AS/COA Online | LatAm in Focus: How the Pandemic Boosted Financial Inclusion

AS/COA Online · How the Pandemic Boosted Financial Inclusion

For a year now, shuttered businesses and quarantine restrictions have moved many of our interactions—economic or otherwise—online. That means a silver lining for Latin America and the Caribbean, where more than 200 million people were unbanked as of early 2020. In Brazil, emergency aid disbursements resulted in the country’s unbanked population dropping by 73 percent, says Luz Gomez, director for Latin America and the Caribbean at Mastercard’s Center for Inclusive Growth. “There were all these existing trends to digital financial services that were happening all around Latin America that have been really accelerated,” she explains.

“[The pandemic] basically had the effect of doing what we could have achieved in 10 years and compressing that into one year,” says her colleague Arturo Franco. He notes that building access to financial services can lead to tangible improvements in people’s lives, particularly by lifting people out of informality. “What we have seen over the last decade is that financial inclusion doesn’t just help boost economic growth. It can also reduce poverty and inequality,” says the Center’s vice president for data & insights. “It can improve the productivity of business and, ultimately, insure people against economic shocks, like the ones we are going through right now.”

From helping to digitize payments to coffee growers in Colombia or assessing why Mexico’s tiendita owners stick to cash payments, Gomez covers the complex, multi-sectoral aspects of financial inclusion and the need to involve institutions ranging from fintechs to traditional banks to coops. With that approach mind, the next step is to build on the momentum gained during the pandemic. “Let’s not miss this opportunity,” says Gomez, who suggests using the current moment to prepare for the next emergency. “It’s also about building a robust ecosystem that's more attuned to serving the underserved.”

Franco notes that the Center is launching a research institute at the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico that will work in partnership with universities in Colombia and Chile to better understand challenges to financial inclusion in the region. On this front, the pandemic is also spurring discussion. Says Franco: “People don't really want to change too much when things look like they're working out, but this is a moment where people are more open to structural change.”

AS/COA Online | LatAm in Focus: Vaccines and Variants a Year into the Pandemic

AS/COA Online · Vaccines and Variants a Year into the Pandemic

February marks a year since the first coronavirus cases were confirmed in the Americas and the virus has left a scar, claiming more than a million lives. Now the pandemic has entered a new phase, one in which countries are trying to roll out vaccines as variants threaten to undermine the protection those vaccines offer.

“We are encountering a problem that nobody is safe until everybody is safe,” says Dr. Roselyn Lemus-Martin, a COVID-19 researcher with a PhD in molecular biology from Oxford University. She explains that Latin America—and the world at large—is in a race against time to get as many people immunized as possible before the variants spread. “With these new variants, it’s going to take us a while to get to herd immunity.”

Meanwhile, a lack of transparency about vaccines can undermine public confidence in immunizations. Lemus-Martin has gained an audience in Mexico for her use of social media to explain the science behind both vaccines and variants, as well as how mechanisms such as COVAX work. She tells AS/COA’s Carin Zissis why there was a concern with Russia’s Sputnik V—for which countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, and Mexico have acquired contracts—and how a new article in The Lancet is “good news for Latin America” as a study found that the vaccine has a 91.6 percent efficacy rate.

AS/COA Online | LatAm in Focus: Dr. Julio Frenk on the Coronavirus Pandemic in an Age of Populism

AS/COA Online · Dr. Julio Frenk on the Coronavirus Pandemic in an Age of Populism

As most of the world reels from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Julio Frenk told Latin America in Focus: “The sooner you start acting, the better.”

The president of the University of Miami, who also served as Mexico’s health minister and dean of Harvard University’s School of Public Health, says social distancing measures are crucial to stem the pandemic’s spread. “Those do work and the sooner you adopt them, even understanding that they do carry an important social and economic cost, the better off you’re going to be,” he says, pointing to time lost during the first days that COVID-19 hit Italy.

When it comes to countries’ health systems, Dr. Frenk, who has held decision-making roles during a number of pandemics, describes investing in technical competence as “fundamental” for preparedness. “It’s great to have these big hospitals and do heroic surgery to save a life, but the real core of the health system is the public health component and particularly having good epidemiological surveillance systems.” He added that this was a key aspect to controlling the 2009 swine flu epidemic. “Mexico behaved in a very responsible way, and knowing there would be serious economic consequences, immediately reported the outbreak to the World Health Organization, and that again gave time to other countries.”

Dr. Frenk said that, for that reason, the wave of global populism since that outbreak has undermined global readiness on the public health front. “In 2009 the multilateral system was in a much better shape than today,” he told AS/COA Online’s Carin Zissis. “You see that time and again, and it’s happened already with coronavirus: presidents presuming that they know better than their experts.”

He also points out what we need to learn from this pandemic. “The stock market has lost trillions of dollars in market capitalization. With a fraction of that we could have competent surveillance and preparedness systems. But again, this is the invisible part of the health system. It’s the thing that we only notice when it fails.”

“I hope this is a wakeup call for people because now it’s hitting home. You cannot engage in this sort of anti-science discourse without eventually paying the price,” says the former World Health Organization executive director. “And, by the way, the way we’re going to get out of this current pandemic is through science.”

AS/COA Online | LatAm in Focus: Alejandro Hope on Drug Policy and Mexico's Marijuana Laws

Alejandro Hope, El Daily Post’s security editor, speaks with Carin Zissis about how national-level changes in drug policy in the Americas have an impact on global policy. He predicts a large portion of the legislation that underpins marijuana prohibition in Mexico today will eventually be declared unconstitutional.

