The Cauchari Solar Plant in Jujuy, Argentina, located 4,000 meters above sea level with over one million panels, was built with Chinese capital, engineering, and materials. Credit: Casa Rosada

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jul 18 2025 (IPS)

China, with its investments, products, technology, and innovation focused on solar and wind farms in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as on electricity networks and services, stands out as a driving force for the region’s shift toward energy less reliant on fossil fuels and increasingly cleaner and greener. 

Between 2010 and 2024, China invested US$33.69 billion in renewables in the region, with 70 transactions for as many projects, 54 of which were in non-hydroelectric energy, totaling US$13.138 billion.

These figures alone “highlight China’s importance in supporting the region’s energy transition, both through investments and infrastructure projects,” Enrique Dussel Peters, coordinator of the Latin America and the Caribbean Academic Network on China (RedALC-China), told IPS from Mexico City.“For China, Latin America as a whole is a market that geographically presents many opportunities; first, due to the availability of natural resources, which include critical minerals, and features such as access to water and natural and renewable energy sources”: Ana Lía Rojas.

Beyond money, China “has the capacity to develop technology, implement it, and scale it at the required speed,” said Ana Lia Rojas, executive director of the Chilean Association of Renewable Energies and Storage (Acera).

In a dialogue with IPS in Santiago, Chile, Rojas cited American economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and a United Nations advisor, who has argued that, in short, “the energy transition is Chinese.”

Sachs views China as a “leader in key technologies that will be essential over the next 25 years: photovoltaics, wind, modular nuclear, long-distance energy transmission, 5G (now 5.5G), batteries, electric vehicles, and others.”

The movement toward Latin America has been relentless. While there were no Chinese investments in renewable energy in the region between 2000 and 2009, eight emerged from 2010 to 2014, totaling US$3.298 billion and generating 6,000 jobs, according to RedALC’s Investment Monitor.

Between 2015 and 2019, 25 projects with Chinese financing materialized, totaling US$19.568 billion and creating 9,300 jobs. In the 2020-2024 period, 37 transactions were completed, amounting to US$10.824 billion and generating 15,000 jobs.

Investment volumes dipped in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. However, a revealing contrast emerged: 35 of the 37 renewable energy transactions during this five-year period went to non-hydroelectric projects.

The Lagoinha Solar Complex, inaugurated in July this year and owned by the Brazilian subsidiary of Chinese group CGN. Spanning 304 hectares in Ceará state, northeastern Brazil, it features 337,000 panels that will provide electricity to 240,000 households. Credit: Government of Ceará

Interests and challenges converge

The International Energy Agency (IEA, representing major industrialized consumers) reports a “soaring increase in Chinese clean energy investments globally, particularly in renewables,” surpassing US$625 billion in 2024—nearly double 2015 levels and accounting for 30% of the world’s total, cementing China’s leadership.

Traditionally dominated by state-owned enterprises backed by public funding, China’s energy investment landscape is shifting, with the government increasingly encouraging private sector participation.

Meanwhile, Latin America and the Caribbean saw roughly US$70 billion invested in renewables from 2015 to 2024, of which over US$30.3 billion (43%) came from China, according to the IEA.

Yet the agency notes that despite steady growth in renewable investments, the region represents just 5% of global privately funded clean energy investment—a reflection of high interest rates, scarce long-term financing, and costly public debt.

This highlights the intersection between the region’s needs and challenges and what Dussel Peters describes as China’s strategic focus on technological development and disruptive innovations, from nanomanufacturing to aerospace, including new energy sources.

Chinese investment in renewables “delivers multiple benefits by advancing energy sustainability, supporting the transition to a low-carbon grid, providing critical technology, and creating skilled jobs,” Chilean academic Rodrigo Cáceres told IPS in Santiago.

A researcher at  Diego Portales University’s Center for Energy and Sustainable Development, Cáceres observes China’s “sustained commitment” in areas like energy storage, smart grids, and green hydrogen, framing the China-Latin America relationship as “strategic and long-term.”

A key factor enabling this enduring partnership is the vast territorial, demographic, and resource potential Latin America and the Caribbean offers China. “If we look at the per capita income we have in the region and compare it with China’s, we have more or less the same. But Latin America has half the population of China and twice the territory of China,” observed Rojas.

Twice the territory “means that projects can be deployed differently than in the rest of the world,” noted the director of Acera.

According to Rojas, “it is evident that, for China, Latin America as a whole is a market that geographically presents many opportunities; first, due to the availability of natural resources, which include critical minerals, and features such as access to water and natural and renewable energy sources.”

“Second, because it is clearly a less densely populated region, which provides a certain degree of flexibility or freedom to develop projects in the territory that will aid the energy transition, not only for local or national economies but for the world,”she said.

The Tanque Novo Wind Complex in Bahia, Brazil, developed by Chinese group CGN. It consists of seven parks with 40 wind turbines, an installed capacity of 180 MW, and can serve 430,000 residents. Credit: Tanque Novo

Brazil, a leading hub 

In Brazil, China’s presence in the electricity sector “is deep and strategic, the result of more than a decade of investments by large state-owned companies such as State Grid and China Three Gorges (CTG),” said Tulio Cariello, research director at the Brazil-China Business Council.

“In fact, it has become the main destination for these companies’ assets outside China. Both State Grid and CTG have the majority of their international investments in Brazil, reflecting the country’s structural importance in their global projection,” Cariello told IPS in Rio de Janeiro.

State Grid is now a major electricity transmission operator in Brazil, and its massive entry into that market was solidified with the acquisition in 2016-2018 of CPFL Energia (formerly Companhia Paulista de Força e Luz), one of the country’s leading power distribution companies.

Another flagship project led by State Grid was the construction of ultra-high-voltage transmission systems, connecting the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant in the Amazon (11,200 MW) with the Southeast region, which has the highest electricity demand.

Combined, solar and wind energy sources account for a quarter of Brazil’s electricity matrix, according to its National Energy Balance.

By the end of 2024, Brazil’s installed wind power capacity—over 16% of the national electricity matrix—reached 33.7 gigawatts, with 1,103 wind farms and 11,720 wind turbines. By 2032, cumulative new installed capacity is projected to reach 56 GW.

Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Goldwind established its first factory outside China last year in Bahia, in Brazil’s Northeast, with an investment of over US$20 million to produce 150 turbines annually, ranging from 5.3 MW to 7.5 MW. This decision demonstrates strong confidence in the Brazilian market.

The volume of Chinese investment in Brazil between 2007 and 2023 reached US$73.3 billion—US$33.2 billion in the electricity sector—with 264 confirmed projects, and is on track to reach US$123.2 billion with 342 projects.

Regarding the impact of investments in renewable energy, “it can be seen on several fronts: increased generation and transmission capacity, modernization of critical infrastructure, greater stability in power supply, and job creation and technology transfer,” said Cariello.

The Los Cururos Wind Farm in Ovalle, Chile, is one of dozens of installations generating electricity in Chile thanks to the constant winds in this Pacific-facing region. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Advancing Across the Regional Map 

In Argentina, with initial financing of US$390 million from the China Export-Import Bank (Chexim), construction began in 2018 on the Cauchari solar park—one of the largest in Latin America—in the northwestern province of Jujuy.

Some 4,000 meters above sea level and equipped with 1.2 million panels, Cauchari has an installed capacity of 315 MW (with an expansion planned to add another 200 MWh) and reduces carbon emissions by 325,000 tons.

There are other solar developments with Chinese involvement, while Goldwind has acquired wind farms in the central province of Buenos Aires and the southern province of Chubut.

Researcher Juliana González Jáuregui from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (Flacso) has highlighted Beijing’s participation in Argentina’s renewable energy projects, focusing on its provinces—even before the country joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2022.

In contrast, “Europe and the United States have yet to grasp the importance of engaging at the subnational level in Argentina, something China achieved quickly and significantly. The provinces hold natural resources, so the subnational component is essential,” González told Dialogue Earth.

Meanwhile, in Chile, “what has happened in the last two years is that Chinese companies have bet on the country as a gateway to Latin America and have set up several companies that create jobs,” said Rojas.

“They are interested in showcasing the quality and technological advancements they’ve achieved in these sectors, focusing on storage, inverter systems, and everything that helps stabilize power grid flows,” she stated.

In this way, China “has increasingly strengthened its presence in the electricity sector, where we have decarbonization efforts and which represents 22% of the country’s energy consumption,” particularly in the distribution segment through the acquisition of key companies to supply the population, explained Rojas.

A notable example is the Chinese group State Grid, which in 2020 acquired Chile’s Compañía General de Electricidad (CGE) from Spain’s Naturgy for US$3 billion and purchased Chilquinta, another electricity distributor in Chile, from the American company Sempra Energy for US$2.23 billion.

Additionally, it holds a stake in Transelec, the largest distributor, giving it a dominant majority position in Chile’s electricity distribution market.

Areas of Lima illuminated by the growing integration of renewable energy into electricity generation. The former Enel Perú, now Pluz Perú, was acquired by China’s CSG and serves over 1.5 million subscribers in the metropolitan area. Credit: Perú Inkas Tours

In Peru, China Southern Power Grid (CSG) acquired Enel Peru from Italy’s Enel Group in 2024 for US$3.1 billion. The company, now called Pluz Peru, operates in the market with 1,590 MW of generation from various sources and also participates in distribution.

The Peruvian firm includes a solar complex in the southern municipality of Moquegua, with 560,000 panels spread over 400 hectares, capable of generating 440 GWh annually, and a wind farm in the southwestern province of Nazca, with 42 turbines producing up to 600 GWh per year.

In Colombia, another Chinese giant, CTG, promoted the construction of the Baranoa solar plant in the northern department of Atlantico. With an investment of US$20 million and 36,000 modules, it can add 20 MW to the grid.

Though a small project far from major economic and urban centers, it reflects shared interests with Colombia, where President Gustavo Petro champions renewable energy and the decarbonization of the economy and society.

In Nicaragua, it was announced that China Communications Construction Company will build a 70 MW solar plant in the municipality of Nindirí, south of Managua, with 112,700 panels at a cost of US$80 million.

The Managua government—which recently restored relations with China in 2021 after cutting ties with Taiwan—hopes the project will not only feed into the power grid but also support drinking water supply and sanitation in the country.

In a leap across the Caribbean, China’s International Development Cooperation Agency delivered a batch of donated supplies to Cuba last March to support a photovoltaic park project with Chinese assistance in Guanajay, about 50 kilometers west of Havana.

According to data gathered by IPS in Havana, the project includes seven solar parks and will contribute 35 MW to the island’s electricity system. The remaining parks, to be developed by China’s Shanghái Electric and Cuba’s Unión Eléctrica, will add another 85 MW. Cuba’s power demand stands at 3,500 MW, with a deficit sometimes exceeding 1,500 MW.

“We hope to leverage this project as an opportunity to contribute China’s strength in ensuring energy security and promoting sustainable social development in Cuba,” said Hua Xin, China’s ambassador in Havana.

A production gondola at the new wind turbine factory in Camaçari, northeastern Brazil, installed by Chinese firm Goldwind. Wind energy is the second-largest renewable source in Brazil’s electricity supply, after hydropower. Credit: Goldwind

The Ball on the Roof 

Chilean expert Rojas noted that Chinese companies obviously aim to promote their own brands but also establish research centers or technology transfer hubs to help countries accelerate their energy transition.

“They have cutting-edge technologies that we currently see in PowerPoint presentations—but they’re already implementing them in their own cities,” she pointed out.

Experts agree that, alongside territorial potential, population, and resources, the regulatory framework of the electricity business—which varies across borders—is a key investment attraction.

This becomes even more relevant as major investors like China shift from merely selling products and technology to acquiring more assets, immersing themselves in the complexities of service networks, costs, and pricing.

For many countries in the region, the observation Jorge Arbache, an economics professor at the University of Brasilia, makes about Brazil may resonate. He analyzes how the advantages and resources enabling the energy transition are being mobilized.

He argues that “while China has used the energy transition as a pillar of its national development policy,” Brazil still treats its advantages “mainly as primary, short-term, and predatory assets—with low added value, institutional fragmentation, and a lack of coordinated strategy.”

“What China shows us is that the energy transition and natural capital, when well-coordinated, are more than just a shift in the energy matrix: they are a development strategy, a tool for sovereignty, and a source of geopolitical power,” concluded Arbache.

With reporting by Mario Osava (Brazil), Orlando Milesi (Chile) and Dariel Pradas (Cuba).

The Kruonis pumped-storage hydropower plant complements the one in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas. There are more than 500 of these "water batteries" in the world, and the mountainous geography favors their development in Latin America. Credit: Andrius Aleksandravicius / Ignitis

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jul 2 2025 (IPS)

Having hydroelectric power without damming rivers, dismantling the environment or displacing populations is possible in Latin America and the Caribbean, with reversible power plants that take advantage of their mountainous geography, and pave the way for only renewable sources to generate electricity.

“The development of these plants requires areas with a difference in altitude, for two reservoirs, one upper and one lower. And the region has hundreds of possible sites for pumped storage,” said Arturo Alarcón, a senior specialist at the Energy Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)."These plants requires areas with a difference in height, for two reservoirs, one upper and one lower. And the region has hundreds of possible sites for pumped storage. A recent IDB study identified 179 sites in 11 countries": Arturo Alarcón.

In countries crisscrossed by mountain ranges, in Brazil and even in the insular Caribbean, there are plenty of areas that could host these hydroelectric dams, says the Bolivian expert. “A recent IDB study identified 179 sites in 11 countries,” he told IPS from Washington.

Traditional hydropower plants dam the waters of a river, creating an artificial lake that provides water to drive turbines in an engine room that generates electricity. This is taken by transformers and transmission lines to consumption centres, and then the water is dumped and the river flows on to the sea.

In contrast, pumped-storage plants are fed with water from a reservoir at a certain height, which supplies the water, usually through a tunnel or canal, does the work in the engine room and deposits the water in a reservoir located at a lower altitude.

When the process is finished – after the hours of electricity generation due to increased demand, required from other sources – the water is pumped back from the lower to the upper reservoir, where it is available to start a new cycle.

These are power plants that can complement solar or wind energy parks, which are fed by solar radiation or wind power, thus subject to hourly and seasonal variations that require energy to be stored in batteries.

Diagram of the operation of a pumped hydro power plant. When the demand for electricity grows, the flow of water from the upper reservoir activates the turbines and, when its contribution to the system is no longer needed, the flow is reversed by pumping from the lower reservoir, leaving the whole as a water battery. Credit: Iberdrola

Supplementary batteries

For this reason, pumped-storage power plants are also called “water batteries”.

By reducing the need for fossil-fuelled thermal power plants, they become tools for decarbonising the entire electricity system.

“Although these plants do not generate more energy than they consume in the pumping process (for every megawatt hour generated, approximately 1.2 MWh is consumed), they do play a critical role in the integration of variable renewable energies such as solar and wind,” says Alarcón.

For example, in Brazil, where about 90% electricity is generated from renewable sources, wind and solar installations are growing, “which depend on weather conditions and there is no constant production throughout the day,” expert Caio Leocádio told IPS from Rio de Janeiro.

“This condition creates a favourable scenario for technologies that meet these requirements, with flexibility and storage capacity, allowing energy to be stored in times of surplus and used in times of greater demand,” says Leocádio, a consultant with the Brazilian Energy Research Company (EPE).

It is not a new technology. Around the world, some 200 gigawatts (one Gw equals 1000 Mw) have been installed in 510 pumped-storage power plants, equivalent to the entire hydroelectric capacity of Latin America.

In the region, the Rio Grande Hydroelectric Complex in the central Argentine province of Cordoba, with its Cerro Pelado and Arroyo Corte reservoirs, 12 kilometres apart, has been in operation since 1986 and has an installed capacity of 750 MWh, which is currently reduced due to equipment obsolescence.

The engine room of the Río Grande Complex, a reversible power plant in the province of Córdoba in north-central Argentina. Credit: Epec

 Favorable cost

So far, the level of development of pumped hydroelectricity shows that costs are competitive, although the economic performance of each facility and in each country depends on the type of electricity market.

For example, if it is an electricity market that has hourly energy prices, or that values the ancillary services that reversible plants can provide, such as maintaining a constant voltage despite fluctuations, a good economic performance can be achieved.

In terms of prices, the region has very disparate tariffs. Residential rates in some Caribbean islands exceed 40 US cents per kWh, in Guatemala 29, in Honduras and Uruguay 25, in Colombia 20, in Brazil and Costa Rica 16, in Mexico 10 and in Venezuela six cents, according to the  Global Petrol Prices website.

“The installation cost of reversible power plants can be high due to infrastructure and technical needs, but operating and maintenance costs are relatively low once they are up and running,” Alarcón noted.

Nightlife on the famous Copacabana beach in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. The growing demand for energy and the need to maintain a stable supply with electricity generated from renewable sources opens up opportunities for pumped-storage power plants. Credit: Inoutviajes

In Brazil, “projects of this type really require high initial investments, mainly in civil works and equipment,” Leocádio said. “Values are estimates between US$1,200 and 1,600 per kilowatt (kWh) installed, within the range of medium to large projects in the sector,” he added.

In the Dominican Republic, which is considering installing pumped-storage plants in the areas of Sabaneta (northwest) and Guaigui (centre), of 200 and 300 MWh respectively, installation costs are estimated at between US$1900 and 2400 per kilowatt.

But, on the other hand, experts agree that the projects have a useful life of 50 years or more, and although the return on investment requires a long term, these plants offer a stable and predictable performance.

This is the advantage Leocádio sees in Brazil, with its highly interconnected electricity system and wealth of sites for potential installation. A recent study found that in the state of Rio de Janeiro alone (43 750 square kilometres) there are 15 locations with ideal conditions for such plants.

Brazil’s gigantic Belo Monte dam on the Xingu River has altered watercourses, displaced populations, disrupted indigenous communities, agriculture and other livelihoods, increased deforestation and loss of biodiversity. Pumped-storage power plants can avoid many of these impacts. Credit: Bruno Batista / Vice-Presidency Brazil

Regulation and environment

For Alarcón, “the biggest challenge for this technology in Latin America and the Caribbean is regulatory. Not all electricity markets have adequate remuneration mechanisms for storage technologies or those that provide flexibility to electricity systems,” he said.

Therefore, among the tasks to be addressed in the region, along with investigating the specific areas that have the greatest potential for water batteries, Alarcón identified dialogue between governments and private actors, plus conferences and regional forums “to create a regulatory framework that facilitates these projects”.

That possibility – and also the contrasts – are shown by recent cases in Chile.  The Espejo de Tarapacá project, for a 300 MWh reversible power plant that plans to work with seawater, has advanced, but another, Paposo, in the north, was rejected by the Environmental Evaluation Service.

Advocates of pumped-storage power plants point out that their construction and operation require minimal alteration of the environment, as they do not require the diversion or damming of rivers, flooding of towns or farmland, or affecting the areas of indigenous peoples and peasant communities.

Since they do not alter large areas, they do not affect biodiversity, and in some cases can be sources of water for irrigation and sites that beautify or refresh landscapes.

But the central issue is their contribution to the stability of electricity systems and to the decarbonisation required by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which propose to increase the use of renewable energies along with access to electricity for all peoples.

By February 2025, according to the most recent report by the Latin American Energy Organisation (OLADE), total electricity generation in the region will reach 152 terawatts (Twh, one million megawatts), with 68.1% from renewable sources and 31.9% using oil, gas, coal or nuclear energy.

The largest source of renewable energy is hydroelectric (53.1% of the total), followed by wind (8.5%), solar (4.5%), bioenergy (1.5%) and geothermal energy (0.5%).

