5 Milestones of Latin American Development in 2021

Despite the wishes and hopes of a good part of humanity, 2021 will remain in our memory as another year of the pandemic. It was the year when we began to see the light at the end of the tunnel, thanks to vaccines, and there was also some economic euphoria after seeing a rebound in global growth, but the social, personal, health systems and much of the economic activity continued to tip the balance towards crisis side.

Economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2021 stood at 6.3% of GDP, a very positive figure after the sharp recession of 2020. But experts predict that maintaining these levels of growth will be difficult in the coming years. Thus, countries in the region will have to reinforce their social protection systems, invest more and better in infrastructure and work on increasing productivity and competitiveness.

In any case, 2021 leaves us with some noteworthy development milestones in Latin America and the Caribbean:

• Progress of vaccination in Latin America and the Caribbean
  While the West and China advanced their vaccination plans at a frantic pace, developing regions struggled to access vaccines, in part due to the absence of drugs and poor infrastructure. Currently, 57% of the world’s population is vaccinated.
  
  But Latin America and the Caribbean was lagging in 2021, picking up pace towards the end of the year to close at 56% of the population. In the US and the EU, around 61.5% of people have been vaccinated, and about 80% in China. The differences within the region are also remarkable, with countries such as Chile and Cuba with vaccination rates greater than 80%, others with also high numbers, such as Argentina (69%), Brazil (66%) and Uruguay (76%), and other still lagging, with less than 40%. Despite the initial drawbacks, all countries have ambitious vaccination plans to achieve herd immunity in the coming months, which is a sign of the region’s responsiveness.