A new online map highlights vulnerabilities that countries face in Latin America and the Caribbean. Jubilee USA Network and LATINDADD, two groups working on pandemic response, published the new online database detailing growing challenges faced by developing countries due to the pandemic.  

"Our new database and map is a resource for world leaders to make decisions on the growing health and economic challenges that countries face because of the pandemic," noted Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of one of the groups that created the research map, Jubilee USA Network. "This information can help the G20 and IMF make decisions with real data that shows the pandemic impacted the income of countries in sectors like tourism," continued LeCompte. "We can see that developing countries had challenges before the coronavirus that made the pandemic worse."

The Atlas of Vulnerability highlights limitations developing countries face in responding to the pandemic. The research and map focus on 24 Latin America and Caribbean countries. 

"Our map brings together the whole range of economic, social and climate weaknesses that cripple pandemic response in developing countries.” said Patricia Miranda, Global Advocacy Director of LATINDADD. “The result of the research overcomes artificial categories of developing low- or middle-income countries. In Latin America, middle-income countries are the majority and were left out by global recovery policies."

Currently, only countries categorized by the World Bank as low-income can access emergency debt payment relief and other pandemic relief measures. The two groups argue that this approach may dangerously underestimate how middle-income countries are suffering pandemic damage.

The map includes data from 12 vulnerability dimensions: external sector, fiscal sector, private sector, health system preparedness, education, employment/social security, food/nutrition, climate, gender, poverty, inequality and physiological conditions. 

The online interface allows the viewer to see up to 55 indicators, find the top five vulnerability factors, pull up historical performance and compare with benchmarks from developed economies for each country. 

Some key data findings the map shows include:

• For more than half of the countries, tourism dependence is higher than the world average.
• Regional governments paid an interest rate 7.5% higher than that paid by the U.S. to borrow from international markets.
• Tax revenue as a share of the economy is below the average in industrialized countries, except in one country. In 6 countries, it is less than half the average. 
• In most countries, the number of people who died in the first year of the pandemic is more than 10% higher than the previous five year average, with four countries exceeding 55%. The average across Latin America is 2.7 times higher than in OECD countries.
• Five countries have COVID-19 vaccination rates under 5% and only three countries reached more than 40%.
• In more than half of the surveyed countries, less than 12% of the population can access any type of social safety net program, and it is only above 40% in one country.
• More than 75% of countries show less climate response capacity than the global average.
• More than 20% of people live in poverty in all but two of the countries, and poverty rates rose in all countries during the pandemic.

"The pandemic exacerbated developing countries’ vulnerabilities and we suffer the impacts now. If global policies don’t take them into account, recovery will take longer for our countries and our people, where women and girls bear the highest burden,” said Veronica Serafini, LATINDADD’s Gender and Macroeconomics Officer.

Developing country pandemic response is on the agenda for G20 leaders when they meet in Rome at the end of October.

“The hope is that presenting the data in this way will provide a clearer picture of the challenges in developing countries,” shared Aldo Caliari, Jubilee USA's senior policy director. “We need more action from wealthy countries so developing countries can confront the global crisis.”

On Wednesday, Jubilee USA and LATINDADD host a virtual event to present and provide a short tutorial on the map as well as discuss its findings with the UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean, the International Labor Organization, and Climate Service Center of Germany. 

Explore the Atlas of Vulnerability: Developing Countries and the Pandemic here.

Read selected findings from the Atlas of Vulnerability here.

Read the full brief "Atlas of Vulnerability: The Pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean" here.

Register for the map launch and virtual tutorial on October 27, 2021, 10:00 AM ET here.

The Bond Buyer referenced Eric LeCompte in an article on the future of Puerto Rico's debt following House Bill 1003, a new bond restructuring which is likely to pass through Congress next week. Read an excerpt below and the full article here. 