Oil extraction in the Orinoco Belt, southeastern Venezuela. The crude extracted from this rich basin is very heavy and requires blending with diluent oil for refining—a process previously handled by U.S. company Chevron, which must now cease operations in the country. Credit: PDVSA

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Apr 25 2025 (IPS)

Reduced to a marginal oil producer over the past decade, Venezuela has suffered another blow as United States president Donald Trump ordered punitive measures to blockade and further restrict the country’s oil exports.

Venezuelan crude will likely navigate the fringes of global oil trade and finance, flowing toward Asian markets as the government seeks to avoid financial suffocation—possibly without ruling out new negotiations with Washington."Revenues will drop significantly because PDVSA will struggle to produce, obtain diluents, and won’t have the capacity to invest in projects." — Francisco Monaldi

“Venezuela has been very hostile to the United States and the Freedoms which we espouse. Therefore, any Country that purchases Oil and/or Gas from Venezuela will be forced to pay a Tariff of 25% to the United States on any Trade they do with our Country,” Trump wrote on his media platform Truth Social on March 24.

Simultaneously, Trump revoked licenses allowing U.S. firms Chevron and Global Oil Terminals, Spain’s Repsol, France’s Maurel & Prom, India’s Reliance, and Italy’s Eni to operate in Venezuela.

The foreseeable outcome “will be a drop in oil production—possibly over 100,000 barrels per day—with lower revenues and difficulties in placing crude on the black market,” Francisco Monaldi, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute’s Center for Energy Studies, told IPS.

Venezuela, which once produced three million barrels (159 liters each) per day in the early 2000’s, has seen a decline since 2013, falling below 400,000 barrels in 2020.

Until the beginning of this century, Venezuela was a major oil producer and exporter, thanks to the vast reserves in the Maracaibo Lake basin in the west. Although underground reserves remain enormous, production has declined, and the country has lost its leading role in the global hydrocarbon market. Credit: Mdnava / Fe y Alegría

This is a stark contrast to its history as the world’s second-largest producer and top exporter a century ago, a co-founder of OPEC in 1960, and still home to the largest crude reserves—over 300 billion barrels.

The collapse of the industry and state-owned PDVSA resulted from a mix of dwindling investments, neglected maintenance, erratic management, and bad deals—all amid economic and social collapse and intense political strife.

Moreover, corruption has reached such heights that several former Energy Ministers and presidents of PDVSA have been imprisoned, while others are fugitives abroad. According to the Venezuelan chapter of Transparency International, the amounts that “evaporated” without ever reaching state coffers add up to tens of billions of dollars.

Additionally, Washington imposed escalating sanctions on Venezuelan political and military leaders, with severe effects on PDVSA’s supplies and operations, the Central Bank, and other state entities.

GDP shrank to a quarter of its early-2000s level, hyperinflation reached six digits, income-based poverty hit 90%, and eight million Venezuelans—one in four—left the country.

However, since 2022, Washington’s green light for Chevron and other foreign firms helped production recover to 760,000 barrels per day in 2023, 857,000 in 2024, and 913,000 in March 2025, according to OPEC’s secondary sources.

Chevron accounted for 25% of this output, with PDVSA handling the rest. The U.S. firm also facilitated the import of 50,000 barrels of diluent daily to blend with Venezuela’s heavy crude, In order to improve and facilitate refining.

“It is assumed PDVSA will take over Chevron’s fields, but a drop is inevitable,” Andrés Rojas, editor of Venezuelan oil journal Petroguía, told IPS.

An oil tanker docks at the Waidiao terminal in Zhejiang province, eastern China. The Asian giant is the primary destination for Venezuelan oil, and this flow may increase as Venezuela loses its U.S. market due to new sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump. Credit: Zhejiang Municipal Government

The impact 

Monaldi explains that of Venezuela’s 700,000 daily exportable barrels, half went to “licensed destinations” (mainly the United States, Europe, and India), while the rest went to China (as debt repayment) and Cuba.

Economist Asdrúbal Oliveros, head of Ecoanalítica, consulting firm, estimates Venezuela will lose over US$3 billion this year from Chevron’s withdrawal, leaving external revenues at no more than US$13 billion for its 29 million people.

Government “revenues will plummet because PDVSA will struggle to produce (due to shortages of materials and spare parts), secure diluents, and invest in projects,” Monaldi said.

The expert explains that PDVSA will have to return to the black market, using practices such as transferring crude oil at sea or in the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia to vessels different from those originally dispatched.

This way, the oil reaches its destination, usually China, labeled as being produced in Malaysia or another part of the world.

However, these distant and complicated routes have the dual effect of increasing costs—including freight and insurance—and reducing revenue, as the oil must be sold at discounts of 30% or more compared to prices on the regular market.

Meanwhile, the trade, economic, and financial shock triggered by Trump’s tariff storm this month is driving oil prices down, with current benchmarks like West Texas Intermediate (WTI) at US$63 and North Sea Brent at US$67 per barrel.

Oil transfers between tankers take place offshore or near international trade hubs, such as the Strait of Malacca in Asia. This method, though riskier and costlier, is used as a black-market mechanism to evade sanctions like those imposed by Washington on Venezuela. Credit: Verdemar

Black market challenges 

In April of this year, two oil tankers—the Bahamian-flagged Carina Voyager and the Marshall Islands-registered Dubai Attraction—loaded 500,000 and 350,000 barrels of crude, respectively, at Venezuelan terminals. The oil was initially meant to be transported by Chevron to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

However, the vessels had to turn around and return to Venezuelan ports after state-run PDVSA realized it would not be able to collect payment for the shipments due to Washington’s sanctions. The cargoes will now be diverted to Venezuela’s top Asian client: China.

“PDVSA has done this since 2019 with Russian and Iranian support, using two or three intermediaries to deliver the loads,” Rojas noted.

In addition to the higher costs stemming from intermediaries, longer distances, and increased risks, Rojas points out that Venezuelan crude is heavier than benchmark Brent and WTI oils, meaning its price per barrel is roughly US$10 lower.

Monaldi notes that even if China disregards Washington’s threat to hike tariffs on Venezuelan oil imports—or Malaysia, where much of this black-market trade flows—risk premiums will rise, and Venezuela will bear the brunt by receiving insufficient diluents for its heavy crudes.

The Carina Voyager, one of the Bahamian-flagged tankers chartered by Chevron in April to transport Venezuelan crude to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, had to turn around and return its cargo. PDVSA made the decision after realizing payment would be impossible due to Trump’s sanctions. Credit: Sun Enterprises

“The situation is extremely complicated, and this will likely push the Venezuelan economy—which had been experiencing modest growth in recent years (2.6% in 2023 and 5.0% in 2024, according to the Venezuelan Finance Observatory)—back into recession, possibly as early as 2025,” the expert warns.

Monaldi adds that the recession will come alongside a sharp depreciation of the bolívar against the dollar (already over 50% since January) and, consequently, higher inflation, which Ecoanalítica estimates could reach 189% this year.

In this new game, even American oil importers lose out—they had benefited from cheaper Venezuelan crude, which allowed them to free up United States oil volumes for higher-priced exports to third countries, Rojas noted.

He also points out that Chevron’s withdrawal “hurts communities like Soledad” (a town of 35,000 in southeastern Venezuela), where a health center relied on support from the corporation as part of its social responsibility program.

And, as a final blow to Venezuela’s setbacks, two South American neighbors—once net importers of its oil—have now joined the thriving club of exporters welcomed by Washington: Brazil, which produces 3.4 million barrels per day, and Guyana, now pumping 650,000 barrels daily.

The Altos de Florida neighbourhood in southwest Bogotá shows the shift from rural to urban landscapes. Credit: UNDP

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Dec 9 2024 (IPS)

Poverty, while declining in Latin America and the Caribbean so far this century, shows a new face, that of the looming vulnerability of the poor as they become less rural and more urban, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says in a new analysis.

“Not only is there more urban poverty, but also a greater percentage of the population is highly vulnerable, that is, they are very close to falling – and any small shock will make them fall – below the poverty line,” Almudena Fernández, chief economist for the region at the UNDP, told IPS.“It is no longer enough to lift people out of poverty; we have to think about the next step, to continue on this path, so that the population can consolidate”: Almudena Fernández.

Thus, “there is a segment of the population that remains above the poverty line, but which is pushed below it by an illness or the loss of household income,” Fernández told IPS from New York.

Rosa Meleán, 47, who was a teacher for 20 years in Maracaibo, the capital of Zulia, in Venezuela’s oil-rich northwest, told IPS that “falling back into poverty is like the slides where children play in the schoolyard: they keep going up, but with the slightest push they slide down again”.

Meleán has experienced this in person several times, supporting her parents, siblings and nephews with her salary, falling into poverty when her working-class father died, improving with a new job, her salary liquefied by hyperinflation (2017-2020), leaving teaching to search for other sources of income.

“You have to see what it’s like to be poor in Maracaibo, walking in 40 degrees (Celsius) to look for transport, without electricity, rationed water and earning US$25”, the last monthly salary she had as a teacher before retiring five years ago.

And then came the covid-19 pandemic, limiting her new occupations as an office worker or home tutor. She has barely recovered from that blow.

“We live in a time when shocks are more common – from extreme weather events, for example – and we see a lot of economic and financial volatility. We are a much more interconnected world. Any shock anywhere in the world produces a very direct contagion, they are the new normal,” says Fernández.

Shoppers jostle for the best prices at the Lo Valledor street market in Santiago, Chile. Urban households that ride the poverty line are particularly sensitive to food inflation. Credit: Max Valencia / FAO

Poverty falling in numbers

Starting in the 1950s, Latin America and the Caribbean experienced a rapid process of urbanisation, becoming one of the most urbanised regions in the world.

Today, 82% of the population lives in urban areas, compared to the world average of 58%, according to the UNDP.

Over the last two decades, the region has made progress in reducing extreme poverty and poverty in general. Even with setbacks since 2014, it recorded its lowest poverty rate in 2022 (26%), with slight decreases estimated for 2023 (25.2%) and 2024 (25%).

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) indicates in its most recent report that poverty in 2023 will affect 27.3% of the region’s population, which it puts at 663 million people this year. This means that “172 million people in the region still do not have sufficient income to cover their basic needs (general poverty)”.

Among them, 66 million cannot afford a basic food basket (extreme poverty). But these figures are up to five percentage points better than in 2020, the worst year of the pandemic, and 80% of the progress is attributed to advances in Brazil, where transfers of resources to the poor were decisive.

ECLAC points out that poverty is higher in rural areas (39.1%) than in urban areas (24.6%), and that it affects more women than men of working age.

Despite the progress, “the speed of poverty reduction is starting to slow down, it is decreasing at a much slower rate. This is a first concern, because the region is growing less,” said Fernández.

She recalled that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts point to an average economic growth in the region of two per cent per year, “well below the world average. Thus, it will be more difficult to continue reducing poverty”.

A hill overcrowded with informal dwellings in the populous Petare neighbourhood in eastern Caracas. Credit: Humberto Márquez / IPS

Changing face

The proportion of poor people living in the region’s urban areas increased from 66% in 2000 to 73% in 2022, and the change is more dramatic among those living in extreme poverty, with the proportion of the urban extreme poor rising from 48% to 68% over the same period.

Tracing this change annually, a UNDP analysis found that urban poverty increased markedly during the commodity crisis of 2014 – and also during the pandemic – “revealing that urban poverty is more likely to increase in times of economic downturn than rural poverty”.

It argues that the post-pandemic rise in the cost of living affected urban households more, pushing households into poverty and worsening the living conditions of those who were already poor.

Urban households are more tied to the market economy than rural households, making them more vulnerable to economic fluctuations and related changes in employment.

In contrast, rural livelihoods allow households to use strategies such as subsistence farming, reallocation of labour, community support or selling assets such as livestock to cope with shocks. These are options that urban residents generally do not possess.

Another salient feature of the new face of urban poverty is that it is often concentrated in informal settlements on the peripheries of cities, where overcrowding and limited access to basic services create additional challenges.

Thus, in the Venezuelan case, “the features of poverty and vulnerability that stand out in urban poverty have to do with the precariousness of public services and the lack of opportunities,” Roberto Patiño, founder of Convive, a community development organisation, and Alimenta la Solidaridad, a welfare organisation, told IPS.

Patiño believes that “the burden of the cost of living and inflation is difficult to bear for people living in poverty in both urban and rural areas, even though in rural areas the food issue may be less serious”.

This is because in rural areas “people have access to smallholdings, to their own crops, and also, being farming areas, food costs tend to be lower than in the city, but health issues and other services such as transport, health and education are very precarious”, the activist pointed out.

Patiño mentioned another mark on the new face of poverty, that of the millions of Venezuelans who migrated to other South American countries in the last decade and who “have not recovered from the pandemic, from an economic point of view, with many of the migrants living in a precarious situation”.

A teenager doing homework in the Delmas 32 slum in Port-au-Prince. Credit: Dominic Chávez / WB

Seeking solutions

The UNDP argues that addressing poverty in urban and rural areas requires differentiated strategies, as policies that work in rural areas, such as promoting agricultural productivity and improving access to assets and markets, do not sit well with the plight of the urban poor.

For them, the cost of housing and food inflation are relevant concerns.

Fernández said that “much of the social policy that was implemented in the region decades ago, which is ongoing, was designed with a very rural poverty in mind, how to help the agricultural sector, how to achieve greater productivity in agriculture, how to meet basic unsatisfied needs in rural areas”.

“Now we must move toward a social policy that focuses a little more on the unsatisfied needs of urban poverty,” she said.

She believes that “urbanisation allows for another series of opportunities. For example, the greater agglomeration of people allows for easier access to services”, although there may also be negative effects such as a more difficult insertion in the labour market or health problems associated with overcrowding.

Among the solutions, Fernández ranked the need for greater economic growth first, “because we are not going to be able to reduce poverty if we do not grow”.

The economist then ranked education, good in quantity (coverage), but which must now focus on quality, in second place, in order to address the digital transition that is underway and the need for more training for workers.

Finally, the need for social protection – and despite slower growth and a tighter fiscal balance across the region, Fernández acknowledges –and investment in protecting people more, with policies and measures that include, for example, care, employability, productivity and insurance.

“It is no longer enough to lift people out of poverty; we have to think about the next step, to continue on this path, so that the population can consolidate, with a stable middle class that has mechanisms so that in times of stress or shock its consumption does not fall sharply,” said Fernández.

In other words, so that those who have their basic needs covered do not have to slide back down the poverty chute with every economic or health shock.

Wind power installation in the impoverished desert peninsula of La Guajira in northern Colombia. Credit: Giampaolo Contestabile / Pie de Página

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Nov 13 2024 (IPS)

The Latin American and Caribbean region is a student with good grades in renewable energy, but not in energy efficiency, and has a long way to go in contributing to global climate action and overcoming the vulnerability of its population and economies.

The recent energy crises in Ecuador and Cuba, with power outages ranging from 14 hours a day to days at a time, and the threats posed by droughts – which this year hit Bogotá and the Brazilian Amazon, for example – to the hydroelectric systems that power the region, are proof of this.

Among the 660 million Latin Americans and Caribbeans enduring the various impacts of climate change, there are at least 17 million people, some four million households, who still lack access to electricity.“Countries in the region are very much affected by barriers in their investment ecosystems, access to financing, whether due to institutional problems, policies or legal security”: Alfonso Blanco.

That scenario comes under new scrutiny at the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which began its two-week run on Monday 11 in Baku, capital of oil-rich Azerbaijan.

The annual conference of 196 states parties has climate action financing as its main theme and will also review the global commitment made a year ago to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency.

The COP28 in Dubai proposed a global installed capacity of 11,000 gigawatts (Gw, equivalent to 1,000 megawatts, Mw) of energy from renewable sources by 2030, 7,000 Gw more than today. This is unlikely, judging by the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

The NDCs serve as commitments by states to adopt measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so that global warming does not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages, as stated in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which concluded the COP21.

Large solar power plant in the Sertao region, in the arid northeast of Brazil, installed by the Spanish company Naturgy. Credit: Naturgy

In the case of Latin America and the Caribbean, “the installed capacity for electricity generation is already 58% renewable energy, and in 11 countries it exceeds 80%,” Uruguayan expert Alfonso Blanco, director of energy transition and climate at the Washington-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue, told IPS.

According to the Latin American Energy Organisation (Olade), the region’s installed electricity generation capacity was 480,605 megawatts (MW) in 2022, with about 300,000 MW produced from renewable sources – 200,000 MW from dams – and the rest from non-renewable sources, mainly fossil fuels.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) put the region’s installed electricity generation capacity at 342,000 MW last year, with advances in solar energy installations, with a capacity of 64,513 MW, and wind power, which reached 49,337 MW, as the hydroelectric source remains stable at 202,000 MW.

The Latin American and Caribbean region “can increase its capacity to generate electricity from sources such as solar or wind, but it can’t triple its hydroelectric capacity,” said Blanco, who was executive secretary of Olade in the period 2017-2023.

Diana Barba, coordinator of energy diplomacy at the Colombian think tank Transforma, also believes that “tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 does not apply to Latin America and the Caribbean”.

“The next step is to maintain the proportion… until 2040, and in general to reduce the trend towards the use of fossil fuels,” Barba told IPS.

An auto parts factory in the Mexican state of Coahuila. Credit: México Industry

Elusive efficiency

Green energy capacity figures are improving every year in the region, but energy efficiency figures are not keeping pace. Experts from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) have shown that only the Caribbean sub-region has made significant progress compared to the first decade of this century.

Measured in kilograms of oil equivalent (kgoe) per 1,000 dollars of gross domestic product (GDP), the Caribbean consumed 110 kgoe during the 2001-2010 decade and decreased that expenditure to 67 units in 2022, while the region as a whole fell from 95 to 87 kgoe.

In that period, the Andean sub-region was able to fall from 108 kgoe to 90, Central America and Mexico from 85 to 70, and the Southern Cone remained at 90, although the figure is 80 kgoe if Brazil is excluded.

Efficiency, in which the region shows more modest results, is fundamental for the triple purpose of saving resources, reducing costs and, a primary objective at climate COPs, reducing the carbon emissions that pollute the environment and heat the atmosphere, precipitating climate change.

In this regard, the World Economic Forum, which each year gathers political and economic leaders, advocates electrifying transport, and above all stresses that NDCs should focus on demand and supply to improve industrial energy efficiency, only mentioned in 30% of the world’s NDCs.

In transport, an Olade study highlights that the fleet of electrified light-duty vehicles multiplied more than 14 times in the region in 2020-2024, with a total of 249,079 units in circulation by the first half of 2024.

This market – which entails greater energy efficiency and drastic reductions in carbon emissions – is led by Brazil with 152,493 vehicles, followed by Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia and Chile, but Costa Rica has the best per capita figure, with 34 electrified cars per 10,000 inhabitants, followed by Uruguay with 17.

However, as far as manufacturing industry is concerned, with an annual GDP of 874 billion dollars (14% of regional GDP), ECLAC records that it consumes more renewable energy each year and less fossil fuels such as residual fuel oil.

But its energy intensity – an indicator that measures the ratio of energy consumed to GDP – went from 232 tonnes of oil equivalent per million dollars of value added in the 1990s to 238 TOE in 2022, suggesting that the region’s industrial sector has not improved its energy efficiency.

Rows of solar panels on the roofs of Metrobús stations in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Credit: Caba

Four South Americans

To assess the necessary and possible efforts of each country to contribute to global renewable energy capacity targets, Transforma studied four cases, those of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia.

Barba explained that Argentina and Brazil were considered for their membership of the G20 (Group of 20 industrialised and emerging economies), Colombia for its capacity for action and Chile for its decision to accelerate the end of the operation of thermal power plants, while insufficient information was received from Mexico.

Argentina could take advantage of its onshore wind energy potential and large-scale solar energy, but Barba argues that “it would be super-difficult” to triple its energy matrix in a few years, which is only 37% covered by renewables, and that its current president, Javier Milei, “is betting on fossil fuels”.

