The executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, warned this Monday that 201,000,000 people in the region are in poverty, of which 86,000,000 are in extreme poverty.
“We have a setback of 27 years. And inequality crosses our region, breaking a downward trend that had already been going on for 20 years,” the official said at the fifth meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development. She added that global asymmetries between developed and developing countries have deepened.
According to ECLAC, the region experienced a notable setback in its fight against poverty in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, where poverty and extreme poverty rates increased for the sixth consecutive year.
“Our region today faces great challenges, but it also has multiple opportunities to achieve the desired development with a focus on equality, social justice, sustainability, democracy and peace. I am convinced that it is possible for the region to raise a common voice in the face of the historic challenges that this crucial hour calls us to take on,” said Bárcena.
In its annual report Social Panorama of Latin America, ECLAC estimated that between 2020 and 2021 people in extreme poverty increased by nearly 5,000,000.
“As a consequence of the prolonged health and social crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, the extreme poverty rate in Latin America would have increased from 13.1 percent of the population in 2020 to 13.8 percent in 2021, a setback 27 years old, while it is estimated that the general poverty rate would have decreased slightly, from 33.0 percent to 32.1 percent of the population”, ECLAC reported.
