The ageing Caribbean: 20 years of the Madrid Plan of Action

This report assess the situation of older persons and reviews the actions taken in Caribbean countries and territories, particularly over the past five years, to implement the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing and related regional agreements. It contributes to the global and regional reviews of the Plan of Action, 20 years on from its adoption in 2002, and includes recommendations to further address population ageing and the rights of older persons in the Caribbean.…

Annotated provisional agenda. Sixty-fourth meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean

Caring in times of COVID-19: A global study on the impact of the pandemic on care work and gender equality

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, and the response to it, have brought to light the importance of care for the sustainability of life, and the central role that care plays in the functioning of our economies and societies. The pandemic has exacerbated existing care needs, transformed conditions of paid and unpaid care work and, ultimately, increased the volume of women’s unpaid care work, deepening the associated gender gaps. This study brings together evidence from across the globe on how the pandemic has impacted women’s unpaid care work, as well as exploring measures implemented…

Emergency social protection against the impacts of the pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean: evidence and lessons learned for universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection systems

This paper addresses the emergency non-contributory social protection measures announced in Latin American and Caribbean countries in 2020 and 2021 in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The rapid reaction of the region’s governments and the innovations implemented were key to reaching a large percentage of those affected and containing the adverse effects on poverty and inequality of the measures adopted to contain the pandemic. This process yielded fundamental lessons to advance in the development of mechanisms to provide efficient emergency social protection. The aim is…

The Hummingbird Vol. 10 No. 2

Economic Survey of the Caribbean 2022

This survey examines the economic performance of economies of the Caribbean in 2021 and the first few months of 2022 and comprises five chapters. The first chapter gives an overview of global, regional and subregional economic performance in the Caribbean. The second provides an analysis of the subregion’s fiscal performance and debt burden. The third looks at monetary policy and their impacts. The fourth is focused on the external sector, while the fifth concludes.…

Nature-based solutions and carbon dioxide removal

The negative impacts of climate change call for an urgent global response, to mitigate emissions and strengthen the adaptive capacity of social, economic, and environmental structures. In Latin America and the Caribbean, in a context of high vulnerability and three simultaneous crises affecting the region, development models need to be transformed, to bring about a sustainable transition. During this process, national and local policies must harness the full potential of climate action, through adoption of new technologies, innovation, productive reorganization, and identification of synergies…

Transformational change in Latin America and the Caribbean: A mission-oriented approach

The current economic and social challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean have highlighted both the region’s structural problems and the urgent need to find new drivers of economic growth. The old approaches to economic development will not enable Latin America and the Caribbean to overcome the present-day economic, health and climate crises. Governments must set bold goals and work with willing private sector partners to promote a truly sustainable and inclusive economy. By advancing mission-oriented industrial policies, countries can stimulate cooperation, diversify production, increase …

Handbook for the use of death distribution methods

This technical note is intended to examine the DDMs available for estimating the completeness of adult mortality information and to discuss their main limitations and advantages in national and subnational applications in Latin America and the Caribbean. It presents an example of the use of the methods, based on the evaluation of data quality, using different packages developed in the R programming language: the DDM package (Riffe, Lima and Queiroz, 2017) and the DemoTools package (Riffe and others, 2019). Finally, it discusses the methods’ advantages and limitations and the importance of asse…

Science, technology and innovation: cooperation, integration and regional challenges

Science, technology and innovation (STI) policies have a central role to play: not only in building national research and development capacities, but also in solving national problems and challenges within the framework of countries’ development policies. Given the region’s structural weaknesses, scarce resources and the need for scale to achieve results, the resources allocated to support science, technology and innovation —or at least part of them— must be channelled into areas of knowledge related to the main challenges the countries face. STI must contribute to the development of sectors …