Brazil can take advantage of its large-scale renewable energy potential, but Barba notes “contradictory signals” regarding its NDCs, by favouring hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation in the Amazon “instead of sending a very clear signal to close these projects in strategic ecosystems”.

Chile could reach 96% renewable generation in its electricity matrix by 2030, taking advantage of sources such as solar, wind, thermal and geothermal, and Colombia could reach 80% renewables in installed electricity capacity if it continues to multiply its solar and wind energy installations.

Of the countries analysed, Chile is the only one with a specific target of 10% reduction in its energy intensity, established in its national energy efficiency plan 2022-2026, and Transforma suggests that the other countries adopt similar targets in their plans for 2030.

On the other hand, there are calls for savings, considering that energy efficiency is “the first fuel”, the most cost-effective source or, in other words, that the cleanest energy is the one that is not used.

Oil exploitation in the Brazilian Amazon at the Urucu base in the Coari area along the Amazon River. Credit: Petrobras

A question of finance

Giovanni Pabón, Director of Energy at Transforma, has stated that “the issue of financing covers everything. If we don’t have secure financing, we can talk about a lot of things, but in the end it is very difficult to achieve the goals we require” in the Paris Agreement.

Blanco highlights that, in order to tackle their transition to green energy, countries in the region “are very much affected by the existing barriers in their investment ecosystems, access to financing, whether due to institutional problems, policies or legal security”.

“Overcoming that barrier is not impossible, but it requires work and political will, which is often lacking,” he added.

He recalled that countries with strong extractive industries, which are more oriented towards fossil fuels and allocate subsidies to them, stand out in that scenario.

Finally, Blanco considered that COP29, the second consecutive one in an oil-producing country, is “a transitional summit”, preparatory to COP30, which will be held in 2025 in the Amazonian city of Belém do Pará, with Brazil as host and leader, and could produce clearer and firmer results and commitments in terms of renewable energies and energy efficiency.

The two White House hopefuls debated on ABC television on September 10, 2024, but their mentions of Latin America were mainly dedicated to the issue of migration. Credit: Michael Le Brecht II / ABC

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Oct 24 2024 (IPS)

Migration, trade, the defence of democracy, the confrontation with China and the collapse of multilateralism are issues that shed more doubts than certainties on Latin America’s expectations of the imminent presidential elections in the United States.

Interest and tension have grown after dozens of polls and bookmakers have shown similar chances of victory for Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, particularly in a few decisive states.“After Washington's retreat from the wars it got into in the Middle East, there is resistance among people to getting involved in the world's problems, which weakens the liberal democratic order”: Vilma Petrash.

Latin America has been treated by many US administrations as its ‘backyard’, but it is now commonplace that Washington’s international priority lies far from the region.

Nevertheless, “we should not underestimate the ways in which Democrats and Republicans are different”, warned Tullo Vigevani, former professor of international relations at Brazil’s Paulista State University.

“For example, their proposals and policies are very different on the environment, in general and in relation to Latin America; on renewable energy and biofuels – particularly in the case of Brazil – and regarding human rights and some authoritarian trends in the region”, Vigevani told IPS from Sao Paulo.

Even if some governments are more sympathetic to Harris or Trump, Vigevani believes that both Washington and the region’s capitals will seek understandings and a relationship as normal as possible, after the 5 November election.

Migrants in the Mexican border city of Tijuana approach the barrier that closes access to the United States. Credit: Alejandro Cartagena / IOM

Migration rules

Among the campaign issues, such as economy and employment, taxes, health, wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and the opposing personalities of both candidates, migration stands out, with Latin American countries being the main expellers of migrants to the United States.

“It is a sensitive issue for Americans, whether they are Democrats, Republicans or independents. It affects the immigrant population, the millions of refugees, and therefore the countries of Latin America,” Vilma Petrash, a Venezuelan professor of political science and international relations at Miami Dade College, told IPS.

Of the 336 million people living in the United States, 46.2 million were of foreign origin in 2022, according to the non-governmental Pew Research Center; 49% are already U.S. citizens, 24% are legal permanent residents, and the rest, more than 11 million people, are unauthorised immigrants, eight million of whom are from Latin American and Caribbean countries.

In fact, the United States is currently home to 65 million ‘Hispanics’, as Latin Americans are called in the country, according to different reports, and they have become a desired prize for the two candidates.

Trump, who pushed for the construction of a wall on the southern border during his presidency (2017-2021), now offers massive deportations of illegals – one million immediately, according to his vice-presidential candidate, James Vance -, and to contain irregular border immigration even by using the military.

They are “the enemy within”, Trump has said, and has stigmatised migrants: he said that criminals from Venezuela have left their country for the United States, “leaving Caracas as one of the safest cities in the world”, or that Haitians “are eating the pets” in the northern industrial state of Ohio.

Harris, who is the current vice-president and lead programmes with which president Joe Biden also tried to address causes of migration, such as poverty in Central America, has said that the immigration system “needs reform”, without going into details.

Whichever side wins, the controls will predictably increase, and Washington’s announcement that it will not renew in 2025 the temporary stay permits (parole), which allow Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans to enter and remain in the United States for two years, was a warning sign.

The US aircraft carrier USS Nimitz sails through the Arabian Gulf. Credit: US Army

The United States isolates itself

The migration issue shows the United States’ willingness to isolate itself, to withdraw, instead of taking a proactive approach, as a great global power, to solving problems in the region and the world.

According to Petrash, “after Washington’s retreat from the wars it got into in the Middle East, there is resistance among people to getting involved in the world’s problems, which weakens the liberal democratic order. Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ policies are a case in point”.

The expert said from Miami, in the southeastern state of Florida, that there is also a lack of consensus over foreign policy, and in general over governance, to the point that a part of the population still, countering evidence, supports the version that it was Trump and not Biden who won the election four years ago.

While Biden has consistently supported Ukraine in the war against Russia, and Israel’s current military offensive in the Middle East, his political action in favour of democracy in Latin America has been weaker, and Harris would continue this, although with revisions, according to Petrash.

This is despite the certainty that, for example, among the alternatives for containing regional migration, in which the exodus of more than seven million Venezuelans in the last decade stands out, is to promote a solution to the democratic crisis in that country.

As a result of its policies and omissions, its polarised political confrontation and doubts about its electoral system, and the rise of isolationism, the United States “would have to regain the moral stature necessary to help stem democratic backsliding in the region”, says Petrash.

These setbacks are expressed in left-wing governments with authoritarian tendencies, such as those in Nicaragua and Venezuela, but also in sectors that have backed right-wing presidencies such as those of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) in Brazil and the current administrations of Javier Milei in Argentina and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador.

Bolsonaro, Milei and Bukele have openly identified with Trump, whose sector harbours a far-right conservative current. For Petrash, this could favour a rapprochement with Latin American countries where there is a democratic backlash.

Unloading wind turbines from China at the port of Bahía Blanca, Argentina. It shows China’s penetration into the renewable energy sector in the Southern Cone, where it is already a major trading partner. Credit: Port of Bahía Blanca

China moves forward

Petrash points out that the United States’s international retreat was acute in Latin America, “its natural strategic zone”, after the failure of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) initiative in 2005. “It abandoned its vision of free trade in the region and let China move forward with its enclaves,” she said.

China, “an economic, political and ideological rival, has sold itself as successful authoritarianism, and has taken advantage of Washington’s absences in Latin America to advance its quiet, pragmatic diplomacy,” says Petrash.

Trade between China and Latin America reached US$480 billion in 2023 after increasing 35-fold in 2000-2022, while the region’s total trade with the world increased four-fold, according to the  Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Nevertheless, trade with the Asian giant is still far from the region’s trade with the United States, which in the same year amounted to US$1.14 trillion.

Relations between Latin America and China “have grown and even strengthened in strategic areas such as new materials for energy production, lithium batteries -South America has large reserves of the mineral-, or artificial intelligence”, Vigevani states.

Certification of Brazilian meat for export. Brazil is the largest exporter of beef and poultry, and very active in the World Trade Organization. Credit: Abrafrigo

Brazil and Mexico

Meanwhile, Brazil is concerned about Washington’s disdain – which will be evident if Trump wins – for multilateral institutions, starting with the United Nations and the proposed renewal of its Security Council in order to make it effective.

For Vigevani, this distancing from multilateralism is illustrated by the blockade, which Washington has maintained since 2020, on the appointment of new members to the dispute settlement body of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), initiated by Trump and continued by Biden.

“Even if relations with Brazil and Latin America in general look normal, this United States refusal raises doubts for the future, because it is saying it is not interested in multilateral organisations,” said Vigevani.

In the case of a Trump victory, the Brazilian professor points out, there are also unanswered questions about what his war and peace policies will be.

An example is the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Trump has said that “ending this war quickly is in the best interest of the United States” and that he can achieve “a peace agreement in one day”, without offering further details, said Vigevani.

“It is important because, despite the war, Brazil has a strong relationship with Russia, and a very active participation in the Brics group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa),” Vigevani recalled.

According to Petrash, with Trump’s international policy, “the great power can be the bull in the china shop, and even more, the bull isolating itself in the china shop”.

At the other end of the region is Mexico, a partner of Canada and the United States in the trade agreement known as USMCA, which replaced in 2020 the North American Free Trade Agreement that has existed since 1994.

Along with maintaining the 3150-kilometre southern border of the United States, a destination for hundreds of thousands of migrants who cross the region each year, Mexico faces the campaign promise from both Harris and Trump that they intend to revise the USMCA as soon as they reach the White House.

Trump is expected to introduce tariffs and protectionist barriers, for example on Mexican production involving Chinese parts or technologies, and Harris is expected to increase environmental and labour requirements that favour industries with United States labour.

Whichever side wins, “with the new American policy of bringing companies back to the United States or to its partners in the USMCA, possibly the biggest issue now is the end of globalisation and the return to a developmentalist nationalism”, summarised Vigevani.

A Brazilian couple and their two children take part in an outdoor activity at a school in the city of São Paulo. Credit: Escola Meu Castelinho

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Oct 2 2024 (IPS)

Large families are already a relic of the past in Latin America and the Caribbean, as a result of modernisation and the growth of the economy and the labour force. Now, the region faces an ageing population and migratory movements.

In the region, “fertility rate has fallen from 5.8 children per woman in 1950 to 1.8 in 2024. The largest drop in fertility was between 1950 and 2024 (-68.4% versus -52.6% worldwide),” Simone Cecchini, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre, told IPS from Santiago de Chile.

“Improvements in education levels, living conditions, urbanisation, the empowerment of women and their incorporation into the workforce have favoured the option to reduce the number of children,” said Cecchini, whose centre is part of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Martha Marcondes, an educator from the Brazilian city of São Paulo, tells IPS how the number of children has been changing in her family, reflecting regional behaviour.

“My great-grandmother had 14 children, and life was dedicated to them; my grandmother thought differently in her time and only had four; my mother had three, and pregnant for a fourth time, she chose to have an abortion,” she explains.“Improvements in education levels, living conditions, urbanisation, the empowerment of women and their incorporation into the workforce have favoured the option to reduce the number of children”: Simone Cecchini.

Marcondes only had one daughter, because “we liked the idea of a second child, but my husband and I sat down and decided not to have any more. My daughter, who is 22 and studies International Relations, is focused on her career and travelling and does not plan to have children”.

Most of her daughter’s classmates are also only children or at most have one sibling. “Having fewer children is a way of being able to provide a better life for the ones you do have,” says Marcondes.

Couples like Tamara and Héctor – they prefer not to disclose their surnames – agree. She is a pastry chef and he is a firefighter in Ciudad Guayana, in southeastern Venezuela, with a 10-year-old daughter.

“With just enough to pay for school and support ourselves, we don’t have a house or a car. Covering expenses in Venezuela is increasingly difficult, income is very low, so years ago I told Héctor: no more children,” she told IPS from her home town.

Demographer Anitza Freitez, head of the Department of Demographic Studies at the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas, confirmed to IPS that “the experiences analysed in countries in crisis show that the situation of deprivation in these contexts encourages people to avoid having children.

Cecchini notes that “as people become more educated and wealthier, they choose to have fewer children. This choice has been made possible by greater access to sexual and reproductive health and the use of modern contraceptives, which have also lowered adolescent fertility”.

He notes that while the region’s adolescent fertility rate (50.5 children per 1,000 women aged 15-19 in 2024) is down from the recent past (in 2010 the rate was 73.1 children), it is nevertheless well above the global average (40.7).

A large family in Peru, which are becoming increasingly rare in Latin America and the Caribbean as modernising trends in the region continue. Credit: MSC

Ageing and the economy

The fall in fertility is causing strong changes in the population’s age structure, with a sharp decline in the share of children and a steady increase in that of older adults.

The average household size is also decreasing, from 4.3 persons in 2000 to 3.4 persons in 2022, according to ECLAC data for 20 Latin American countries, while longevity is increasing.

The average life expectancy at birth for both sexes in Latin America and the Caribbean was only 49 years in 1950 and has reached 76 years in 2024.

As a result of declining fertility and increasing life expectancy, 95 million people aged 60 and over will live in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2024, representing 14.2% of the total population. In 2030 there will be 114 million, 16.6% of the total population.

In particular, the group of people aged 80 and over is projected to grow strongly, from 12.5 million in 2024 to 16.3 million in 2030.

The declining birth rate and increasing life expectancy lead to a growth in the older population. Credit: PUC Chile

Cecchini argues that ageing populations and shrinking family sizes are reshaping economies and societies, with their burden of challenges and opportunities.

Ageing, he said, “holds challenges for public policies on social protection, health, care, as well as the labour market. Universal coverage of social protection or health care is still not provided”, and the increase in the older population sharply increases the demand on these systems.

It also increases the need for care, particularly long-term. As the traditional model of care based on women’s unpaid work within large families is no longer sustainable, “public policy measures are also needed in this area,” Cecchini stressed.

But on the opportunity side, older people are increasingly demanding products and services, which can hold benefits for markets.

The ‘silver economy’ – focused on the needs and demands of older people – brings opportunities in fields such as tourism, entertainment, telemedicine, information and communication technologies, smart home systems, healthcare, and home care, the expert says.

“New jobs in these sectors, especially in health and care, will be created as a result of population ageing,” he said.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted within the United Nations 2030 Agenda, do not set targets for fertility rates, but can benefit from reductions, such as reducing poverty by having more people in the workforce with fewer dependents.

A Warao indigenous family from Venezuela arriving in the city of Boa Vista, northern Brazil. Credit: UNHCR

Demographic dividend and migration

Population ageing and declining fertility impact on the demographic dividend, the window of opportunity for economic growth and poverty reduction due to the higher growth of the population in the most productive age group, between 15 and 64, relative to the dependent population.

This segment of the population averages 68% of the total in the region, according to World Bank figures, with some countries in the English-speaking Caribbean, Brazil and Colombia above the average, and others below, such as Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

The foreseeable duration of this dividend varies widely across the region – the longest in Bolivia, the shortest in Uruguay – as it depends on the pace of the ageing process, determined by declining mortality, declining fertility and migratory processes.

“But we must always remember that the demographic dividend is only an opportunity, which must be taken advantage of with appropriate public policies, such as investment in the human capacities of young people and the promotion of gender equality in the labour market,” stressed Cecchini.

Migration has a major impact on countries such as Cuba, where more than 800,000 people have left in the last two years, and Venezuela, which has seen more than seven million of its nationals leave in the last decade.

“The decline in fertility in a country like Venezuela is combined with a migratory process, which translates into a loss of the demographic dividend and an ageing population,” said Freitez.

She emphasizes that this process is occurring “in a country where ageing is not at the forefront of public policy. One example is that pensions received by the elderly are not even minimally sufficient to cover some needs, and public health is very deficient”.

Old-age pensions in Venezuela are pegged to the minimum wage, which is less than four dollars a month, although some groups of pensioners occasionally receive bonuses for a few dollars more.

“The entire burden then falls on a family whose structure has been transformed, as more than one million households (of the slightly more than six million in Venezuela) have experienced the migration of some of their members, becoming transnational families,” Freitez said.

Whether due to this dispersion, reduction in fertility rates, progress of modernisation and ageing, the large families that characterised life and tradition in Latin America have now become museum pieces.

Mossoró prison, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, in Brazil, is one of the five maximum security prisons in that country. Credit: Mjsp

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Sep 4 2024 (IPS)

Invoking the fight against terrorists and sending those who can be charged with this crime to new maximum security prisons are increasingly emerging in the toolbox of Latin American leaders who want to show an iron fist against criminals and opponents.

Renata Segura, head of the regional programme of the Brussels-based think-tank International Crisis Group, wrote on her X-media account that “the fascination of Latin American presidents with maximum security prisons is spreading like wildfire.”

This attraction is present among presidents of opposing political persuasions, although most of them are united by the neo-populism of their policies and actions.

Venezuela is the most recent case, where president Nicolás Maduro, whose re-election in the 28 July elections sparked an outbreak of street protests, ordered two prisons to be set up as maximum security jails to hold some 2,000 protesters arrested and accused of terrorism.“The fascination of Latin American presidents with maximum security prisons is spreading like wildfire”: Renata Segura.

Argentine president Javier Milei accused opponents who recently demonstrated against him in Buenos Aires of the same offence, while Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa ordered the construction of a maximum security prison and a prison ship for criminals accused of terrorism.

The top regional reference is president Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, who under a state of emergency that has lasted more than two years has detained 80,000 people, mostly accused of terrorism as members of large criminal gangs or maras.

The Bukele government built a mega-prison, the Terrorism Containment Center (Cecot), with capacity for 40,000 inmates who are subjected to trial and detention conditions that violate human rights, according to international humanitarian organisations that observe the process.

Segura told IPS from New York that “the recent announcements of the construction of maximum security prisons are most likely inspired by the measures taken by president Bukele, who has been quite successful in reducing insecurity.”

She acknowledged that the Salvadoran ruler “has high levels of popularity, despite massive human rights violations in that country.”

Indeed, “he ended up putting two percent of El Salvador’s adult population behind bars, mostly without due process, and with serious human rights violations,” said Carolina Jiménez Sandoval, president of the non-governmental Washington Office on Latin America (Wola).

Under this state of emergency, “at least 261 people have already been killed, and we must remember that every person in state custody is the responsibility of the state,” Sandoval told IPS from Washington.

Construction work is underway at the dilapidated Tocuyito prison in north-central Venezuela, which is being quickly converted into a high-security prison for hundreds of detainees in protests against the proclaimed re-election of president Nicolás Maduro. Credit: RrSs

New fad, old recipe

On 21 June, Noboa started building a maximum-security prison on a 16-hectare site in the province of Santa Elena, on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, a country of 18 million people with 36 prisons. It is expected to cost US$52 million and will hold up to 800 inmates.

“Today we are marking one of the most important milestones in our fight against terrorism and the mafias that have hijacked our country’s momentum for decades,” said the president, who will seek re-election next year.

In Venezuela, while hundreds of young protesters against Maduro’s proclamation as winner were imprisoned in late July, the president ordered two prisons in the centre of the country, Tocorón and Tocuyito, to be remodelled as “maximum security prisons” to hold the new captives.

Not to be outdone, Milei announced he will sell prisons on valuable land in urban centres in Argentina, and use the money to build maximum security prisons far from the cities. In June he sent his Security minister, Patricia Bullrich, to learn about the Salvadoran experience.

“This is the way. Tough on criminals,” the minister said after the visit.

Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa (in black) looks at a model of the new maximum security prison being built on his country’s Pacific coast. He presents it as part of the fight against criminal gangs he describes as terrorists. Credit: Presidencia de Ecuador

Maximum security prisons have always existed in the region, such as the Mexican Federal Rehabilitation Centre El Altiplano, in the central state of Mexico, where a group of former drug cartel leaders and serial killers are held.

