Strategic clarity is needed now more than ever to face both the immediate cost-of-living crisis and the longer-term structural challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean. Policymakers will need a new narrative that puts innovation-led growth and an empowered, capable state front and center.
SANTIAGO – The war in Ukraine and the global cost-of-living crisis are hitting Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) hard. Growth in the region, which rebounded impressively from COVID-19 to reach an average rate of 6.8% in 2021, will fall to just 1.8% this year, with crippling effects on the most vulnerable people. Compared to 2021, Latin America’s poverty rate will increase by 0.9 percentage points to 33%, and extreme poverty will rise by 0.7 percentage points to 14.5% in 2022.
SANTIAGO – The war in Ukraine and the global cost-of-living crisis are hitting Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) hard. Growth in the region, which rebounded impressively from COVID-19 to reach an average rate of 6.8% in 2021, will fall to just 1.8% this year, with crippling effects on the most vulnerable people. Compared to 2021, Latin America’s poverty rate will increase by 0.9 percentage points to 33%, and extreme poverty will rise by 0.7 percentage points to 14.5% in 2022.