“This region has been at the forefront of the reform process.” That’s what Alejandro Hope had to say about shifts toward more progressive drug policies in the Americas in recent years. Hope, a drug policy analyst and security editor at the Mexico City-based news site El Daily Post, spoke with AS/COA Online’s Carin Zissis about what the region’s policy changes mean on a global scale as the UN prepares to host a special summit, known as UNGASS 2016, on the worldwide drug problem from April 19 to 21.

The General Assembly last held a special session in 2009 and another one wasn’t slated until 2019. But, in 2012, the presidents of Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico, tired of drug war violence, called to hold the summit sooner. But just because some countries are looking for a new path doesn’t mean UNGASS 2016 will produce major results: even if Latin American countries want more open policies, other parts of the world—such as Asia and Russia—take a more conservative stance.

Still, changes taking place on a national level have an impact on global policy. Hope notes that marijuana legalization by particular U.S. states weakens the ability to enforce drug control treaties, leaving “a gaping hole in the system.”

Shifting U.S. marijuana policy also has a direct effect on Mexico, where the illicit marijuana export market is showing signs it’s contracting as eradication and seizures decline. There’s a political effect as well: it’s harder for Mexico to maintain marijuana prohibition when the United States doesn’t, explains Hope. A Mexican Supreme Court decision in November, while limited in scope, opened the door to more progressive policies. “Marijuana legalization used to be a fringe concern,” he says. “It’s now part of the mainstream conversation.”

And Hope predicts court decisions will keep chipping away at prohibition as cases arise, saying: “I would argue that a large portion of the legislation that underpins marijuana prohibition in Mexico will be declared unconstitutional.”

What does this mean for Mexico’s next presidential election and security policy overall? Listen to find out.

AS/COA Online | Website Relaunch

Led the Summer 2012 relaunch of AS/COA Online (www.as-coa.org), which unified the prior version of the site for sister organizations Americas Society/Council of the Americas into one cohesive identity. The refreshed site offers interactive guides to top Latin American issues, social media integration, simplified navigation, strong imagery, a new multimedia section, and improved ways to highlight media hits.

 Check out the before and after.

AS/COA Online - Latin America Looks to India

Latin America already has significant Chinese investments and trade agreements under its belt, but the region could set its sights on another resource-hungry Asian giant: India. A new report by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) recognizes that, even though Latin America’s commercial ties with India have been on the upswing in recent years, more could be done to build up the South Asian country as a Latin American market. “The region and India are increasingly together at the table when major decisions are taken,” said IDB head Luis Alberto Moreno in comments about the report’s release. “We are starting to see greater integration among them and there is a tremendous opportunity for more trade and cooperation.”

His comments allude to India as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, with GDP growth rates forecast to hit 8.5 percent for 2010, as well as areas for partnership with Latin America, such as with Brazil as a fellow BRIC member. India has fostered trade links with the region, including a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with the Mercosur bloc that went into effect in June 2009 and covers roughly 900 products. A PTA with Chile came into force three years ago. 

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AS/COA Online | Sec. Clinton Lays out U.S.-LatAm Policy in Andean Tour

Updated June 10 - With the 40th OAS General Assembly hosted by Peru this week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Latin America and Caribbean for the seventh time since joining the Obama cabinet. The summit marked nearly a year since the overthrow of then-Honduran President Manuel Zelaya as well as continued disagreement between members over whether the Central American country should be brought back into the OAS fold. Clinton not only urged for Honduras’ readmission, but petitioned OAS members for support on sanctions against Iran over that country’s nuclear policy. In a trip that takes the secretary to Ecuador, Colombia, and Barbados, she delivered remarks in Quito outlining the shared U.S.-Latin American responsibility too reduce social inequality in the region.

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AS/COA Online | Latin America Springs Forward

Latin American economies appear to be waving goodbye to the global financial crisis and welcoming recovery. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) released reports this week predicting regional growth will hit at least 4 percent in 2010. With recovery occurring faster than previously predicted and emerging markets leading the charge, Latin America’s rebound ranks second only to Asia’s. Still, challenges remain, such as increased poverty rates stemming from the recent downturn and worries about future asset bubbles similar to those experienced in advanced economies.

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AS/COA Online - Exclusive Interview: General Fraser on Security in the Americas

“Our efforts are always focused on supporting the government, wherever the crisis happens.”

General Douglas M. Fraser, Commander of U.S. Southern Command, spoke with AS/COA Online’s Carin Zissis about supporting relief efforts in Chile and Haiti, the fight against illicit trafficking, Iran’s growing ties with Latin America, and weapons modernization in the Andes.

AS/COA: The Americas obviously experienced two massive earthquakes since the beginning of the year, first in Haiti and now in Chile. In each case, what are the top challenges in terms of operational responses from a U.S. perspective?

Gen. Fraser: I think there are a couple things to keep in mind. One is that every situation is different and every situation is unique, so you have to understand the situation as it exists. And getting accurate information early—and comprehensive information—is always a challenge. Our efforts are always focused on supporting the government, wherever the crisis happens. So we look to support the government and work at what they need, when they say they need it. That’s very much what we see happening in Chile.

Read the full text of the interview.

The Boston Globe - Finally, a Latino film festival here

Los Angeles, Miami, and San Diego have held Latino film festivals for years, attracting big-name stars as speakers. Even Providence celebrated its tenth in April, with Antonio Banderas in attendance at the festival's $125-per-person gala dinner. It takes a little longer for such high-powered events for Boston and Cambridge...

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