Innovative financing instruments in Latin America and the Caribbean

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis (2008–2009), the external financing needs of Latin America and the Caribbean increased significantly, reflecting a process of external debt accumulation in all developing regions, exacerbated by the impacts of COVID-19. The region is now the most indebted in the developing world, with a debt profile that makes it highly vulnerable to changes in international lending conditions and to perceptions of risk. This has placed a major constraint on government responses to the COVID-19 emergency and undermines their capacity to build forward better. This…

Preliminary overview of the economies of the Caribbean 2021–2022

This overview examines the economic performance of economies of the Caribbean in 2021 and comprises four chapters. The first chapter provides a comparative analysis across Caribbean economies of the main macroeconomic variables, namely GDP growth, monetary indicators, as well as fiscal and external accounts. The second chapter concludes, while the annex includes individual country briefs that give an overview of the economic situation for the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and a subregional assessment of the countries of the Eastern Caribbean Currenc…

Report of the twenty-ninth session of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

Statistical literacy: an enabler of statistical capacity development in the Caribbean

This study reviews the level of statistical skills and competencies of staff of National Statistical Offices of the Caribbean as a critical step in enhancing the statistical capacity of National Statistical Systems in the subregion. Building on discussions of statistical literacy in national policies and regional frameworks such as the CARICOM Regional Strategy for the Development of Statistics (RSDS), the study explores statistical literacy and competencies using self-reported responses of NSO staff to a structured questionnaire that focused on technical expertise of staff and their perceptio…

Practices and initiatives for the development of cross-border e-commerce in Latin America and the Caribbean and its impact in the post-pandemic era

E-commerce fosters innovation and contributes to the process of digital transformation of MSMEs through the implementation of digital technologies, new business practices and new business models, which can improve the efficiency and productivity of companies beyond the effects on access to new national and international markets. This document presents some practices and policies that governments in Latin American and Caribbean countries have implemented before and after the COVID-19 pandemic to promote the participation of MSEs in cross-border e-commerce, including measures to deepen the penet…

Financial openness, financial fragility and policies for economic stability: a comparative analysis across regions of the developing world

This book presents a comparative analysis of the policy responses of developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean to the challenges that greater external financial openness and price and exchange-rate flexibility pose to economic stability. Greater external openness has significantly narrowed developing economies’ policy space, while at the same time increasing the potential for financial fragility and instability. These challenges, which have come to the fore since the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, are also manifest in the profound impact of the COVID-19 pa…

Digital inclusion in Caribbean digital transformation frameworks and initiatives: a review

This study evaluates the extent to which digital inclusion is considered in Caribbean digital transformation frameworks. Digital inclusion considers the ways in which digital divides are created as the digital transformation of society progresses, and how societal inequalities affect and are affected by digital technologies. As such, digital inclusion is a lens through which the effects of the digital transformation can be assessed. The study assesses the digital transformation policies of 11 countries and territories of the Caribbean and complements this analysis with qualitative data gathere…

International Trade Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean 2022: the challenge of boosting manufacturing exports

In its 2022 edition, this ECLAC annual report examines the foreign trade performance of the region’s economies during the year. It consists of three chapters. The first examines recent developments in global and regional trade amid the conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, record-high inflation rates, the global economic slowdown, geopolitical tensions and the difficulties faced by China in containing the COVID-19 pandemic. Chapter II presents an overview of the region’s foreign trade in manufactures in the past three decades, with particular emphasis on its export performance. …

Inclusion and urban mobility with a human-rights and gender-equality approach: a policy instrument analysis and identification framework for the development of sustainable urban mobility systems in Latin America

The quality of life, well-being and enjoyment of rights by people who live in and around cities are closely linked to urban mobility. From that perspective, how can we ensure that policies implemented in mobility systems and other related sectors adopt a human rights and gender approach? This document addresses urban mobility from a social perspective in which human rights, the gender approach and the social inequality matrix converge. The objective is to identify policy areas and instruments that favour universal enjoyment of human rights and prevent their violation in urban mobility systems …

Report of the activities carried out by the Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Economic and Social Planning (ILPES), 2021-2022