March 2020, families in Guayaquil searched for coffins to bury their loved ones. From Mexico City to Manaus, the COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged communities throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. ![]()
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