{"id":9363,"date":"2026-04-27T21:47:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.openvaluefoundation.org\/?p=9363"},"modified":"2026-04-27T21:47:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:47:04","slug":"blog-post-81","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/2026\/04\/27\/blog-post-81\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog post 81"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite being one of the regions of the world hardest hit by the pandemic, many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean do not have access to international initiatives aimed at mitigating the effects of COVID. This is nothing new. Given that almost 90% of the countries in the region fall into the middle-income category, Latin America faces restrictions when it comes to accessing official development assistance funds. The use of variables such as per capita income to establish criteria for classification and the allocation of capital obscures the diversity that exists \u2013 not only between countries, but also within countries \u2013 in terms of economic and social circumstances and the structural conditions necessary for development. Indeed, according to the latest Report<\/a> According to the UNDP\u2019s Human Development Report, Latin America is the most unequal region in the world, with the richest 10% accounting for 37% of income and the poorest 40% accounting for 13% \u2013 a gap that exceeds even that of sub-Saharan Africa. According to a recent study that assessed differences in life expectancy across six major cities in Latin America, a woman born in a wealthy neighbourhood of Santiago, Chile, could live on average up to 18 years longer than a woman born in a poor neighbourhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within the framework of Ibero-American Cooperation, Spain has recently promoted a coalition of Latin American countries, regional development organisations (World Bank, IDB, CAF, BCIE, ECLAC and SEGIB) and international financial institutions (IMF), so that, by coordinating financing and technical assistance, Latin America can face the consequences of the crisis. The participants have signed a Declaration in which they acknowledge the need for \u201can even more forceful, coordinated response adapted to the countries\u201d needs\u201c and call for International Financial Institutions to \u201dconsider additional support measures to help the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, regardless of their income classification, with special emphasis on the most vulnerable\u201c. Some examples of the proposed mechanisms include guarantees for blended finance for sustainable investments, soft loans to support employment and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as technical assistance to strengthen social protection systems and enhance social policy management capacity. In this context, the XXVII Ibero-American Summit, to be held during the first half of 2021, will have the theme \u201dInnovation for sustainable development \u2013 Objective 2030. Ibero-America facing the coronavirus challenge\".<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond what has been agreed within the framework of international cooperation, it would be interesting to explore possible avenues of collaboration between the Impact Movement in Spain and Latin America to develop, more efficiently (in terms of both time and resources), scalable solutions to challenges that are either joint or shared. According to the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR), in 2019, Spain \u201cdoubled its all-time high number of applicants for international protection, whilst the recognition rate fell sharply\u201d. This situation has been exacerbated by COVID. 80% of the applications submitted are from people in Latin America, who choose Spain as their first destination given the language and the close historical and cultural ties between their countries. 

To give another example, both Spain and Argentina are among the countries most at risk of desertification, with between 75% and 80% of their land area exposed to this phenomenon, which will have serious consequences in terms of biodiversity loss, access to water and food security. We have much more in common than just our language and our shared history. Forging links within the impact private equity sector \u2013 for example, by encouraging co-investment \u2013 would enable us to learn from one another, thereby accelerating the process of identifying and designing more effective and replicable solutions on both sides of the Atlantic. Furthermore, an incubation platform or programme could be developed to connect social entrepreneurs in Spain with entrepreneurs from Latin American countries interested in co-creating projects to be launched in both markets. We could draw inspiration from scientific collaboration mechanisms such as those currently being applied in the race to find a vaccine against COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interconnectivity has been laid bare in a brutal way. Just as the virus knows no borders or national sovereignties, the same applies to climate change and social inequality and injustice. These are also pandemics and have been striking the world long before COVID. The fires in Australia and the Amazon, or the protests in Santiago, Chile, and their dead, which no one seems to talk about anymore, affect us all, regardless of our country's per capita income (or our own). Solving such profound, interconnected, and urgent global challenges requires systemic logic. Without collaboration, the path (or, rather, the race) towards sustainable development is not possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Pilar Cristobal<\/strong> is a collaborator of SpainNAB<\/strong><\/a>, the National Advisory Board for Impact Investment, the consultative, independent and cross-sectoral body, representing Spain before the GSG<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pesar de ser una de las regiones del planeta m\u00e1s golpeada por la pandemia, muchos de los pa\u00edses de Am\u00e9rica Latina y el Caribe no tienen acceso a las iniciativas internacionales para mitigar los efectos de COVID. Esto no es algo nuevo. Dado que casi el 90% de los pa\u00edses que la integran pertenece […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9365,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9363\/revisions\/9365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}