Colombia has its most secure prisons in Combita (centre) and Valledupar (north), as well as maximum security wings in Bogota’s La Picota prison, where it has held guerrillas, convicted or accused terrorists, and drug cartel leaders for years.

Brazil, with 8.5 million square kilometres and 205 million people, has five maximum security prisons, in four of its 26 states and in the Federal District. Two prisoners escaped from Mossoro prison in the northeast last February, its first jailbreak since 2006.

Tragically famous are the prisons of Lurigancho, in Lima, and El Fronton Island, in the Pacific off the capital, for the massacre of hundreds of prisoners belonging to leftist guerrilla group Shining Path, following a riot in June 1986, in the context of the anti-terrorist struggle in Peru.

Argentina’s Security Minister Patricia Bullrich visited the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, which she considers a model to follow. Credit: Presidencia de El Salvador

These maximum security prisons were shut down after the massacre, but Peru maintains the Challapalca prison, in a desolate spot in the south of the country at 4,600 metres above sea level, the highest in the world, where it holds dozens of prisoners considered highly dangerous.

Commenting on the case of El Salvador, Jiménez Sandoval observed, “does it have lower homicide levels? True. Do people feel safer? True.”

“It is also true that these punitive models based on mass arrests and human rights violations tend to have immediate effects, but it is very difficult in the medium and long term for them to continue to be useful”, she said.

“You can’t put everyone behind bars”, but also “because many of the factors that influence and cause the inclusion of young people in violence remain, such as poverty, exclusion, lack of educational and employment opportunities and life plans”, Jiménez said.

“We are not terrorists,” reads a sign held by a protester in Caracas against the proclaimed re-election of president Nicolás Maduro. Nearly 2,000 people have been arrested in the protests and the Attorney General’s Office has announced terrorism charges against hundreds of them. Credit: Provea

Cultivating fear

Now, the option of maximum security prisons goes beyond the fight against terrorism and reaches political activism, threatening opponents or demonstrators who could be accused of this crime, and also as a show of strength and determination to hold on to power.

“When rulers in countries that also face high rates of insecurity due to organised crime, gangs or other phenomena announce these measures, they are undoubtedly making gestures that indicate that they too are adopting a tough-on-crime strategy,” Segura said.

In Venezuela, “where repression of the opposition has grown after the elections, I think there is another goal: sending a message to those who are considering joining the protests that they will be arrested and imprisoned as if they were high risk criminals,” she added.

The Venezuelan government “is making a very intense effort to mainstream that anyone who protests or dissents from the officially announced election results is a terrorist,” lawyer Gonzalo Himiob, vice-president of Foro Penal, an organisation advocating human rights, and in particular of prisoners, for 15 years, told IPS.

“There is a deliberate trivialisation of terrorism by those in power, and a technical incorrectness, because arrested demonstrators do not fit the internationally accepted definitions of terrorist agents, links or acts,” Himiob said.

Many of those arrested were just bystanders not even demonstrating, and among the 1,500 arrested in the weeks following the 28 July election there are at least 114 teenagers, which delegitimises the terrorism charges, he adds.

There were “doubly serious events”, such as the announcement by the Prosecutor’s Office that those arrested would be categorised as terrorists, “a prefabricated catalogue that inverts the law, which states that first the facts are individualised and then the people, and not the other way around,” continued Himiob.

In short, “they are acting with what is known as criminal law of the enemy, using it not to do justice but to capitalise on power,” he said.

And, thus, to rule with the impulse of the springs of fear.

Organisations fighting inequality and hunger, such as the Oxfam coalition, support calls for the world's rich to be taxed more fairly. A new study, sponsored by Brazil, will be the basis for debating the issue among the world's most powerful economies. Credit: Oxfam

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jun 27 2024 (IPS)

A global agreement could levy a small tax on the world’s 3,000 richest people, with fortunes in excess of US$ 1 billion, and use the money to fight world hunger, a study by the Brazilian government and the European Union’s Tax Observatory has shown.

The richest “are paying less than other socio-economic groups. This is a simple proposal, to make them pay at least two per cent per year of their wealth or income, and thus raise between US$ 200 billion and 250 billion each year,” said Gabriel Zucman, the French economist who led and presented the study.

If the tax were extended to owners of fortunes of more than US$ 100 million, an additional US$ 100 billion to 150 billion could be raised, said Zucman, director of the Tax Observatory and professor of economics at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and the University of California at Berkeley, in the United States.

The proposal and the study are driven by Brazil’s president, the moderate leftist Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, the current president of the Group of 20 (G20), who will present it for debate at the summit of this club of the world’s main industrial and emerging economies, late this year in Rio de Janeiro.

For Lula, “it is time for the super-rich to pay their fair share of taxes”, and to direct those resources towards combating hunger and poverty in developing countries, he said this month at meetings of the Group of 7 – Western powers – and the International Labour Organisation.

Lula commissioned Zucman’s team to prepare the technical study, “A blueprint for a coordinated minimum effective taxation standard for ultra-high net worth individuals”, which the economist presented online on 25 June, followed by a chat with a small group of journalists, including IPS."It is a choice between opacity and transparency. Tax evasion is not a law of nature": Gabriel Zucman.

“It is essential to ensure that everyone pays their fair share of taxes”, said Brazil’s finance minister, Fernando Haddad, following Zucman’s presentation. “The Brazilian presidency of the G20 has put international tax cooperation at the top of the agenda of the group’s financial track”, he added.

Susana Ruiz, head of tax policy at Oxfam International, the global anti-poverty coalition, said: “We welcome the Zucman report, which offers a critical contribution toward fixing a system that allows the ultra-rich to avoid taxes and not only accumulate and protect astronomical amounts of wealth and income ―but also hide it from governments.”

“Taxing the ultra-rich properly could raise billions of dollars for governments to combat inequality and tackle the climate crisis,” said Ruiz.

When he hosted the president of Benin, Patrice Talon, in May, Lula argued that “if the world’s 3,000 billionaires paid a 2 per cent tax on the earnings of their wealth, we could generate resources to feed the 340 million people in Africa who are facing extreme food insecurity.”

However, the report – and Zucman’s presentation – have not addressed the destination of the resources to be raised: “I can’t say how the money will be used. The distribution has to be decided by the people with their deliberations and democratic vote,” he said.

Economist Gabriel Zucman, of the European Union’s Tax Observatory, during the presentation of the study, that claims a two per cent tax on the world’s largest fortunes would raise US$ 250 billion per year, which was seen in many capitals online. Credit: Humberto Márquez/IPS

The very rich pay very little

Zucman argued that “billionaires and the companies they own have been the main beneficiaries of globalisation. This raises the question of whether contemporary tax systems manage to distribute these earnings adequately or, on the contrary, contribute to concentrating them in a few hands.”

In almost four decades – from 1987 to 2024 – the wealth of the very rich, 0.0001 per cent of the population, grew at an average 7.1 per cent per year and captured 14 per cent of the global gross domestic product, while the average wealth per adult increased by no more than 3.2 per cent.

On average, billionaires pay an effective tax rate of just 0.3 per cent of their wealth, less than other socio-economic groups.

This is largely because they own conglomerates of companies or publicly traded shares, and through these mechanisms they report, for example, lower annual taxable income than their actual wealth.

Zucman said his proposal “is very simple: that they pay 2 per cent of their wealth or income (a combination of income and wealth taxes) and thus equalise with other socio-economic groups.”

Publications such as Forbes constantly feature the world’s wealthiest individuals, all of them men, including tech start-up tycoons. A new era of transparency about their tax contributions must be ushered in, say the promoters of a new combined income and wealth tax: Credit: Valora Analitik

How to do it?

The key, Zucman explains, is to define a minimum market value that is difficult for billionaires to manipulate, “and that can now be done with the thousands of tax analysts around the world, as banking secrecy is lifted and with greater coordination between countries.”

An example of this coordination is the well-known Pillar 2 of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), which in 2021 proposed taxing at least 15 per cent of the income of transnational firms in industrialised nations, “something that did not seem possible 10 years ago”, he adds.

The basis of the new tax would be to estimate the presumed profit along with the wealth in stock and company shares. “There are also the planes, yachts, Picassos, but that is a very small part of global wealth,” according to the expert.

He admitted that billionaires might move to countries that do not levy them with the new taxes, but the state where they have their property and original sources of income can continue to tax their wealth even while abroad.

“I think this taxation mobility tends to be exaggerated in public debates,” said Zucman.

Ideally, he said, “the standard should progress as more countries join”, and a new form of cooperation between countries should be established, respecting each other’s sovereignty. “There is no need for a new international treaty,” he said.

A recent survey among G20 countries by the French firm Ipsos showed that 67 per cent of adults think there is too much economic inequality, and 70 per cent believe the rich should pay higher taxes, according to the Tax Observatory.

Support for a wealth tax on the rich is highest in Indonesia (86 per cent), Turkey (78 per cent), the UK (77 per cent) and India (74 per cent). It is lowest in Saudi Arabia and Argentina (54 per cent), but still exceeds half of respondents.

In the US, France and Germany, around two thirds of respondents support a wealth tax on the rich.

“It would be naïve to assume that all taxpayers will be in favour. But it is also a choice between opacity and transparency. Tax evasion is not a law of nature,” summarised Zucman.

Finally, he stressed that the aim of the report, which began in February, “is to launch a global policy conversation, not to end it”.

The first major global debate among the world’s leading economies will take place when G20 finance ministers meet in Rio de Janeiro on 25-26 July. But it is already clear that the road, at best, will be a long one.

A map of fake solutions shows projects with climate-friendly intentions or appearances but with counterproductive social and environmental impacts. Indigenous communities are one of the most affected population sectors. Credit: Platform for Climate Justice

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jun 14 2024 (IPS)

Government and private initiatives and programmes to address the climate crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean are in fact a vast array of fake solutions, according to a new regional map made by environmental organisations in several of its countries.

The map “offers an overview to understand the dynamics and the deceptive language of fake solutions, which allow big polluters to obtain allocations to continue their activities and contribute to global warming,” Ivonne Yánez, president of Ecuador’s Acción Ecológica, told IPS.

Made by the Latin American and Caribbean Platform for Climate Justice, a network of environmental groups, the map shows the fake solutions of dozens of projects for green energy and the production of its inputs, and for storing carbon in forests, other ecosystems and agricultural systems.

There are also geoengineering projects to prevent climate change, and climate change adaptation based on ecosystems, infrastructure and engineering projects.

“More than a format, it is a tool for visibility, a pedagogical tool that joins very diverse players, such as scholars, researchers, NGOs and activists gathered in the Platform,” said Liliana Buitrago, a researcher at the Observatory of Political Ecology of Venezuela, which released the map in May, to IPS.

The network “states that transition initiatives coming from the territorial fabric and communities, outside the frameworks imposed by the green economy, corporate greenwashing and corporate capture” of carbon emissions, “are urgent,” Buitrago said.

Presenting the map, Yánez explained that “what green capitalism seeks is not only to appropriate nature’s ability to cleanse itself, to recreate life, to photosynthesise”.

“Through fake solutions, it also takes advantage of and appropriates what indigenous peoples have done for thousands of years, which is protecting and taking care of forests, or peasants that care for the soil. And for what? To carry on an escalation of fossil fuel extraction,” said the activist.

In March 2021, environmentalists from Greenpeace threw green paint on the fuselage of an Air France plane at Paris airport to protest the company’s purchase of carbon credits. Major firms purchased the offsets without backtracking on the expansion of carbon-intensive operations. Credit: Fenis Meyer / Greenpeace

Carbon, an unscathed villain

An analysis of the 83 cases that make up the first map – 100 more will appear in future editions – shows that 70 per cent of fake solutions to the climate crisis are privately funded, and that indigenous communities and small farmers are the most affected.

The most common among fake solution categories are projects to store carbon in forests, other ecosystems and agricultural systems, in 50 per cent of cases.

REDD+ projects (Reducing Emissions – mainly carbon dioxide, CO2 – from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries) account for 33 per cent of the cases.

The REDD+ framework allows countries to issue and market carbon offset certifications “that are put in the financial system at the disposal of companies that want to use them as licenses to continue polluting and generating emissions”, criticizes Yánez.

Wind energy projects, and new forestry plantations justified by carbon sequestration, comprise 10 and 11 per cent of the projects on the map.

The Platform considers the recent launch of blue carbon credits (debt issues that finance ecosystem conservation projects) in oil-producing Trinidad and Tobago, for work in the southwest of Tobago and in the Caroni swamp in Trinidad, as a form of greenwashing.

In Brazil, among several cases, Portel-Pará is shown at the head of four carbon storage projects in 7,000 square kilometres of forests and other ecosystems, through land negotiations and agreements on deforestation boundaries with communities in the northern Amazonian state of Pará.

The Latin American platform Alianza Biodiversidad criticises that these projects create carbon credits that are bought by large firms that continue to pollute, such as Repsol (oil), Air France, Delta Airlines and Boeing (aviation), Amazon and Aldi (commerce) or Samsung and Toshiba (technology).

View of a solar farm in Namasigue, southern Honduras. In several countries in the region, large solar and wind energy installations force the displacement of communities, due to alterations in land tenure and use, with impacts on water and crops. Credit: Scatec / Cepad

Displaced people, a cliché

Looking at the map from North to South, the fake solutions start in Mexico, with the example of lithium mining in 13 salt flats in the states of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí (north-central Mexico) by the Canadian firm Advance Gold Corp.

This project has caused displacement of peasant populations, pollution, and changes in land ownership and use.

Projects for solar photovoltaic power plants in Quetzaltepeque (eastern Guatemala) and Namasigüe (southern Honduras), run by private consortiums with capitals from the Norwegian firm Scatec, have in common the displacement of peasant and fishing populations, loss of habitats and biodiversity.

In Colombia, the San José ranch received funding from the Green Climate Fund and Dutch banks for a project in the eastern department of Vichada to expand its cattle herd from 9,000 head on 8,000 hectares to 750,000 animals on 180,000 hectares.

The company is singled out in the Fund for sequestering more carbon than it emits, but the Platform questions the cattle expansion’s contribution to climate and highlights risks to a neighbouring reservation of the Sikuani people.

Helicopter view of the last, diminished glacier in the Venezuelan Andes, whose end is being delayed with plastic sheeting. Some climate action initiatives are not only misguided in their goals and approaches, but can also become pollution hotspots. Credit: Minec

Energy with colour

In Costa Rica, a hydroelectric “green energy” facility was proposed in 2013 in the southwestern canton of Pérez Zeledón. It lacked the necessary documentation, had falsified land-use permits by the mayor’s office, and would cause foreseeable pollution and loss of habitats and biodiversity.

The state environmental technical secretariat granted it expedited permits but, in the face of public criticism and rejection, the government cancelled the project.

In Jamaica, a “green energy” project has been underway since 2016, 90 kilometres west of Kingston. A wind farm of 11 wind turbines, with funding from the United States and Canada, is supposed to cover three percent of the island’s electricity demand and reduce emissions by 66,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

The map points out that, at the same time, Jamaica is handing out concessions for bauxite mining and aluminium reduction, a key material for energy transition but whose production causes desertification, disease, and deepens extractivism.

The Dominican Republic hosts the largest photovoltaic power plant in the Antilles, the Girasol solar park, in the southern municipality of Yaguate, west of Santo Domingo. It has 268,200 panels installed, with an investment of 100 million dollars by the Cayman Islands-based firm Haina Investment.

The map shows the changes in territorial dynamics, the relationship of locals with the environment, and the impact caused in the lands from which minerals are extracted to produce the installed technology.

Monocultures and deaf ears

In 2006, oil-producing Venezuela presented a project for ethanol production with sugar mills, using sugar cane grown on 300,000 hectares in the southwestern plains. This never came to fruition but showed an inclination to favour monoculture for fuels instead of diversified food production.

The map also shows the country recently initiated a project to slow down the extinction of its last glacier, more than 4,000 metres above sea level on Humboldt Peak, in the southwestern Andes, by covering it with polystyrene mesh.

The project ignored recommendations from the University of the Andes concerning risks in its implementation, plastic pollution of air, water and soil, and because it will not prevent the glacier from melting due to global warming.

The Luxembourg-based Arbaro Fund, active in seven countries in the South, bought 1,080 hectares of land in three Ecuadorean provinces and is planning another 500 hectares for monoculture tree plantations, whose management aims, in theory, to protect the environment and capture CO2.

The same fund acquired 9,000 hectares in the central department of San Pedro in Paraguay, and two thirds will be planted with eucalyptus trees. The Platform warns that the project legalises land grabbing, with devastating effects on the environment and on indigenous and small farming communities.

Some 100 civil society organisations alerted the Green Climate Fund in 2020 about the harm small farmers may suffer from land regime change and pollution, plus the loss of habitats, biodiversity and agro-diversity. However, Arbaro Fund received 25 million dollars to support its plantations.

A view of Yasuní National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon, where a nationwide public consultation determined a major oil field was to be left in the ground undeveloped. Environmental groups see these measures and initiatives as part of a successful climate drive. Credit: Snap

New searches

A stark contrast to the “fake solutions” on the map are initiatives such as Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s decision to set a deadline on his country’s dependence on fossil fuels, or the rejection of certain oil and mining operations decided in a referendum by the people of Ecuador.

“The people’s decision to leave oil in the ground is a clear contribution to the fight against climate change, as is the decision to ban mining in the Andean Chocó, which is rich in biodiversity,” Yánez stressed.

In the referendum held on 20 August 2023, 59 per cent of Ecuadorians voted to prevent oil exploitation in the Yasuní national park in the Amazon. In Quito, 68 per cent of the vote vetoed gold and copper prospecting in the Andean Chocó area, west of the capital.

Buitrago believes that, “far from being solutions to the problem, fake solutions are ways of perpetuating the extractivist and exploitative model of accumulation that has caused the climate crisis”.

That is why the map, by showing contrasts and criticisms of fake solutions, “also seeks to state that other organisations can make the real ones visible”, said Yánez.

Maracaibo, next to the lake of the same name and the capital of Zulia, one of the regions hardest hit by the electricity crisis in Venezuela, is incubating a citizen initiative so that homes could be equipped with solar panels. Its example has spread to other regions of the country. CREDIT: Uria

By Humberto Márquez
MARACAIBO, Venezuela , Mar 25 2024 (IPS)

Sweating profusely, unable to sleep because of the heat, fed up with years of blackouts several times a day, many residents of Venezuela’s torrid northwest want to cover the roofs and balconies of their homes with solar panels, and are asking the government to import them massively and cheaply from China.

“It is a proposal to break out of the quagmire immediately, to close the gap between supply and demand for electricity, 60 percent of which in Venezuela goes to residential consumption,” engineer Lenin Cardozo, one of the main promoters of the Zulia Solar and Venezuela Solar citizen initiatives, told IPS."The solution to the electricity problem no longer lies in thermal plants, which in Venezuela we continue to repair while they are being closed down in other parts of the world, but in new sources and technologies, such as solar power." -- Lenin Cardozo

The northwestern state of Zulia, of which Maracaibo is the capital, produced Venezuela’s great oil wealth throughout the 20th century but has become, along with the neighboring Andes region, the Cinderella of the grid that supplies electricity, generated mainly in the distant southeast of the country, bordering Brazil.

Zulia Solar emerged last year as an association to foment solutions to the lack of electricity suffered by millions of inhabitants of the region. And so far in 2024, replicas have emerged in twenty other states, with aspirations of becoming a national movement: Venezuela Solar.

Its president, lawyer Vileana Meleán, said that “the novelty is that this time the citizens are organized and we are coordinating among ourselves to present the government with this solution that arises from civil society, with a three-point proposal.”

The first point is for the government to massively import solar panels from China, the world’s leading producer – with which Caracas has developed strong commercial and political ties – in order to obtain advantageous prices, and for it to organize a distribution system that makes them affordable to households interested in installing them.

The second is that, in order to lower prices, panels, batteries and other components of solar energy systems should be made exempt from various taxes, such as customs duties and the value added tax.

