“This as an opportunity to rethink tourism and rethink the economies that are based on tourism,” urges Graham Watkins, Chief of the IDB’s Climate Change and Sustainability Division, during the third instalment of the Tourism in the Caribbean: Stories from the field during COVID-19 podcast.
Looking back over the IDB’s last 15 years of improving lives in Latin America and the Caribbean, our support to Costa Rica’s National Decarbonization Plan stands out as a framework for the future.
When will life return to “normal”? That’s what many ponder as governments battle to protect citizens and put together economic rescue plans. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the situation is grim as countries reel from over 266,000 deaths.
Since breakfast this morning, the chances that you consumed either some beans, maize, rice, soybean and wheat are very high indeed. These staples represent key crops in Latin America and the Caribbean and are critical for export earnings and food security. Yet due to the climate crisis, these crops and the region’s agriculture sector faces considerable challenges.
After the pandemic, countries will need to restart their economic engines. This requires supporting businesses and redoubling efforts to protect vulnerable people and their income. It will be a huge effort to pave the way towards a new normal, which must also be a better normal.
What is the return on investment in preparing good infrastructure projects? The answer is immediate: save unnecessary future expenses, cost overruns, delays and other inefficiencies throughout the development, operation and maintenance that endanger the benefit of assets and their associated services when it comes to improving the quality of life of citizens, social equity and economic growth.
The current fiscal restrictions and uncertainty generated by the pandemic make the tools and facilities that focus on the preparation and structuring of good projects even more necessary.
As global confirmed cases of COVID-19 surge toward 15 million, temperatures recently struck 38 degrees Celsius in the Russian Arctic. And while government officials urge people to wear masks, wash their hands and physically distance from each other, we cannot distance ourselves from the climate emergency.
I have been assigned to work on a cash transfers program for Belize. The objective of the project is to provide US$150 per month, during three months, to formal and informal workers who had lost their income because of the pandemic. Tourism is an important sector in Belize’s economy, and with the decrease in travel, much of the country is struggling to buy food and meet basic needs.
Despite the global pandemic, 2020 is an extremely important year for the global climate agenda. Under the Paris Agreement, 2020 is the year for signatory countries to submit their new or updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) by 2030,whichconsiderhigher levels of ambition.
Chile is progressing under a broadparticipatoryprocesstodesignitslong-term climate strategy.These strategies, known as LTS,enablegovernments to define the actions that are requiredin the long,mediumand short termto stop the climate crisis. Theyaim to maximizethe benefits of the transition tonet-zeroemissionand resilient economiesand considerhowto avoidexacerbatingproblemsandseizethe opportunitiesforsustainable development while focusing on the people in their territories.