Questions remain about Puerto Rico deal's viability

When observers were asked if Puerto Rico would be able to afford the deal in the long term, most expressed skepticism. “Strategically speaking, it is a smart move from the [board],” said Fernós Sagebien. “This places the entire burden on the Puerto Rico’s two branches of government [executive and legislative] responsible for the budget as they are now forced to identify nonexistent free cash flow in order for Office of Management and Budget to honor the full pension expenditure.

He said the deal was not affordable and “I don’t believe any of the three parties (Federal Oversight and Management Board, executive branch, and legislative branch) involved care. They all know time is of the essence and we are running out ... they have proven unfit to serve. The citizens of Puerto Rico feel like this is like in Evolutionary Game Theory’s ‘Red Queen's race’: ‘constantly running but remaining in the same spot.’”

Marxuach said the feasibility of the deal could be measured using economic development tools or simply through examining whether it would prevent hunger, provide a good education, decent healthcare, and a reasonable livelihood for the elderly.

“I fear though that Judge Taylor Swain has a strong incentive to approve a plan, any plan,regardless of whether or not it is the best plan for Puerto Rico and the current circumstances,” Marxuach said. “She was appointed to this job by Chief Justice [John Roberts, Jr.] so it is in her professional interests to confirm a plan and put an end to this long process. The risk is that a whole generation of Puerto Ricans would be paying the price of living with a ‘good enough’ plan for decades to come.”

Jubilee USA Network Executive Director Eric LeCompte said, “If not enough debt was cut and revenue plans fail, Puerto Rico will likely default again in a few years. Growth assumptions seem unrealistic, austerity slows growth and Medicare and other federal monies are not certain."

Read more here. 

Reuters quoted Eric LeCompte in an article discussing the top concerns for policymakers at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings. Read an excerpt below and the full article here.

Analysis: Supply chains, inflation cloud vaccine, debt woes at IMF-World Bank meetings

By David Lawder and Andrea Shalal

Supply chain woes and growing inflation concerns pushed aside a widening gap in COVID-19 vaccinations and mounting debt problems for developing countries as the top concerns for global policymakers at International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings this week.

Relatively little new progress was made on increasing vaccine supplies to developing countries, although officials highlighted an increasing divergence between rich and poor countries as a growing financial and economic risk.

The focus on the normalization pains that wealthier economies are experiencing and a World Bank data-rigging scandal that had clouded the future of IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva proved a disappointment for anti-poverty groups.

"Given how the pandemic is becoming worse in most of the world's countries, I'm concerned by the lack of action at the meetings on vaccine distribution, debt relief and general pandemic response," said Eric LeCompte, executive director of the Jubilee USA Network, a religious development group.

Read more here.

Faith Communities around the Country and World call for a COVID Response that Prioritizes the Poor and the Planet

The Development Committee, a ministerial-level consensus building and policymaking body for the World Bank and the IMF, met as part of the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings.  

As part of the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings, the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), the IMF policymaking body, met on COVID-19 economic crisis response and recovery, debt, aid, Special Drawing Rights, tax and climate.

Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network and a United Nations finance expert who monitored IMF meetings since 2010, releases the following statement on the IMFC Communiqué and IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings:

Ahead of the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings, G20 finance ministers and central bank governors met on COVID response, green and inclusive recovery, debt, Special Drawing Rights and global tax agreements.

Vietnamese Newspaper Kinh te & Do thi (Economic and Urban) quoted Eric LeCompte in an article discussing the International Monetary Fund-World Bank annual meeting. Read an excerpt below and the full article here.

“Hot” issues at the 2021 annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank

By Nguyen Phuong

The annual meetings of the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will take place from October 11-17 in Washington, USA. In it, officials will discuss the global economy, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and global minimum corporate tax rate issues.

Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the Jubilee USA Network, said he is waiting to see if the world's wealthiest countries make commitments to fund more funding for the vaccine support program for low-income countries. especially in Africa.

Mr. LeCompte also expressed concern that if the IMF and World Bank do not push governments to act now, the global roll-out of vaccine support will continue to be delayed, and potentially fall short of its goals. The World Health Organization (WHO) is to vaccinate 70% of the population of each country by mid-2022.

Read more here.