And the third point calls for the creation of a public and private financing policy, with soft loans, so that families of modest means can purchase the panels and other materials required for the new installation.

Power outages, in the form of sudden blackouts, surprise sectors of the cities of western Venezuela, such as the torrid city of Maracaibo. Local residents are fed up with suffering heat without the possibility of air conditioning or fans, the spoilage of food and damage to their household appliances. CREDIT: Transparencia Venezuela

The reason for the desperation

“When the electricity cuts off, the water goes out, the pumps don’t work. The food in the refrigerator spoils. During the day it is 40 or 42 degrees Celsius, but the thermal sensation reaches 47 degrees,” teacher Rita Zarate told IPS one afternoon in the hallway of her home in the working-class La Pomona neighborhood of Maracaibo.

In the last 24 hours the electricity had been cut three times, lasting between three and four hours each time.

For her family – mother, siblings, children, nieces and nephews – “the worst thing is not being able to sleep when the blackouts happen at night and in the early morning hours. In the bedroom, the heat is unbearable; outside, there are clouds of mosquitoes,” which swarm people in the house when the air conditioning or electric fans are turned off.

A sleepless night, trying to sleep when a breeze blows in the courtyard, keeping the elderly and little ones hydrated, and trying to get transportation to work at daybreak, which might not be available because the blackouts paralyze the fuel pumps and the owners of private vehicles spend hours waiting for the power to come back on so they can fill their tanks.

Zárate said that “it is the same for the children at school: classes two or three days a week, half a day, if they can run the fans. Or in the playground. Sometimes their parents leave them at home, other times the heat gets so bad that we have to send them back.”

Internet to study or to do work, to get administrative procedures done in offices, to operate ATMs in banks, to walk at night under street lights? These are options that are vanishing for those who live on the shores of Lake Maracaibo.

“In the last century Maracaibo was jokingly called ‘the coldest city in Venezuela’ because there was air conditioning everywhere. That’s not true anymore, they only work off and on now,” Luis Ramírez, director of the graduate program in quality systems at the private Andrés Bello Catholic University (Ucab), based in Caracas, told IPS.

He said that many homes in Zulia and the other 22 states outside Caracas have small gasoline-powered generators, but due to the scarcity of fuel – paradoxically, in the country that boasts the largest oil reserves on the planet – they are used less and less.

Zárate remains hopeful that change will come. But with regard to solar panels, he said that “I’ve heard about them, but it sounds like a distant solution,” and added that “one thing is for sure: with our income (every adult in his family earns less than 60 dollars a month) we won’t be able to afford them.”

Workers in a solar panel factory in China, by far the world’s largest producer. The Zulia and Venezuela Solar associations are asking the government to use its political and commercial ties with Beijing to negotiate a massive import of solar panels, and to make them affordable by eliminating taxes and granting soft loans. CREDIT: Xataka

Problems and hopes

Meleán proposed to her supporters in Zulia Solar and Venezuela Solar “to hold on now more tightly to the hope” that the acquisition and installation of solar panels will become widespread, based on a speech by President Nicolás Maduro, who is seeking reelection on Jul. 28 to a third six-year term.

At a Mar. 13 campaign rally, Maduro said that “the social movements have proposed a 2025-2030 plan for solar energy to reach the communal councils, the homes, the urban developments. It is one of the great solutions for the 21st century.”

At the end of the 20th century, Venezuela had a nominal installed generation capacity of 34,000 megawatt hours (MWh), including 18,000 MWh in thermal plants and 16,000 MWh in hydroelectric plants, and the peak demand of 18,000 MWh was reached in 1982.

From that year on, economic crises followed one after the other, reducing demand and the operability of the facilities. In the second decade of the 21st century, the country experienced a recession that cut GDP by four-fifths, while power plants and grids deteriorated until they generated no more than 10,000 MWh.

Experts put current demand at about 12,000 MWh, and the gap between supply and demand has led to energy rationing based on outages that affect almost the entire country – with the exception of Caracas – but especially the west, the region most distant from the southeastern Guri hydroelectric power plant, which generates two-thirds of the electricity consumed.

Zulia is barely surviving on what it receives from the Guri power plant and a dozen thermal power plants, which have deteriorated after being designed to be gas-fired and instead use diesel, contributing to their inefficiency and decline.

Cardozo said “the solution to the electricity problem no longer lies in thermal plants, which in Venezuela we continue to repair while they are being closed down in other parts of the world, but in new sources and technologies, such as solar power.”

Two thirds of Venezuela’s electricity depends on the Guri hydroelectric power plant in the southeast of the country. The distance and the poor state of the transmission and distribution networks result in supply failures in the western part of the country, fueling the search for alternatives such as solar panels in homes. CREDIT: Corpoelec

Venezuela “needs to incorporate technologies such as solar power, as an alternative to cover the gap between supply and demand in the short term, and with decentralized initiatives until large projects can move forward,” he said.

He added that a solar panel that costs 30 or 50 dollars in China, for example, depending on its capacity, sells for 10 times that in Venezuela, due to the costs and taxes along the supply chain.

Hence Venezuela Solar’s proposal for the government to intervene with massive purchases from its giant Asian partner, to abolish the taxes on their import and commercialization, and to facilitate financing for households.

Cardozo stressed that constant technological advances will make it possible not only to reduce the cost but also the size and complexity of domestic solar installations.

He estimated that a household could produce enough power for essential consumption with two 500-watt panels, and could run an air conditioner with four more, at a cost of about 1,000 dollars.

That would be the result if the government fully embraces Venezuela Solar’s proposals. The Zulia Solar group is preparing a pilot test in Maracaibo, with 400 houses that would have panels on their roofs and 100 apartments that would have panels on their balconies.

Solar panels supply energy to a health center in El Cruce, a remote village in the state of Zulia, in the far western part of the country, bordering Colombia. In the recent past, small hybrid wind and solar systems have been installed in isolated communities, but most have been lost due to lack of maintenance. CREDIT: ICRC

Not everything is positive

Representatives of companies that in the last three years have installed solar panels in homes and businesses in Venezuelan cities estimate costs of 4,000 dollars or more for an installation that meets the basic needs of a home.

In this country of 29 million inhabitants, the average salary is around 130 dollars per month, according to consulting firms. Measured by income level, 82 percent of households live in poverty and more than 50 percent in critical poverty, according to the Ucab Living Conditions Survey, released this month.

Ramírez pointed out that Maracaibo was not only the artificially coldest city in the country, but also the one with the highest electricity consumption per person, “and that is why aiming at a mass solution with solar panels on roofs and balconies requires a kind of prior census to estimate the real amount of equipment needed.”

Another expert, Alejandro López-González, told IPS that “Venezuela’s electricity problem will not be solved with solar panels on the roofs of homes in its big cities. It is not possible, because of our climate, which demands a high level of air conditioning.”

“If we turn to a complementary development of renewable energies, the ideal would be large solar and wind farms, because they provide higher energy intensity, for a greater capacity of use, and with a moderately centralized distribution system,” said López-González.

He argued that while the installation of panels in homes also complements local or regional grids, it falls short of solving the electricity crisis.

On the other hand, he noted that the assembly of solar panels began 14 years ago in Venezuela, in a state-owned plant that has worked intermittently but which could be reopened, while other factories could be built, if an agreement is reached with China for production and not only for imports.

In his book “Renewable Energíes in Venezuela. Experiences and lessons for a sustainable future”, López-González compares the country’s solar and wind potential.

This country’s solar power potential is among the highest in Latin America, with an average of 5.35 kilowatt hours per square meter per day (5.35 kWh/m2), close to the highest, in Chile (5.75) and Bolivia (5.42), according to studies by the Venezuelan University of Los Andes, based in the western Andean state of Mérida.

With respect to wind energy, in the northwest of the country alone, the potential reaches 12,000 MWh – similar to the capacity of Guri -, favored by trade winds with high levels of constancy, direction and speed, up to eight meters per second.

Venezuela also has the potential to develop solar farms and wind farms on its Caribbean islands and northeastern mainland coast to add thousands of MWh, which could limit thermal plants to a complementary status.

Between 10 and 15 years ago, the government installed up to 50 MWh of wind power generation and more than 2,000 small hybrid systems – solar and wind – through the “Sembrando luz” program, mainly in remote indigenous and peasant communities, which has been abandoned for the past decade.

Currently there are some isolated installations in several cities – mainly businesses – and small hybrid systems on livestock farms or large plantations, to ensure the refrigeration of products or to operate water wells.

Against this backdrop, with constant blackouts and as the country heads towards a new presidential election on Jul. 28, Venezuela and Zulia Solar activists are betting that their proposals will prosper.

“The country is beginning to rethink other ways to address its electricity security problem. The value and strategic use of solar energy has been incorporated into the public agenda as an immediate solution to overcome the current electricity crisis,” said Cardozo.

An armed forces helicopter flies over the area of La Corona, which will be covered by a plastic blanket, on the Humboldt Peak in the Andes. It is the last glacier in Venezuela and will possibly disappear in less than two years. CREDIT: Harrison Ruiz / Minec

By Humberto Márquez
MÉRIDA, Venezuela, Mar 4 2024 (IPS)

Venezuela has undertaken the task of covering the remains of its last glacier, La Corona, on Humboldt Peak at 4,900 meters above sea level in the Andes mountains in the southwest of the country, with plastic “blankets” to slow the inevitable end of this icy patch of its mountain landscape and source of legends.

“We are not going to change the rhythm of nature, but we’re trying to curb the loss of the strip of glacier that we have left, for research and contributions that can be useful for other Andean countries where glaciers are also receding,” Toro Belisario, director of the Ministry of Ecosocialism (Minec) in the southwestern Andean state of Mérida, told IPS."A couple of dying hectares is all that remains of the nearly 1,000 hectares of glaciers that Venezuela had in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida at the beginning of the 20th century. They are the first victims of global warming." -- Julio César Centeno

The 1.8-hectare remains of the glacier will be covered with 80-meter-long polypropylene geotextile “blankets” brought from Italy in 35 rolls weighing 80 kilos each, which will be lifted by armed forces helicopters to the camp on the Humboldt Peak.

Some academics are opposed to the project, claiming that it has not been properly studied and that it is a vain effort to resist climate change and poses environmental risks for mountain species and rural and urban communities that could be polluted by plastic waste.

Belisario acknowledged that at the rate at which the glacier is retreating, one hectare per year, it has little life left, under the burden of climate change and the impact of the El Niño weather phenomenon blowing warm winds over the Pacific Ocean that alter the temperature in the region.

On the other hand, he defended the usefulness of the data that the initiative and its monitoring can provide month after month, for Venezuela and neighbors such as Peru, where numerous communities depend on glaciers as a source of water.

Perpetual snow disappeared decades ago from Bolívar Peak, Venezuela’s highest mountain at 4978 meters above sea level. Other glaciers in the Venezuelan Andes also melted during the 20th century. CREDIT: JC Centeno Chair

Environmental expert Julio César Centeno, a professor at the University of the Andes (ULA) in Mérida, told IPS that “the most that can be expected from the initiative is to prolong for a couple more years the final ordeal of the tiny, dying portion of the glacier that remains.”

Centeno and other ULA researchers warned in a press release that “it could cause environmental and ecological damage to the glacier and surrounding areas of the Andes highlands, as well as potentially affecting neighboring populations, due to air and water pollution from micro and nano plastics.”

The criticism asserts that Minec has failed to comply with current legislation, in terms of broad and informed consultation with local communities, presentation of an environmental impact study available to the public, and working together with concerned institutions, such as the university.

A century of retreat

“A couple of dying hectares is all that remains of the nearly 1,000 hectares of glaciers that Venezuela had in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida at the beginning of the 20th century. They are the first victims of global warming,” Centeno said.

This mountain range is in the center of the Venezuelan Andes – a 450 kilometer mountainous strip – with “perpetual snow” on its high peaks, Bolivar – 4978 meters above sea level, the highest in the country – La Concha, Toro, Humboldt and Bonpland.

La Corona glacier, between the Humboldt and Bonpland peaks, once covered 400 hectares, and even hosted a national ski championship. It has lost more than 99 percent of its original size, largely due to global warming. CREDIT: JC Centeno Chair

All of them have shrunk over the years, but in 1956 a national ski championship was held in the mountains. However, at the end of the last century only the La Corona glacier remained, on the Humboldt Peak, which with 400 hectares had also covered part of the Bonpland mountain, before losing 99.7 percent of its original extension.

Centeno explained that in countries such as Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland, glaciers are being covered with plastic blankets to reflect solar radiation and reduce energy absorption, but only during the summer months and especially in ski resorts. The costs are charged to the users.

There are also cases in Chile, China and Russia, and in most cases the glaciers to be covered are not only in latitudes far from the tropics but at lower altitudes than in Mérida, with more exposure to wind, sun and rain, which provide harsher conditions for the geotextile coverings.

This led ULA experts to warn of greater risks of deterioration of the tarps, and ruptures or tears leading to the spread of micro and nano plastics that the air and water would carry to agricultural and urban communities, such as the city of Mérida at the foot of the Sierra, with a population of around 300,000 people.

View of the city of Mérida, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. For centuries the regional capital has had an intense mythical, utilitarian and artistic link with its mountains. CREDIT: Espasa Mérida

Five white eagles

Since its foundation in 1558, the city has had a close relationship with its snow-capped mountains, ranging from enraptured contemplation to the utilitarian source of income provided by the highest cable car in the world, reaching from the city to 4765 meters above sea level in the Sierra.

In literature, the best-known reference is “The Five White Eagles”, which dates back to 1895, in which the humanist Tulio Febres Cordero (1860-1938) wrote down a legend of the Mirripuyes Indians, one of the groups that lived in the area when the Spaniards arrived in the sixteenth century.

The legend has it that five huge white eagles with silver wings flew over the mountains and Caribay, the first woman, daughter of the sun and the moon, fell in love with them and wanted the birds’ feathers to adorn her head.

Caribay ran along the ridges chasing the shadows of the birds but, when she was about to reach them, the eagles dug their talons into the cliffs and turned to stone, forming the five masses of ice that crowned the Sierra.

Since then, according to the legend, the occasional snowfalls are simply the awakening of the eagles, and the whistling of the wind in the highlands is an echo of the sad, monotonous song of Caribay as she fails to reach her silver trophy.

The governor of the state of Mérida, Jehyson Guzmán (R) receives the rolls of polystyrene, purchased in Italy, with which the La Corona glacier will be partially covered. Environmental academics are alert to the risk of eventual deterioration becoming a source of plastic pollution. CREDIT: Harrison Ruiz / Minec

Political presence

In justifying the plastic blanket project, Belisario said that “because of what this legend represents for the cosmovision of people from Mérida, we must not allow the glacier to disappear without contributing what we can to its study, and to the mitigation and adaptation to climate change.”

Centeno lamented that the eagles “no longer flap their wings, and their feathers no longer glitter. We all believed that because of their grandeur they were indestructible. They were swallowed by human indifference.”

In conversation with IPS, Ana Medina, a high school teacher in Mérida, and Yajaira Méndez, a shopkeeper in the municipal market, agreed that at home young people “must have once studied the legend of the white eagles” but that they are hardly aware of the end of the glacier.

“The people of Mérida love their mountains but have no information, and the glacier covering is not a topic that is talked about on a daily basis,” Euro Lobo, a veteran journalist in the city, told IPS.

Centeno said there may be political interest, in this year in which the country will hold a presidential election and it is expected that the current President Nicolás Maduro will seek reelection for a third six-year term.

“Perhaps the government wants to show that it is interested in saving as much as possible of the jewel that represents the last glacier for the city and the country,” said Centeno.

This monument to the Five White Eagles is on the outskirts of the city of Mérida. A legend written down in the late 19th century by writer Tulio Febres Cordero is a cultural icon. CREDIT: Samuel Hurtado / IAM Venezuela

Operation Protection

The governor of the state of Mérida, Jehyson Guzmán, of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, and General Ruben Belzares, the area’s military chief, announced on Feb. 21 that the new phase of the “Operation Protection of the Humboldt Peak Glacier” began.

“This is about rescuing the last glacier in Venezuela, the last stretch of ice that nature donated in its landscapes to the Mérida territory. We are involved in the struggle to rescue, preserve and maintain it as far as possible,” said Belzares.

He pointed out that a helicopter has been prepared to transport material and equipment, and reconnaissance flights have been carried out near the summit.

Guzmán said that the first camp has been set up and its 26 members are ready to begin work as soon as weather conditions permit, since there was unusual snowfall for the end of February.

Since December the region has had high temperatures, “generating higher pressure on the glacier. That is why the deployment is important, because at this accelerated rate of heat at the end of the year we may not have any glacier left,” said Guzmán.

He reported that in the Sierra Nevada all types of burning and logging have been prohibited, as well as climbing with spiked shoes.

He also specified that the geotextile blankets will not be placed directly on the entire glacier, but in the surrounding areas where the ice sheet is weakening, where melting has been the most accelerated.

The final flapping of the wings of the last of the eagles will occur under a polystyrene blanket.

A family from the Q'eqchi Mayan indigenous people of Guatemala gathers to share a meal cooked with firewood. Life in many rural areas of Latin America continues to be marked by scarce resources and inequality, in comparison with urban areas. CREDIT: IDB

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jan 31 2024 (IPS)

Rural life in Latin America and the Caribbean continues to be marked by poverty and inequality compared to the towns and cities where the vast majority of the population lives. A new focus on rural life in the region could help reveal and address the challenges and neglect faced by people in the countryside.

“Many people in our countryside simply no longer have a way to live, without services or incentives comparable to those in the cities, producing less and for less pay, under the threat of more disease and poverty,” Venezuelan coffee producer Vicente Pérez told IPS."Many people in our countryside simply no longer have a way to live, without services or incentives comparable to those in the cities, producing less and for less pay, under the threat of more disease and poverty." -- Vicente Pérez

In Mexico, whose countryside was home to 24 million of its 127 million inhabitants at the beginning of this decade, according to the World Bank, a study by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) showed that eight out of every 10 rural inhabitants lived in poverty, and six in extreme poverty.

It was in the Mexican capital where experts from ECLAC and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) proposed this January “a new approach” to the concept of rural life in the region, to help public action to reduce inequality and contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The project’s director, Ramón Padilla, told IPS from Mexico City that “we need a new narrative about rural Latin America that goes beyond the traditional static and dichotomous vision, and that sees rural areas not as backward places, but as territories with great potential for development and connections.”

Building a new narrative “is important for a better visualization, treatment and reduction of inequalities in income, infrastructure, education, health, gender, etc.,” added Padilla, head of ECLAC’s Economic Development Unit in Mexico.

“Those who have access to electricity, drinking water, communications and transport to work or school in a big city are at a great distance from life in many depressed rural areas,” said Pérez, executive director of the Venezuelan Confederation of Agricultural Producers (Fedeagro).

A woman feeds livestock next to her house in rural Nicaragua. Housing and food conditions are often very precarious in the most depressed rural areas of Central America. CREDIT: FAO

Entrenched rural poverty

Hilda, the head of her household in Los Rufinos, a village of 40 families in the middle of a sandy dry forest in the northwestern department of Piura, Peru, told visitors from the Argentina-based Latfem regional feminist communication network what it is like to live without electricity and drinking water, to cook with firewood and, among other hardships, to get her granddaughters the schooling she did not have.

In their dirt-floored houses with fences and walls made of logs, plastic and tin sheeting, the women in Los Rufinos cook in the early hours of the morning for the men of the village who go to work in the agro-exporting fruit plants in Piura, the departmental capital.

“When there is no moon, the night is really dark, you can’t see a thing. It’s not like in the city, where there is so much light,” Hilda commented to the Latfem representatives.

