OECD: Fifteen million Latin Americans have fallen into extreme poverty due to a decline in the middle class

Fifteen million Latin Americans have fallen into extreme poverty as a result of the decline of the middle class, said the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

“Recovery is slow, we will have to wait until 2024 to recover pre-COVID levels“, he pointed Sebastian Grandson Parrahead of Latin America and the Caribbean of the OECD Development Center, in a presentation at the Casa de América in Madrid, which included the intervention of Nunzia Saporito, economist associated with ECLAC, and Jimena Durán, representative of the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF).

Duran explained that “The pandemic only came to corroborate and intensify a situation that already existed in Latin America. Economic growth was an illusion. We need to generate more competitive, inclusive and sustainable growth”, he added.

“There are two main pillars on which we must work: digitization and climate change” assured, since “It is difficult to think of climate action without including Latin America and the Caribbean, since they have 50% of the biodiversity.”

Another of the issues discussed during the talk was the situation of youth. “COVID could cost Latin America a generation in terms of skills”, affirmed Saporito.

“20% of young people will not reach the minimum level of cognitive skills, which represents nine million people, and school dropout has increased by 3.1 million young people, in part due to unequal access to digital resources”, he commented.

The economist also highlighted that the gender perspective must be very relevant in recovery plans, since “38% of the jobs lost by women have not yet been recovered, and even before the pandemic, 50% of women were not part of the regulated market”.

Andrea Costafreda pointed out another type of crisis that plagues Latin America, the crisis of confidence, “the region is mired in a crisis of confidence long before the impact of the pandemic. Only 6% of Latin Americans think that they live in full democracies, and more than half say that it makes no difference to them who governs if they manage to solve the problems”.

“We have to go beyond recovery, we have to talk about transformation. We do not want a return to the past, this is an opportunity that allows us to transform ourselves into something better” concluded the director.