Regional Perspectives | Latin America and The Caribbean
Confronted with the pandemic, the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region has faced challenges on several fronts. COVID-19 has revealed structural gaps and vulnerabilities in the region, and has exasperated pre-existing inequalities, exclusion and insecurity. When the pandemic hit, these issues were compounded by additional risk factors, such as overcrowding, lack of access to basic services, and high levels of labour informality. The challenges of exclusion and inequalities were underlined as key issues for the region during the 53 UNESCO Resiliart debates that took place in Latin America and the Caribbean over the past year. Certain groups — Afro-descendent artists, indigenous creators, women and youth — have been particularly vulnerable to the shocks of the pandemic. In five countries that account for 80% of the region’s indigenous peoples (Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru), more than eight million indigenous people lack access to drinking water in their homes, which has made it difficult to practice hygiene measures. The pandemic’s impact on tourism-related industries has been particularly felt in the Caribbean where tourism employs some 2.4 million people and makes up 15.5% of GDP.
Despite these challenges, the region has introduced many powerful response measures to combat the impact of the pandemic and ensure the continuity of cultural life. The Governments of Colombia, Guatemala and Peru prepared health-related materials in various indigenous languages that were adapted to cultural contexts. Soon into the pandemic, ministries of culture in the region began to engage in impact assessment processes – at times partnering with regional and civil society organizations, and drawing on existing regional data sets. The Ministry of Culture of Panama, for instance, conducted a survey on the country’s cultural and creative industry to establish baseline data. In Brazil, researchers and partner institutions joined with civil society organizations to assess the impacts of COVID-19 on the value chains of the cultural and creative sectors.
A regional assessment on the impact of COVID-19 on the cultural and creative industries was launched last year by MERCOSUR, UNESCO, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) and the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI). The results showed that, by November 2020, ten countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay) have implemented a total of 218 national public policies to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cultural workers and cultural and creative industries. Similarly, the results provided insight into the most impacted workers in the cultural sector and what are the most needed public policy measures for companies operating in culture. UNESCO also supported the survey “Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Cultural and Creative Sectors in Brazil”, carried out from July to September, and supported by the Social Service of Commerce (SESC), University of São Paulo (USP), the National Forum of State Secretaries and Directors of Culture and 13 State Secretaries of Culture. The findings reveal heavy implications for employment. Between March and April, 44% of organizations dismissed all their employees and there was a 49% drop in third-party service contracts. A government survey carried out in Costa Rica last year estimated that 12% of art workers surveyed live in a state of poverty or extreme poverty, making them especially vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic. Such patterns in cultural employment echo the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimates that the crisis in 2020 added 22 million more people living in poverty and extreme poverty in the region.
Strengthening the nexus between culture and education has emerged as a policy priority across the region. From the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020, eight member countries of the Central American Integration System (SICA) jointly adopted a Contingency Plan agreed by their governments. UNESCO worked together with the Educational and Cultural Coordination of SICA (CECC-SICA) to include specific guidelines on education and culture into this Plan. As part of this joint effort, a digital platform “Culture in Times of COVID-19” also highlighted governmental actions to broaden access to cultural content during the crisis. The Organization has also collaborated with CECC-SICA in recommendations for a Collaborative Response Strategy for culture in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in view of strengthening institutional capacity-building to formalize the sector and its access to social security.
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