In Peru, a country of 33.5 million inhabitants (80 percent urban and 20 percent rural), 9.2 million people are poor, according to the government statistics institute. Poverty measured by income affects 24 percent of the urban population and 41 percent of the rural population, while extreme poverty affects 2.6 percent of the urban population and 16.6 percent of the rural population.

Farther north, in a rural area of the department of Cundinamarca in central Colombia, Edilsa Alarcón showed on the television program “En los zapatos de” (In the Shoes of), on the Caracol network, how she goes every day to two small fields near her home to milk four cows, her family’s livelihood.

Women farmers work in a field in Guatemala. In rural areas of Latin America, women have more precarious or lower paid jobs than men, and barely a third of them have access to forms of land ownership. CREDIT: Juan L. Sacayón / UNDP

She carries 18 liters of milk on the back of a donkey every morning, which she sells for 14 dollars, barely enough to live on. She owns no land and her biggest expense is renting pastureland for 860 dollars a year.

Colombia’s rural areas are home to 12.2 million people (51.8 percent men and 48.2 percent women), 46 percent of whom live in poverty, according to ECLAC.

“Gente de Guate”, produced by Guatemalan Youtubers , collects and delivers food, household goods and even cash for families in the countryside who barely scrape by in houses with four walls made of corrugated metal sheeting, boards and logs, wood stoves and a few chickens running around among corn and cooking banana plants.

Of Guatemala’s 17.2 million inhabitants, 60 percent live in poverty and between 15 and 20 percent in extreme poverty, according to figures from official entities and universities. Half of the population lives in rural areas, where poverty affects two thirds of the overall population – and 80 percent of indigenous people – and extreme poverty affects nearly one-third of the total population.

Schoolchildren walk through a suburban area in Mexico. The need to secure services such as education, health and communications, along with better incomes, continues to drive the displacement of rural dwellers. CREDIT: IDB

Regional data

Some 676 million people live in Latin America and the Caribbean, of whom 183 million are poor (29 percent), and 72 million are in extreme poverty (11.4 percent), according to ECLAC data for 2022 and 2023.

While 553 million people (81.8 percent) live in towns and cities, 123 million (18.2 percent) live in rural areas. And while in urban areas poverty stands at 26.2 percent and extreme poverty at 9.3 percent, in rural areas 41 percent of the inhabitants are poor and 19.5 percent are extremely poor.

Gender inequality also persists, stubbornly. One figure that reflects it is that only 30 percent of rural women (58 million) have access to some form of land ownership, their jobs are often more precarious and less well paid, and at the same time they spend more time on household and family care tasks.

The exodus from the countryside continues, first to the cities of each country, then abroad. In countries like Venezuela many rural dwellers alternate their life and work between their plots of land in the countryside and a slum in a nearby town every few days. CREDIT: Correo SurErbol

Time to migrate from the countryside

Latin America has experienced a massive exodus from rural to urban areas in the 20th century and so far in the 21st. “In 1960, less than half of the region’s population lived in cities. By 2016 that proportion had risen to over 80 percent,” wrote Matías Busso, a researcher at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

This process, driven by the search for better employment opportunities and living conditions, first fueled the expansion of the region’s major cities – to form megalopolises such as São Paulo and Mexico City – and more recently migration to foreign destinations, such as the United States.

The largest migratory phenomenon abroad that the region has known, the exodus of more than seven million Venezuelans in the last decade, has involved numerous urban and suburban inhabitants, but also people from many rural areas.

Pérez said that, in addition, in countries like Venezuela there is now a tendency to move from the countryside to urban areas, “but not to the big cities, like Caracas or Maracaibo, but to nearby towns or small cities, maintaining their ties to the plot of land where the family has crops or a few animals.”

“New shantytowns form in small towns next to agricultural areas, such as coffee plantations in the Andes (southwest) or grain fields in the (central) Llanos, and people work for a few days in some urban job and then return to the countryside at the weekend. A sort of double life,” said Pérez.

View of a suburban area neighboring the city of Medellín, in northwestern Colombia, where urban and rural features are combined. ECLAC and IFAD are promoting a new narrative to consider the potential of many areas that should not be pigeonholed as exclusively urban or rural. CREDIT: Medellín city government

Seeking a new narrative

New realities such as these prompted the ECLAC-IFAD initiative to “overcome the traditional view that contrasts rural and urban areas, recognizing the existence of different degrees of rurality in the territories and greater interaction between them,” according to its advocates.

“The project seeks to replace the dominant narrative – which is reductionist and marginalizing – of rural areas as static and backwards, with one that recognizes the challenges and opportunities of today’s new rural societies,” said Peruvian economist Rossana Polastri, regional director of IFAD.

The basis of the initiative is that between what is defined as rural and urban – the limit in countries such as Mexico is to consider urban areas as those with more than 2,500 inhabitants and rural areas as those below that level – there is a variety, degree and wealth of possibilities and opportunities to address issues of equity and development.

Padilla from Mexico said that a first element of the work they propose is to collaborate with the public bodies in charge of designing and implementing policies for rural areas, since “technical work, well grounded in concepts and theories, has to go hand in hand with a dialogue with the public sector.”

“A second element is continuous dialogue with the communities. The new understanding has to be translated into participatory solutions, in which each community and each territory creates a new vision, a renewed plan for sustainable development,” said the head of the project to build a new approach to rural life in Latin America.

Suicide rates doubled in Venezuela during the harshest years of its humanitarian crisis. Males between the ages of 30 and 50, a productive age when it is very hard to be left without employment and income, are a group particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted violence. CREDIT: Ihpi

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Nov 28 2023 (IPS)

In the wee hours of one morning in early November, Ernesto, 50, swallowed several glasses of a cocktail of drugs and alcohol in the apartment where he lived alone in the Venezuelan capital, ending a life tormented by declining health and lack of resources to cope as he would have liked.

In the last message to his relatives, which they showed to IPS, he wrote that “I can’t stand what’s happening to my eyes, I can’t afford an ophthalmologist, my molars are falling out, it hurts to eat, I can’t afford a dentist after years of being able to pay my expenses, now my dreams, plans, goals are disappearing…”"The suicide rate fluctuates at the pace of the complex humanitarian emergency," said Paez, because "as the macro economy deteriorates, so does the family's ability to access food, services, recreation and medicine. This leads to mental disorders associated with suicidal behavior." -- Gustavo Páez

Years ago Ernesto, a fictitious name at the request of his family, was a successful salesman in various fields, a breadwinner for family members, a supporter of causes he found just. In his last note, he scribbled rather than wrote: “I did what I could, for my family and my country, but I will not continue being dead in life.”

The cascade of crises that have placed Venezuela in a complex humanitarian emergency have given rise to many complicated cases like Ernesto’s, reflected in an increase in suicides, especially in the sectors most vulnerable to lack of resources and to uncertainty and hopelessness.

The suicide rate “doubled between 2018 and 2022 compared to 2015, and it is very likely that the complex humanitarian emergency has been a determining factor in the increase,” demographer Gustavo Páez, of the non-governmental Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (OVV), told IPS.

This country of just over 28 million people went from a rate of 3.8 suicides per 100,000 people to 9.3 in 2018, with slight declines to 8.2 in 2019 and 7.7 in 2022, according to the OVV.

The annual average number of cases registered in the last four years is 2,260.

Rossana García Mujica, a clinical psychologist and professor at the public Central University of Venezuela, told IPS that these rates, although lower than the world average of 10.5 per 100,000 inhabitants and low in relation to other countries in the region, may nevertheless conceal underreporting.

The expert pointed out that “added to our complex humanitarian crisis, the last official yearbook (on the issue) came out in 2014,” and said that the decrease in the rate “could be due to the apparent economic improvement, but 2023 has been a difficult year and most probably these figures will not remain steady.”

A man carries a few items in his market bag in Caracas. The situation of poverty, of being unemployed and without the possibility of bringing home enough food and other products is recognized as a determining cause of crises leading to suicide. CREDIT: Provea

Humanitarian emergency

The HumVenezuela platform, made up of dozens of civil society organizations, says the crisis in the country classifies as a complex humanitarian emergency due to the combined erosion of the economic, institutional and social structures that guarantee the life, security, liberties and well-being of the population.

Starting in 2013 Venezuela suffered eight consecutive years of deep recession that cost four-fifths of its GDP, more than two years of hyperinflation, and collapsed local currency and wages, health and basic services in much of the country.

The multidimensional crisis also triggered the migration of more than seven million Venezuelans, according to United Nations figures.

In 2021 and 2022 there was a slight recovery in the economy, especially in consumption, partly due to the influx of remittances from hundreds of thousands of migrants, which came to a standstill this year.

The suicide rate “fluctuates at the pace of the complex humanitarian emergency,” said Paez, because “as the macro economy deteriorates, so does the family’s ability to access food, services, recreation and medicine. This leads to mental disorders associated with suicidal behavior.”

R. was an impoverished young woman who recorded a video that she posted on the social networks. She lived in the interior of the country, coming every month to Caracas to seek chemotherapy treatment in medicine banks provided by the government. She said that the last time, like other times, “they sent me from one end of the city to the other.”

“They were providing chemo until three in the afternoon. I arrived 15 minutes late. They refused to give it to me. I went to sleep at a relative’s house. I climbed about 200 steps (the steep hills in Caracas are crowded with poor neighborhoods). I’m so tired, my legs hurt, I give up, I don’t want to fight anymore,” she said in a quiet voice.

Paez said that another reason that may influence frustration and depression leading to self-harming behaviors is the grief in families due to migration, associated with the humanitarian emergency and impacting millions of families.

Clinical psychologists observe an increase in anxiety and depression disorders associated with suicidal behavior in adults. Among young people, self-injury and eating disorders are frequent. CREDIT: The Conversation

Ages and networks

In Venezuela “the economic issue, for those over 30 and especially for men between 40 and 50, is a determining factor,” psychologist Yorelis Acosta, who works with groups and individuals vulnerable to depression and fear, told IPS.

Acosta, who also teaches at UCV, said that “self-harm or the decision to take one’s life is closely related to ‘I don’t have a job’, ‘I’m out of work’, or ‘I have a disease and I can’t afford my treatment’.”

“During economic crises, suicides go up,” she said.

García Mujica said that “when we stop to look at which are our most vulnerable groups, men between 30 and 64 years old and young people between 15 and 24 lead the way.”

“In my practice I have observed a subjective increase in anxiety disorders and depression in adults, both closely associated with suicide and self-injury in young people, along with eating disorders,” said García Mujica.

Along with suicide, “self-harm is a way of coping with emotional pain, sadness, anger and stress that could have to do with intolerance of frustration and the immediacy associated with social networks,” said the expert.

“In my opinion, apart from our complex humanitarian crisis, we do not escape the problems also inherent to globalization and we have a very severe problem at the family level of face-to-face communication,” she added.

In this regard, she said that “it seems that family life takes place more on the phone than live, leaving the field open for adolescents to be nourished more by social networks than by real interactions.”

Between 2019 and 2022, of the cases of suicides reported in the media, 81 percent involved men and 19 percent women, according to the OVV; between 50 and 57 percent were adults between 30 and 64 years of age.

Teen suicide, meanwhile, has increased: there were 20 cases in 2020, 34 in 2021 and 49 in 2022. And 17 of the victims were under the age of 12.

View of an elevated viaduct (bridge) linking two parts of the Andean state of Merida. Authorities protect its sides with metal nets, to prevent it from being used by people to commit suicide, a phenomenon in which this mountainous region stands out since the beginning of the century. CREDIT: Government of Merida

Suicide in the mountains

One particularity is that Mérida, one of Venezuela’s 23 states, located in the Andes highlands in the southwest of the country, which has abundant agriculture and is home to some 900,000 people, has had the highest suicide rates for 20 years, reaching a peak of 22 per 100,000 in 2018.

“One of the reasons may be the character of the Merideños, especially in rural areas. They are introverted, quiet Andean people, who have a hard time letting things out, they bottle up a lot of negative feelings and thoughts or family conflicts,” said Paez.

Paez, coordinator of the OVV in Merida, also mentioned as a probable cause the widespread consumption of alcohol, and “in this state specialized in agriculture, the easy access to agrochemicals, often used to commit suicide.”

In the country 86 percent of the suicides registered last year by the OVV were carried out by hanging, poisoning or shooting.

Mérida continues to have the highest rate, 8.3 per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by the Capital District (west of Caracas) with 7.6, and Táchira, another Andean state, with 6.9.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are at least 700,000 suicide deaths per year worldwide, with the most affected territories being the Danish island of Greenland (53.3 per 100,000 inhabitants), Lesotho in southern Africa (42.2) and Guyana on the northern tip of South America (32.6)

In the Americas, the countries with the highest rates, after Guyana, are Suriname (24.1), Uruguay (21.2), Cuba (14.5), the United States (14.1), Canada (10.7), Haiti (9.6), Chile (9.0) and Argentina (8.4); and the lowest rates are in the small Caribbean island states of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and Grenada (0.4 to 0.7 per 100,000 inhabitants).

Another aspect of the multidimensional crisis in Venezuela is the severe lack of face-to-face and family communication. According to some specialists, it seems that family life takes place more on the phone than live, leaving the field open for teenagers to feed more on social networks than on real interactions. CREDIT: The Conversation

Waiting for the government to take action

The experts consulted agree that in order to curb the rise in suicides, it is necessary to strengthen public health systems – “they are in crisis, if you call to make an appointment, you have to wait several months,” said Acosta – develop prevention programs and identify vulnerable groups or individuals with greater precision.

Paez added the need for the government to produce and maintain “updated and relevant statistics, disaggregated nationally and regionally by age, sex and other data that identify vulnerable groups and areas,” and more education “so that the issue is no longer stigmatized and taboo.”

García Mujica pointed out that “we need to direct our resources towards rescuing family values and preventing domestic violence in order to protect one of the most vulnerable groups, which are young people.”

“It is vital to take into account any comments regarding taking one’s own life and refer them to a specialist. In addition, we need to train more people in psychological first aid, so that the public is aware of the early signs of suicidal behavior,” added García Mujica.

These early signs may be followed by what become farewell messages received too late, a piece of paper or a video, traces of a humanitarian crisis.

A pregnant teenage girl sits in a Caracas plaza. Teenage pregnancy often leads to dropping out of school or turning women into heads of single-parent households at a very early age, curtailing their possibilities for personal growth and fomenting multigenerational poverty. CREDIT: Avesa

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Nov 2 2023 (IPS)

Hemmed in by poverty, with barely two days of school a week, and often at risk of unwanted pregnancy or the uncertain prospect of emigration, young women and adolescents are among the main victims of the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.

“Yes, my boyfriend and I have sex less often or for example he pulls out so as not to risk pregnancy, because buying contraceptives is expensive and we can’t always afford it,” Anita, a 22-year-old computer science student, told IPS from the west-central city of Barquisimeto."Instead of education being the gateway to the labor market (for women), dropping out of school at a young age means a very high risk of teenage pregnancy." -- Luis Pedro España

A pack of three condoms costs at least four dollars, a month of birth control pills more than 10 dollars, an intrauterine device about 40 dollars (plus the medical cost of its implantation), and in the country the minimum wage is four dollars a month and the average monthly salary barely exceeds 130 dollars.

A survey by the Women’s Peacebuilding Network found in September that 42 percent of Venezuelan women between the ages of 18 and 24 do not use birth control, and one of the reasons is the high cost in relation to their meager incomes.

The Venezuelan Association for Alternative Sex Education reported in a study in April that only three out of 10 women of reproductive age use contraceptive methods in this country.

“The lack of contraceptives and access to sexual and reproductive health is of great concern in the case of impoverished adolescent girls, who most need to avoid early pregnancy that could keep them out of the classroom,” said María Laura Chang, editor of the report by the Women’s Peacebuilding Network.

Students at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas take part in a protest against sexual abuse and aggression. Sexist violence stands out in the national context of poverty and scarce access to resources and education on sexual and reproductive health. CREDIT: Mairet Chourio / Efecto Cocuyo

Omnipresent poverty

As a result, “the feminization of poverty has been prolonged, as young women gain more dependents and less time to devote to their economic well-being, education and self-improvement,” Chang added in an interview with IPS.

“All age groups are affected by poverty, lack of income and opportunities. Because of the education crisis, the women most at risk are adolescents,” sociologist Luis Pedro España, head of poverty studies at the private Andrés Bello Catholic University (Ucab) in Caracas, told IPS.

Every year Ucab conducts a Survey of Living Conditions of Venezuelans (Encovi), which found that in 2022 income poverty affected 81.5 percent of the country’s 28.3 million inhabitants, extreme poverty affected 53.3 percent, and multidimensional poverty (employment, services, health, education and income) 50.5 percent.

España highlighted the impact of the educational crisis that the country is going through “because schools only receive students twice a week, which makes adolescent girls more likely to drop out.”

The reduction from five to only two days of classes per week in many public schools and institutes is mainly due to the lack of teachers, who have left the classrooms – in the three year period of 2019-2021 alone a quarter of them left – due to low salaries, lack of transportation, deterioration of infrastructure and other resources, as well as high student dropout rates.

Women are a majority during an enrollment day at the private Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas. University studies are an avenue for personal growth, but graduates, both men and women, suffer from the lack of opportunities due to poorly paid jobs in the midst of Venezuela’s economic crisis. CREDIT: M. Sardá / El Ucabista

According to official figures, there are 29,400 schools in the country, of which 24,400 are public, serving 6.4 million students, and 5,000 are private, serving 1.2 million students. Figures from universities and civil society organizations estimate the number of students dropping out of school at around 1.5 million in the last five years.

In the survey carried out by the Women’s Peacebuilding Network, 58 percent of the women respondents stated that the main reason for missing classes was because of their school’s suspension of activities.

For women, “instead of education being the gateway to the labor market, dropping out of school at a young age means a very high risk of teenage pregnancy,” España stressed.

The expert said that “an additional element that correlates with poverty is that of single-parent households that result from early pregnancy and are headed by a young woman who is not sufficiently trained for work, so that poverty is likely to continue to be the plight of her descendants.”

Young women run a street vendor’s stall in Caracas. Girls who drop out of school also expand the ranks of the informal economy. It is part of the landscape of poverty in which the majority of Venezuela’s population is embedded, following a decade marked by economic collapse, with a combination of recession and hyperinflation. CREDIT: U. Montenegro / Venezuela Red.us

Disappointment and violence

Another consequence is the disappointment in the lack of opportunities even for young women who complete their higher studies, due to the prolonged economic crisis, during which, for example, the number of factories shrank from 13,000 in 1999 to 2,600 in 2020, according to the Venezuelan Confederation of Industrialists (Conindustria).

In seven of the last 10 years a recession has reduced the country’s GDP by four-fifths, and during at least three years of hyperinflation the value of the local currency and the value of salaries and pensions were decimated.

“I have studied for more than 18 years to end up applying for jobs where they want to pay me 150 or at most 200 dollars a month. With that I can’t even pay for my passport (which costs 216 dollars),” Mariela, a recent graduate in administration from a private university, told IPS.

Sitting on a sofa in the middle-class apartment where she lives with her parents, Mariela rattles off a list of grievances to IPS: she is tired of getting up so early to go to school because of the precarious public transportation; there are no good jobs in the country; going abroad is risky or unaffordable; electricity, water and internet fail in her house for several hours almost every day.

To top it off, “I am one of the few who registered in the Electoral Registry. Many of my fellow students did not. They are not interested in participating in politics at all,” said Mariela who, like other young women who spoke to IPS, asked not to disclose her last name.

In its September survey, the Women’s Peacebuilding Network found that only half of those over 18 (the minimum voting age) and under 25 were registered on the electoral roll, and even fewer were determined to vote in the presidential election scheduled for 2024.

Of this age group, 19 percent engaged in some community activity and 81 percent in none. Of the latter, 60 percent mentioned the lack of economic stimulus as an obstacle, and 55 percent mentioned the difficulty of transportation to get around.

