Category: Latin America & the Caribbean

By Desmond L. Brown

NASSAU, The Bahamas (ACP | IDN) – Caribbean countries have found themselves between a rock and a hard place. Already grappling with a myriad of challenges, including crime and weak economies, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states from Jamaica in the north to Guyana in the south are also now faced with extremely high energy costs.

Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Perry Christie, said his country and its neighbours must move with haste to transition to sustainable energy sources, something he believes would also help shore up their ailing economies and also address the crime scourge.

By Desmond L. Brown

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (ACP-IDN) – As cash-strapped Caribbean nations push towards renewable energy development, the Director General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Adnan Z. Amin, has pointed to the challenges they face in matching ambition with reality and the need for international support.

Caribbean countries join a growing list of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) which have set ambitious targets to switch to renewables.

In October 2016, Barbados set a new target of generating 65 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2030 following IRENA’s support in developing a national energy road map.

By Jose Rafael Quesada*

SAN JOSE (IDN) – Costa Rica, a small Central American country with a population of barely 5 million inhabitants, has a high human development index (ranking 69th worldwide) and is considered a consolidated democracy in Latin America.

High investments in education, good development of social security and high levels of openness and competitiveness in international markets make Costa Rica a candidate for membership of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

However, the country is still experiencing serious problems in the area of endemic poverty, a low level of efficiency in the construction of infrastructure, high levels of state indebtedness and high indicators of tax evasion.

Viewpoint by Pía Figueroa*

SANTIAGO (IDN) – Every year, as they have been doing since 2011, students in Chile take to the streets each Thursday, demanding a free and good quality education system.

They are increasingly being joined by their parents – tired of paying for expensive schooling which is certainly the most expensive in the whole of Latin America – and teachers who leave work to join the students with a call for proper definition of the teaching career.

By Ronald Joshua

ROME | SAN SALVADOR (IDN) – Family farming accounts for about 50% of Agricultural Gross Domestic Product in Central America. It employs a huge percentage of agricultural working force, ranging from 36% in Costa Rica) to 76% in Honduras.

According to the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN agency dedicated to rural development, about 2.3 million families in the region work in family farming.

It is estimated that 6 in 10 family farmers face food insecurity and 65% live in poverty. Family farms’ heads are, in 85% of the cases, male. Their average age is 49. Family farms’ average extension is 1.13 ha.

With this in view, IFAD has joined hands with PRISMA-OXFAM-RIMISP Consortium to launch in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, a Regional Rural Dialogue Programme (PDRR), a network of family farmers’ organizations, focused on Central America and the Dominican Republic.

By Lisa Vives

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – The death toll in Ecuador’s African coastal communities continues to rise as rescuers dig for survivors of a massive earthquake in the battered villages.

On April 18, reports from the Esmeraldas, called the birthplace of Afro-Hispanic culture, estimated that 350 people died in the massive quake that sent buildings tumbling and roads buckling. Over one million African descendants reside in the area settled in the 1600s by escapees from Spanish slave ships.

Ecuador’s seismological institute reported more than 135 aftershocks following April 16 magnitude-7.8 quake that ravaged the country’s coastline. It was said to be 20 times greater than the quake that hit Japan early April 16. Ecuador could see a greater loss of life and greater damage due to the country’s less stringent construction codes.

By Nadia Pontes | IDN-InDepthNews Feature

This story is the first in a series of news features related to the 21st UN Climate Conference (COP21) from November 30 to December 11. It was sourced through the Voices2Paris UNDP storytelling contest on climate change and developed thanks to Megan Rowling and @alertnetclimate.

Pesqueira / Pernambuco, Brazil (IDN) – For the rural community of Pacheco in northeastern Brazil, the local school has never been so important. It is now the only place in the drought-stricken area that has water on tap.

The Central American country of Costa Rica is a model state that embodies the concept of global citizenship by pursuing a culture of peace and aspiring to achieve complete carbon-neutrality.

By Fabíola Ortiz | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

SAN JOSE (IDN) – With less than five million inhabitants, Costa Rica became famous for abolishing its army in the late 1940’s, when its Central American neighbours were involved in armed conflicts. After becoming a model of peace in the region, the country now wants to be known as a laboratory for a deep decarbonisation process of the world economy.

By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepthNews Report

BERLIN | PARIS (IDN) – Uruguay has become the 10th member country in Latin America and the Caribbean to join a group of 50 OECD and non-OECD countries that are already members of the Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Explaining the accession, a press release said, Uruguay’s structural characteristics, development experience and challenges offer rich opportunities for knowledge sharing among the Centre’s member countries.

Since its banking and financial crisis in 2002, it added, Uruguay has made remarkable progress. Stable macroeconomic policies and a favourable external environment permitted brisk growth and the financing of social policies, yielding the longest period of economic growth in decades.