Another issue faced by young and adolescent girls is gender-based violence.

Of 237 femicides or gender-based murders documented in 2022 by the Digital Observatory of Femicides, of the NGO Centre for Justice and Peace, 69 involved women between 16 and 27 years old.

In the Network’s survey, 38 percent of the women interviewed said they had been victims of sexist violence, mainly psychological but also physical. Of the respondents, 24 percent said they were victims of economic violence, both those over and under the age of 24.

In addition, 12 percent of the total number of women surveyed reported having suffered sexual violence, but in the 18 to 24 year-old segment the percentage doubled to 24 percent, reflecting the greater vulnerability of young women to this kind of violence.

Young Venezuelan women rest after the perilous journey across the Darien jungle between Colombia and Panama. Migration has marked the lives of Venezuelan families in the last decade, during which millions of people have left the country. CREDIT: Gema Cortés / IOM

Time to emigrate

Almost eight million people have left the country, especially since 2015, according to United Nations agencies. In 2018, Encovi reported, 57 percent of those migrating were between 15 and 29 years old, a percentage that decreased to 42 percent in 2022. For every 100 female migrants there are 116 males.

Migrants and asylum seekers are highly vulnerable to trafficking and sexual exploitation, and most of the victims of these practices detected in countries in the region, such as Colombia, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago and the neighboring Dutch Caribbean islands, are Venezuelan.

Last year, civil society organizations reported the rescue of 1,390 Venezuelan victims of this type of crime abroad. Young women are a particularly fragile segment of the population and are sought by traffickers – often with deceitful offers of employment – to subject them to sexual and labor exploitation.

In the Network’s survey, 54 percent of young women between the ages of 18 and 25 said that a member of their family had migrated: 23 percent said it was their mother, father or both, and most reported that they have brothers or sisters who have left the country.

The report that accompanied the survey highlights that for young women and adolescents the separation from their loved ones has had a significant emotional impact, and has made them face new responsibilities, such as caring for younger siblings or attending to new domestic chores, with an impact on their personal development.

The Network’s study proposes the design of government programs and policies aimed at overcoming the shortcomings faced by youth and adolescents, support services for victims of gender violence, and an appeal to international cooperation to curb gangs dedicated to human trafficking.

España said that “it is essential to strengthen schools, so that women in their teenage and young adult years do not have children prematurely and can empower themselves, enter the labor market and become independent, without depending on support from their parents or partners.”

“Unfortunately, policies and measures are not being developed to mitigate the immense damage being done by reducing the number of school days,” he argued.

On residential streets of Caracas with little traffic it is possible to see cars that have been abandoned by their owners for years. They probably migrated from Venezuela or cannot afford to repair and sell their vehicles. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Oct 23 2023 (IPS)

Diego has just enrolled to study journalism at a university in the Venezuelan capital and, with 2,000 dollars that his family members managed to gather, has bought his first car, a small 2007 Ford that can take him to class from his home in the neighboring Caribbean port city of La Guaira.

Tomás, an experienced physiotherapist who sold Diego the car, is leaving for Spain where a job awaits him without delay, “so I’m quickly selling off things that will give me money to settle there, such as furniture, household goods and appliances, but for now I sold only one of my two cars,” he told IPS."The vehicle fleet in Venezuela - a country that now has 28 million inhabitants - is about 4.1 million vehicles, with an average age of 22 years, and 25 percent of them are out of service. The loss of purchasing power of the owners has caused most of them to delay the maintenance of their vehicles and the replacement of the spare parts that suffer wear and tear, such as tires, brakes, shock absorbers and oil." -- Omar Bautista

“This Ford Fiesta was my first car, I loved it very much, but it doesn’t make sense for me to hold on to two vehicles. I’m keeping a 2011 pickup truck that is in good condition, just in case I don’t do well and I have to return,” added the professional who, like other sources who spoke to IPS, asked not to disclose his last name “for safety reasons.”

The migration of almost eight million Venezuelans in the last 10 years, and the general impoverishment of the population, have led to the deterioration of what was once a shiny fleet of vehicles, with one out of every four vehicles left standing now due to lack of maintenance and leaving much of the rest aging and on the way to the junkyards.

In the basements of parking lots, and in the streets of towns and cities, thousands and thousands of vehicles are permanently parked under layers of dust and oblivion, because their owners have left or because they do not have the money to buy spare parts and pay the costs of repairs.

Along the streets of any Venezuelan city can be seen old rundown vehicles with no sign that the necessary repairs will be made. The impoverishment of the population is at the root of this decline. CREDIT: RrSs

Aging vehicle fleet

Omar Bautista, president of the Chamber of Venezuelan Automotive Manufacturers, told IPS that “the vehicle fleet in Venezuela – a country that now has 28 million inhabitants – is about 4.1 million vehicles, with an average age of 22 years, and 25 percent of them are out of service.”

“The loss of purchasing power of the owners has caused most of them to delay the maintenance of their vehicles and the replacement of the spare parts that suffer wear and tear, such as tires, brakes, shock absorbers and oil,” Bautista said.

Moreover, in contrast to the immense oil wealth in its subsoil, gasoline in Venezuela is scarce and, after more than half a century being the cheapest in the world, it is now sold at half a dollar per liter, a cost difficult to afford for most owners of private vehicles or public transportation.

The country needs some 300,000 barrels of fuel per day and for several years it has had less than 160,000 barrels, according to oil economist Rafael Quiroz, who added that interruptions in the work of Venezuela’s refineries are frequent.

There is almost no residential building that does not have at least one vehicle in storage waiting for its owners to return from abroad. They are part of the 1.5 million vehicles that are permanently parked in the country. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS

Not enough money

The minimum wage in Venezuela is four dollars a month. Most workers receive up to 50 dollars in non-wage compensation for food, and the average income according to consulting firms is around 130 dollars a month.

Luisa Hernández, a retired teacher, earns a little more giving private English classes, but “the situation at home is very difficult. I can’t afford to pay for the repair of my Toyota Corolla, but a mechanic friend agreed to do the work, and I can pay him in installments,” she told IPS.

Mechanics have their finger on the pulse of the situation. “People leave and the cars often sit idle for years, and then the owners end up selling them, from abroad. Quite a few of those I have gone to pick up and have fixed them, to sell them,” Daniel, who runs a garage in the capital’s middle-class east side, told IPS.

He said that “many people do not sell their cars before leaving the country, thinking that they’re just going abroad to ‘see how it goes’. But they stay there and then decide to sell their vehicle before it further deteriorates and depreciates.”

Another mechanic, Eduardo González, told IPS that “There are people who go away and leave their cars in storage and from abroad they contact us so that from time to time we can check them and do some maintenance. Or they entrust their vehicle to a relative. There are people who travel and come back, but most of them end up selling.”

This situation “has favored buyers, who can get cars at a low price. But the problems come later, because that very used car will require spare parts and maintenance, and that is expensive and often the parts are difficult to get,” added González.

The same difficulty is also a concern for owners of cabs, buses and private vans that transport passengers, as well as cargo trucks.

“At least half of the truck fleet in the region is affected by the shortage and scarcity of spare parts,” said Jonathan Durrelle, president of the Chamber of Cargo Transportation of Carabobo, an industrial state in the center of the country.

Large and small buses for passenger transport in Venezuelan cities, including Caracas, as well as cargo vehicles, also suffer from the lack of sufficient revenue, as well as spare parts, to keep them in proper working condition. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS

Industries have closed down

Elías Besis, from the Chamber of Spare Parts Importers, attributed this to the closure of companies that “years ago manufactured 62 percent of the spare parts needed in the country, and now that production has plunged to two percent.”

Thousands of manufacturing companies closed down in Venezuela during the eight years (2013-2020) in which the country was in deep recession, suffering a loss of four-fifths of its GDP according to economic consulting firms.

Financial and banking activity has also declined, as has the vehicle loan portfolio, which peaked at 2.3 billion dollars in 2008 and plummeted to just 227,000 dollars by late 2022, according to economist Manuel Sutherland.

Vehicle assembly plants, of which there were a dozen until recently, also closed their doors. In addition to selling to hundreds of dealerships, they used to export vehicles to the Andean and Caribbean markets.

Their production peaks were recorded in 1978, with 182,000 new vehicles – Venezuela then had 14 million inhabitants and 2.5 million vehicles – and in 2007, when 172,000 cars were assembled.

In 2022 only 75 vehicles – trucks and buses – were assembled, and in the first six months of this year just 22.

Newer vans and cars drive through middle and upper class neighborhoods, but are part of the “bubble,” the small segment of the population less impacted by the deep economic crisis that Venezuela has suffered over the last decade. CREDIT: Motorpasión

Farewell to the bonanza

The result of this scenario is the aging and non-renewal of the vehicles circulating on Venezuela’s roads.

The new ones, Daniel pointed out, “are SUVs, crossovers and off-road vehicles that cost a lot of money and can only be bought by those who live in the bubble,” the term popularly used to refer to the segment of high-level officials and businesspersons whose finances are still booming in the midst of the crisis.

In addition, in view of the almost total closure of automotive plants, individuals are opting to import new vehicles directly from the United States, favored by the elimination of tariffs for the importation of most models.

For that reason, said Bautista, “there is no shortage of new vehicles, what there is is a shortage of consumers with the necessary purchasing power and conditions to buy new vehicles.”

These consumers were part of the hard-hit middle class – nine out of 10 families in that socioeconomic category had fallen below the middle class by 2020 according to the consulting firm Anova – and they no longer buy new or newer cars because they have swelled the legion of migrants, selling or leaving behind their main assets.

Since the days of the oil boom (1950-1980), Venezuelans developed a sort of sentimental relationship with their vehicles, associating them with comfort and enjoyment that favored cheap gasoline and a network of paved roads that made it easier to travel to places of recreation.

In middle class and even lower middle class families, it was quite common to change cars every two years and to give one to their children when they turned 18. They were helped by credit facilities, and were encouraged to buy cars in cities where public transportation has always fallen short.

They have had to say goodbye to their easy past on wheels, like migrants have said farewell to their country and homeland. Or at least “see you later”.

A view of Caracas from the south side of the narrow valley where it sits, dotted with houses and residential buildings where full occupancy was the norm until a few years ago. As a result of the massive migration of young people and adults, more and more homes are left unoccupied or inhabited only by the elderly and young children. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Oct 4 2023 (IPS)

Gladys swore she would not cry in front of her small children, but she still had to wipe away a couple of tears when she turned her head and looked, perhaps for the last time, at her dream house on Margarita Island in Venezuela, from where she migrated, driven by a lack of income and by fear.

“It hurts to leave your own home, the most precious material asset for a family like ours (she works in administration, her husband is a mechanic, and they have two boys), but we lost our jobs and were robbed in broad daylight in the middle of the city. That led us to decide to emigrate,” she told IPS from Miami, Florida in the U.S.

Due to the economic, social and political crisis, which gave rise to a complex humanitarian emergency, 7.7 million Venezuelans, according to United Nations agencies, have migrated from this country, the vast majority in the last decade, and the flow is not slowing down, especially to other countries in the region."It hurts to leave your own home, the most precious material asset for a family like ours, but we lost our jobs and were robbed in broad daylight in the middle of the city. That led us to decide to emigrate." -- Gladys

The family of Gladys, who like other people who talked to IPS preferred not to give her last name, tried their luck in Colombia, Panama and Spain, before finally settling in the United States, “and the worry about the house followed us like a shadow, but fortunately we made a deal with an enterprising young man who takes care of it, improves it and pays a modest rent.”

There are thousands like her. Migrants try not to leave their homes empty and abandoned, because they could lose them. For this reason, since most migrants are adults in their most productive age and young people, relatives of other ages remain in the homes, giving Venezuela the appearance of being a country of elderly people and children.

“I have to close up my home,” said Juan Manuel Flores, from San Antonio de Los Altos, a satellite city of Caracas with many middle class houses. “The neighbors will take care of it. It took us more than five years to build it and it cost between 150,000 and 200,000 dollars. Now I can’t get more than 60,000 dollars for it. We are not just going to give it away for that price.”

Flores, a teacher at a school where he earns less than 200 dollars a month, is preparing to travel to Spain, where his wife and adult daughters have gone ahead of him. “I will return to Venezuela when the country and its economy improve, and housing prices will rise again,” he told IPS, although without much conviction.

Solitude eats away at houses and buildings even in sought-after areas of the residential and commercial municipality of Chacao, in eastern Caracas. The real estate and construction market is suffering in Venezuela from the general economic crisis and in particular from the oversupply of housing created by those leaving the country. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS

Why not rent out their house? “Because the laws and the authorities always favor the tenant, and if they have children it is impossible to get them out when the lease is up, whether they pay the rent or not, and they end up staying in the house for years,” said Nancy, a pastry chef, also from San Antonio, who left a niece in charge of her apartment when she moved to Brazil last year.

A survey of migrants in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, released in October 2022 by the Interagency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants in Venezuela (R4V), led by United Nations agencies, showed that only 23 percent considered the homes they left behind in their country to be safe.

Selling is also not an option in most cases, because the magnitude of the exodus over the last decade has so depressed demand that the most that can be obtained for a property is 15 or 20 percent of the value it had 15 years ago, if you are lucky. So selling a home even if you want to is a long, difficult process that provides meager results.

Those who have no other choice say that they are not selling their home but “giving it away” for whatever they can get, with great regret, mostly to internal migrants from other parts of the country, who “take refuge” in Caracas because outside the capital there are recurrent power outages, and scarcity of water and fuel, in addition to other shortages.

“Real estate deteriorates, ceases to serve those who need it and remains an important asset that produces nothing for the owner, for example a migrant who needs to pay rent as soon as they arrive in another country,” Roberto Orta, president of the Venezuelan Real Estate Chamber, told IPS.

The businessman said “this is an issue that, we have proposed, should be addressed with political will in order to reform the laws that constrain the real estate market, to benefit both landlords and tenants. Up to 250,000 homes could be freed up in five years.”

A view of the working-class neighborhood of 23 de Enero on the west side of Caracas. In low-income barrios, closed, empty houses are almost non-existent, as those who decide to emigrate look for relatives to move in, to avoid the risk of the homes being invaded or robbed. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS

A trade is born

In the residential buildings located in Caracas and other cities, closing up an apartment and moving outside the country is not the same as leaving a house abandoned to solitude and neglect, because the neighbors, for their own safety and in order to pay the common expenses, keep watch and take care to prevent strangers from occupying the empty apartments.

But houses, especially middle-class homes, are an attractive and easy target for crime and even for people who want to occupy them by de facto means. That is why a new profession has appeared: the home caretaker.

“I have taken care of three houses in housing developments in the southeast (of Caracas), it’s the way I make ends meet,” said Daniel, who also works as a self-employed gardener. “I would go to one house twice a week, three times a week to another, and every day to another.”

He explains that in the last house “the owners were Portuguese business owners who went away and left three dogs. I would go to a pet food store to pick up the food, feed the dogs, check around the house and that was it.”

Family friends of the owners have now taken charge of the dogs and Daniel no longer receives payment for taking care of them. “I don’t have an account in dollars, I was paid through a restaurant friend of the owners, who does have an offshore account,” he said.

To pay for caretakers from abroad, intermediaries are indispensable, since in Venezuela, whose currency has been made nearly worthless by the economic crisis, there is a de facto dollarization, without agreement from the U.S. authorities, who also use sanctions to block the transactions of government bodies.

Daniel is saving up to join one of the groups forming in Antímano, the working-class neighborhood where he lives in the southwest of the capital, to migrate as well. He said that “I didn’t leave a few weeks ago because I hadn’t sold my motorcycle yet, otherwise right now I would be in the Darien,” the dangerous jungle between Colombia and Panama that thousands of migrants cross every day.

A more successful caretaker is Arturo, who is in charge of two houses with large living rooms, corridors, yards, a swimming pool and parking area. He is paid a modest fee to care for and maintain the homes, but is authorized to rent them out for social gatherings and parties.

“In both cases the owners are people with good incomes, they left with their children to study abroad and plan to return in a few years if conditions in the country change. They would like to find their homes as they left them,” he said.

When he rents out the property for a day or a night, guests can use the yards, swimming pool and even awnings, tables and chairs. But Arturo closes off access to the more private parts of the house and hires assistants to watch out for damages or disturbances. “I live well, I keep up the houses and each one brings me about 3,000 dollars in profits per month,” Arturo said.

President Nicolás Maduro delivers a batch of houses in the northwestern state of Falcón, which form part of the 4.6 million homes that the government claims to have built and provided to Venezuelan families since 2013. The figure is questioned by organizations dedicated to monitoring economic and social rights. CREDIT: Minhvi

No empty houses in the shantytowns

In the shantytowns of the cities and towns of this country – which has a population of 33.7 million according to government figures and 28 million according to university studies – the situation is different and there are hardly any empty or unoccupied houses.

“In the shantytowns, no house is left empty. The very next day someone can invade it, occupy it, or take what is left inside by those who left, furniture or household goods. Someone stays in charge, the grandfather or in-laws, a trusted neighbor, or a relative is brought from the interior of the country,” explained Alejandra, from the Gramoven area.

She lives in a shantytown of informally constructed dwellings in the northwest of Caracas, similar to the ones that cover most of the many hills and hollows occupied by the capital’s most disadvantaged inhabitants.

“Many people leave, the young people emigrate, my children want to leave through the Darien jungle. But nobody leaves their house empty. If you do, you lose it,” Alejandra said.

In Santa Bárbara del Zulia, on the hot plains south of western Lake Maracaibo, “the situation is the same,” Julio, a bricklayer who migrated to Colombia for four years and has returned to care for his elderly parents, told IPS.

“You can’t leave your house alone in these towns,” said Julio. “When my parents went to Maracaibo and Caracas for medical treatment, they went and came back quickly, because the Community Council warned them not to leave their house empty for too long, because they would not be able to ward off people who wanted to occupy it.”

The Community Councils are committees set up by the government to represent and manage community affairs – such as the distribution of bags of subsidized food to poor families – and they channel decisions by the government.

“But people are leaving anyway. It’s something that won’t stop as long as people here earn only a pittance and can’t even eat properly (the minimum wage and official pensions in Venezuela are equivalent to four dollars a month). People care about their houses, but food has to come first,” said Julio.

View of a row of houses practically abandoned by most of their inhabitants in a town in eastern Venezuela. Migration from the countryside and small towns to large cities and oil producing areas marked the 20th century in Venezuela. And today, migration from this country mainly to other Latin American nations has become a regional crisis. CREDIT: VV

A matter for the government and the business community

While the plight of people leaving their homes continues to drag on, the government of President Nicolás Maduro announces more or less twice a year the construction of hundreds of thousands of new homes, in a program initiated by his late predecessor Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), called “Venezuela’s Great Housing Mission”.

According to official figures, since 2011, 4.6 million homes have been built and delivered by the Mission, mostly residential complexes to which the president goes to personally hand over the keys of one or more houses to their new inhabitants.

In accordance with the Mission, the occupants are tenants, not owners, so they cannot sell the homes. If they leave, the home can be reassigned to new tenants. To avoid this, those who choose to move to another city or country first look for relatives who can move into the house, and thus keep it.

However, the official figures on the number of homes built is not borne out by anecdotal evidence, to judge by the myriad of informal self-built houses still occupied in the slums, and by reports from business and civil society organizations.

The Chamber of Construction reports that the sector has decreased 96 percent in the last 10 years, and that its members employ 20,000 workers, down from 1.2 million in better times, while cement companies are working at 10 percent of their capacity and the steel industry at seven percent.

The civil society organization Provea, which specializes in the study of economic, social and cultural rights, has compared and contrasted the figures of the Housing Mission – which have not been audited, according to Provea – with independent studies, and reached the conclusion that the government has built and delivered only 130,856 housing units in 10 years.

In 1955 the Venezuelan writer Miguel Otero Silva (1908-1985) published his famous novel “Casas Muertas” (Dead Houses), describing the decline of Ortiz, a town in the central plains, caused by the loss of its population due to malaria and emigration to the big cities and oil production centers.

The flow of Venezuelan emigration in this century has not been enough to turn this into a country of dead houses. But its many closed doors bear witness to a collapse that has pushed millions of its inhabitants abroad, as do the small number of lights that are lit at night in the buildings of Caracas and other cities.

A view of the Altos de Florida neighborhood in Bogotá, Colombia. Overcoming poverty is the first of the Sustainable Development Goals, and in the Latin American and Caribbean region there is not only slow progress but even setbacks in the path to reduce it. CREDIT: Freya Mortales / UNDP

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Sep 15 2023 (IPS)

The Latin American and Caribbean region is arriving at the Sustainable Development Goals Summit on the right track but far behind in terms of progress, at the halfway point to achieve the SDGs, which aim to overcome poverty and create a cleaner and healthier environment.

“We are exactly halfway through the period of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but we are not half the way there, as only a quarter of the goals have been met or are expected to be met that year,” warned ECLAC Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs."We are exactly halfway through the period of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but we are not half the way there, as only a quarter of the goals have been met or are expected to be met that year." -- José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs

However, the head of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) stressed, in response to a questionnaire submitted to him by IPS, that “the percentage of targets on track to be met is higher than the global average,” partly due to the strengthening of the institutions that lead the governance of the SDGs.

The 17 SDGs include 169 targets, to be measured with 231 indicators, and in the region 75 percent are at risk of not being met, according to ECLAC, unless decisive actions are taken to forge ahead: 48 percent are moving in the right direction but too slowly to achieve the respective targets, and 27 percent are showing a tendency to backslide.

The summit was convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres for Sept. 18-19 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, under the official name High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

The stated purpose is to “step on the gas” to reach the SDGs in all regions, in the context of a combination of crises, notably the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, new wars, and the climate and food crises.

The SDGs address ending poverty, achieving zero hunger, health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, and reducing inequalities.

They also are aimed at sustainable cities and communities, responsible production and consumption, climate action, underwater life, life of terrestrial ecosystems, peace, justice and strong institutions, and partnerships to achieve the goals.

Drinking water is distributed from tanker trucks in the working-class Petare neighborhood in eastern Caracas. Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is another of the goals that are being addressed with a great variety of results within Latin American and Caribbean countries, and there is no certainty that this 2030 Agenda target will be reached in the region. CREDIT: Caracas city government

Progress is being made, but slowly

“In all the countries of the region progress is being made, but in many not at the necessary rate. The pace varies greatly and we are not where we would like to be,” Almudena Fernández, chief economist for the region at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), told IPS from New York.

Thus, said the Peruvian economist, “there is progress, for example, on some health or energy and land care issues, but we are lagging in achieving more sustainable cities, and we are not on the way to achieving, regionally, any of the poverty indicators.”

Salazar-Xirinachs, who is from Costa Rica, said from Santiago that “the countries that have historically been at the forefront in public policies are the ones that have made the greatest progress, such as Uruguay in South America, Costa Rica in Central America or Jamaica in the Caribbean. They have implemented a greater diversity of strategies to achieve the SDGs.”

A group of experts led by U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs prepared graphs for the UN on how countries in the various developing regions are on track to meet the goals or still face challenges – measured in three grades, from moderate to severe – and whether they are on the road to improvement, stagnation or regression.

According to this study, the best advances in poverty reduction have been seen in Brazil, El Salvador, Guyana, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay, while the greatest setbacks have been observed in Argentina, Belize, Ecuador and Venezuela.

In the fight for zero hunger, no one stands out; Brazil, after making progress, slid backwards in recent years, and the best results are shown by Caribbean countries.

In health and well-being, education and gender equality, there are positive trends, although stagnation has been seen, especially in the Caribbean and Central American countries.

In water and sanitation, energy, reduction of inequalities, economic growth, management of marine areas, terrestrial ecosystems, and justice and institutions, Sachs’ dashboard shows the persistence of numerous obstacles, addressed in very different ways in different countries.

Many countries in Central America and the Caribbean are on track to meet their climate action goals, and in general the region has made progress in forging alliances with other countries and organizations to pave the way to meeting the SDGs.

Young people in a Latin American country share a vegetable-rich meal outdoors. The notion of consuming products produced with environmentally sustainable techniques is gaining ground, and a private sector whose DNA is embedded in the search for positive environmental and social repercussions is flourishing. CREDIT: Pazos / Unicef

A question of funds

Even before the pandemic that broke out in 2020, Fernández said, the region was not moving fast enough towards the SDGs; its economic growth has been very low for a long time – and remains so, at no more than 1.9 percent this year – and growth with investment is needed in order to reduce poverty.

In this regard, Fernández highlighted the need to expand fiscal revenues, since tax collection is very low in the region (22 percent of gross domestic product, compared to 34 percent in the advanced economies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), “although progress will not be made through public spending alone,” she said.

Salazar-Xirinachs pointed out that “in addition to financial resources, it is very important to adapt actions to specific areas to achieve the 2030 Agenda. The measures implemented at the subnational level are of great importance. Specific problems in local areas cannot always be solved with one-size-fits-all policies.”

Fernández underlined that the 2030 Agenda “has always been conceived as a society-wide agenda, and the private sector plays an essential role, particularly the areas that are flourishing because it has a positive social and environmental impact on their DNA, and there are young consumers who use products made in a sustainable way.”

ECLAC’s Salazar-Xirinachs highlighted sensitized sectors as organized civil society and the private sector, for their participation in sustainable development forums, follow-up actions and public-private partnerships moving towards achievement of the SDGs.

Finally, with respect to expectations for the summit, the head of ECLAC aspires to a movement to accelerate the 2030 Agenda in at least four areas: decent employment for all, generating more sustainable cities, resilient infrastructure that offers more jobs, and improving governance and institutions involved in the process.

ECLAC identified necessary “transformative measures”: early energy transition; boosting the bioeconomy, particularly sustainable agriculture and bioindustrialization; digital transformation for greater connectivity among the population; and promoting exports of modern services.

It also focuses on the care society, in response to demographic trends, to achieve greater gender equality and boost the economy; sustainable tourism, which has great potential in the countries of the region; and integration to enable alliances to strengthen cooperation in the regional bloc.

In summary, ECLAC concludes, “it would be very important that during the Summit these types of measures are identified and translate into agreements in which the countries jointly propose a road map for implementing actions to strengthen them.”

In a Mexican city with buildings that reflect its level of modernization, a truck collects waste, mainly plastic, ignoring higher standards of care for health and the environment. Plastic garbage is just the tip of a serious social and environmental problem in Latin America and the Caribbean. CREDIT: Greenpeace

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jul 24 2023 (IPS)

Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have made progress towards partial regulations to reduce plastic pollution, but the problem is serious and environmental activists are calling for regulations in the entire chain of production, consumption and disposal of plastic waste.

The release of plastic waste into the environment “is the tip of the iceberg of a problem that begins much earlier, from the exploitation of hydrocarbons, to the transport and transformation of these precursors of an endless number of products,” Andrés del Castillo, a Colombian expert based in Switzerland, told IPS."That is why our main call is for an immediate moratorium on increased plastics production, followed by a phased out reduction in supply, and complemented by other crucial measures such as reuse and landfill systems." -- Andrés del Castillo

Ecuadorian biologist María Esther Briz, an activist with the international campaign Break Free From Plastic, said “plastic pollution in our countries is not on its way to becoming a big problem: it already is.”

“From the extraction of raw materials, since we know that 99 percent of plastic is made from fossil fuels – oil and gas – plus the pollutants that are released during the transformation into resins and in consumption, and in the more well-known phase of when they become waste, our region is already very much affected,” the activist told IPS from the Colombian city of Guayaquil.

Plastic production in the region exceeds 20 million tons per year – almost five percent of the global total of 430 million tons per year – and consumption stands at 26 million tons per year, according to the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), a coalition of 800 environmental organizations.

In the region, the largest installed production capacity is in Brazil (48 percent), followed by Mexico (29 percent), Argentina (10 percent), Colombia (8.0 percent) and Venezuela (5.0 percent).

The average annual consumption in Latin America and the Caribbean is about 40 kilos per inhabitant, and each year the region throws 3.7 million tons of plastic waste into rivers, lakes, seas and oceans, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Del Castillo, a senior lawyer at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), warned that “if the trend is not reversed, by 2050 plastic production will reach 1.2 billion tons annually. Paraphrasing (famed Colombian author of One Hundred Years of Solitude) Gabriel García Márquez, that is the size of our solitude.”

“That is why our main call is for an immediate moratorium on increased plastics production, followed by a phased out reduction in supply, and complemented by other crucial measures such as reuse and landfill systems,” del Castillo said from Geneva.

Volunteers from Peru’s Life Institute for Environmental Protection clean up plastic garbage washed up on the coast near Lima. In the waters surrounding cities, as well as in the oceans, discarded plastic waste that is not reused or recycled is added to other forms of pollution, severely affecting nature, including species and the landscape. CREDIT: IPMAV

Fearsome enemy

The plastic life chain is an enemy to health due to the release of more than 170 toxic substances in the production process of the raw material, in the refining and manufacture of its products, in consumption, and in the management and disposal of waste.

Once it reaches the environment, in the form of macro or microplastics, it accumulates in terrestrial and aquatic food chains, pollutes water and causes serious damage to human health, to animal species – such as aquatic species that die from consuming or being suffocated by these products – and to the landscape.

It also accounts for 12 percent of urban waste. UNEP estimates the social and economic costs of global plastic pollution to be between 300 billion dollars and 600 billion dollars per year.

It also affects the climate: the world’s 20 largest producers of virgin polymers employed in single-use plastics, led by the oil companies Exxon (USA) and Sinopec (China), generate 450 million tons a year of planet-warming greenhouse gases, almost as much as the entire United Kingdom.

And prominent villains are single-use plastics, such as packaging, beverage bottles and cups and their lids, cigarette butts, supermarket bags, food wrappers, straws and stirrers. Of these, 139 million tons were manufactured in 2021 alone, according to an index produced by the Australian Minderoo Foundation.

After alarm bells went off at the United Nations, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution, composed of 175 countries, was created. It held its first two meetings last year, in Montevideo and Paris, and will hold its third in November in Nairobi, in a process aimed at drafting a binding international treaty on plastic pollution.

As if the boom in the production, consumption and improper disposal of plastics were not enough, the Latin American region is also importing plastic waste from other latitudes.

Studies by GAIA and the Peruvian investigative journalism website Ojo Público reported that in the last decade (2012-2022) Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Colombia received more than one million tons of plastic waste from different parts of the world.

Although it is claimed that plastic waste is sold to be recycled into raw material for lower quality products or textiles, this rarely happens and it ends up adding to the millions of tons that go into landfills every year.

“We cannot even deal with our own waste and yet we are importing plastic garbage from other countries, often with very little clarity and transparency, so there is no traceability of what is imported under the pretext of recycling,” Briz complained.

Single-use plastics, more than a third of global production and ubiquitous in everyday life, are seen as the main villains in the entire plastics business chain, and Latin American and Caribbean countries are moving towards banning them altogether or at least limiting production and use. CREDIT: Goula

Laws and regulations are on their way

On the other side of the coin, in 2016 Antigua and Barbuda became the first country in the region to ban single-use plastic bags, and it has gradually expanded the ban to include polystyrene food storage containers, as well as single-use plates, glasses, cutlery and cups.

Since then, 27 of the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have enacted national or local laws to reduce, ban or eliminate single-use articles and, in some cases, other plastic products.

“There is a wide range: countries that already have strong rules to regulate plastics, especially single-use plastics, and they are applied. Others have very good regulations but they are not enforced. In others there are no regulations, and there are countries where nothing is happening,” Briz said.

In Argentina a 2019 resolution by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development covers the life cycle of plastic (production, use, waste and pollution reduction) and a 2020 law bans cosmetic and personal hygiene products containing plastic microbeads.

Belize, Chile, Colombia, most Mexican states and Panama have passed regulations to progressively ban or limit the consumption of single-use plastics, as have Brazilian cities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. But in some cases there are doubts as to whether these provisions are effectively enforced.

Brazil has had a National Plan to Combat Marine Litter since 2019, which, however, has not yet been implemented. Costa Rica also has a National Marine Litter Plan, which seeks to reduce waste with the support of the communities.

Ecuador is turning the Galapagos Islands into a plastic-free archipelago, and phased out plastic bags, straws, “to-go” containers and plastic bottles in 2018.

Fences, including those made from recovered plastic waste, are being installed in rivers in Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and the Dominican Republic to collect plastic waste and prevent it from being washed out to sea.

In Guatemala, Castillo noted, the municipality of San Pedro La Laguna, in the Lake Atitlán basin, was a pioneer, banning sales of straws and plastic bags in 2016, and the city government won lawsuits in court over the ordinance. The example is spreading throughout the country.

View of a petrochemical plant of the Brazilian giant Braskem. Environmentalists’ demands for a halt to the expansion of plastics production focus on states in Mexico and Brazil, which have the largest petrochemical facilities in the Latin American region. CREDIT: Braskem

From landfills to petrochemicals

Del Castillo, the Ecuadorian expert, said that “apart from initiatives of a voluntary nature, regional action plans, and the regulation of single-use plastic products, the ongoing negotiation of an international treaty promises to be the path that has been chosen to put an end to plastic pollution.”

The treaty should cover “all emissions and risks from plastics during production, use, waste management and leakage,” del Castillo said, but “we don’t have to wait for the treaty to act: States can already say ‘No to the expansion of virgin plastics production’.”

The MarViva Foundation, which fights marine pollution in Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama, argues that “the best way to manage single-use plastic waste is not to create it,” and advocates discouraging the production, use and consumption of these materials.

But in the face of such proposals, “one of the biggest obstacles has to do with the economic power of the petrochemical industry, which refuses to reduce production. In Latin America, the largest producers of plastics are the petrochemical companies of Mexico and Brazil,” said Briz, the Ecuadorian biologist.

“Plastic is a cheap product, since its environmental and social costs are not taken into account, and while the cost of production and distribution is low, the cost for the health of people and the environment is not,” said the activist.

In short, for activists, an approach based only on recycling and bans will be of limited scope until a moratorium is imposed on the expansion of plastics production, with a global market worth 600 billion dollars a year and which at the current rate could triple in the next two decades.

The shortages of days in the classroom and teachers, and the poverty of their schools and living conditions, provide for a very poor education for Venezuela's children and augur a significant lag for their performance in adult life and for the country's development. CREDIT: El Ucabista

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jul 10 2023 (IPS)

Hundreds of thousands of children and young people, and thousands of their teachers, drop out of regular schooling in Venezuela year after year, and most of those who remain go to the classroom only two or three days a week, highlighting the abysmal backwardness of education in the country.

“Why continue studying, to graduate unemployed and earn a pittance? We prefer to get into a trade, make money, help our parents; there are a lot of needs at home,” Edgar, 19, who with his brother Ernesto, 18, has been gardening in homes in southeastern Caracas for three years, told IPS."The education crisis did not begin in March 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic. These are problems that form part of the complex humanitarian emergency that Venezuela has been experiencing for many years." -- Luisa Pernalete

A study this year by the non-governmental organization Con la Escuela (With the School), in seven of Venezuela’s 24 states -including the five most populated- found that 22 percent of students skip classes to help their parents, and in the 15-17 age group this is the case for 45 percent of girls.

In the school where teacher Rita Castillo worked, in La Pomona, a shantytown in the torrid western city of Maracaibo, “for many days in a row there is no running water, there are blackouts, and it’s impossible to use the fans to cool off the classrooms,” she told IPS.

The classes in the school are divided into 17 to 25 children each: the first three grades of primary school attend on Mondays and Tuesdays, the next three grades on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and Fridays make up for whoever missed class the previous days. That is in the mornings; secondary school students attend during the hot afternoons.

These are the first steps towards the definitive dropout of students: 1.2 million in the three years prior to 2021 and another 190,000 in the 2021-2022 school year, with 2022-2023 still to be estimated, with no signs of a reversal in the trend.

“The dropout rate is also high in secondary schools in Caracas, and the students who remain often pass from one year to the next without having received, for example, a single physics or chemistry class, due to the shortage of teachers,” Lucila Zambrano, a math teacher in public schools in the populous western part of the capital, told IPS.

Authorities in the education districts are increasingly calling on retired teachers to return to work, “but who is going to return to earn for 25, 20 or less dollars a month?” Isabel Labrador, a retired teacher from Colón, a small town in the southwestern state of Táchira, told IPS.

Currently, the monthly food basket costs 526 dollars, according to the Documentation and Analysis Center of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers.

The infrastructure and equipment of many schools is seriously affected in different areas of Venezuela, and its recovery is essential as a space not only for students to obtain knowledge but also for the socialization and coexistence of students, teachers and representatives. CREDIT: E. Carvajal / CPV

Teachers held colorful street protests in the first few months of 2023, demanding decent salaries and other benefits acquired by their collective bargaining agreement, and these demands remain unheeded as the school year ends this July.

Teachers earning ridiculously small salaries, high school dropout rates, rundown infrastructure, lack of services, loss of quality and a marked lag in the education of children and young people are the predominant characteristics of Venezuelan public education today.

But “the education crisis did not begin in March 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic. These are problems that form part of the complex humanitarian emergency that Venezuela has been experiencing for many years,” Luisa Pernalete, a trainer and researcher at the Fe y Alegría educational institution for decades, told IPS.

Numbers in red

In the current school year, enrollment in kindergarten, primary and secondary education totaled 7.7 million, said Education Minister Yelitze Santaella, in this country which according to the National Institute of Statistics has 33.7 million inhabitants, but only 28.7 million according to university studies.

The difference in the numbers may be due to the migration of more than seven million Venezuelans in the last decade, according to United Nations agencies – a figure that the government of President Nicolás Maduro considers exaggerated, although it has not provided an alternative number.

The attraction or the need to migrate, in the face of the complex humanitarian emergency – whose material basis begins with the loss of four-fifths of GDP in the period 2013-2021 – also mark the desertion of students and teachers.

In the three-year period ending in 2021 alone, 166,000 teachers (25 percent of the total) and 1.2 million students (15 percent of the number enrolled at the time), dropped out, according to a study by the private Andrés Bello Catholic University (Ucab) in Caracas, ranked as the top higher education center in the country.

Con la Escuela estimates that at least 40 percent of the teachers who have quit have already emigrated to other countries.

Educational coverage among the population aged three to 17 years continues to decline: 1.5 million children and adolescents between those ages were left out of the education system in the 2021-2022 period. The hardest hit group is children between three and five years of age, where coverage amounts to just 56 percent.

Public school teachers, whose basic salary barely exceeds 20 dollars per month, have held massive protests in Caracas and other cities in the country demanding a living wage and compliance with the provisions of their collective bargaining agreement. CREDIT: M. Chourio / Efecto Cocuyo

According to official figures, there are 29,400 educational institutions in the country, of which 24,400 are public, with 6.4 million students and 542,000 teachers; and 5,000 are private, with 1.2 million students and 121,000 teachers.

They cover three years of early education, six years of primary school and five years of secondary school. It was decreed 153 years ago that primary education should be free and compulsory.

According to Ucab and Con la Escuela, 85 percent of public schools do not have internet, 69 percent have acute shortages of electricity and 45 percent do not have running water. There are also deficiencies in health services (93 percent), laboratories (79 percent) and theater or music rooms (85 percent).

Surveying 79 public schools in seven states, Con la Escuela found that 52 percent of the bathrooms are in poor condition, 35 percent of the schools do not have enough bathrooms, and two percent have no bathrooms.

In 19 percent of the schools classes have been suspended due to the damage to the toilets, and 34 percent do not have sewage pipes.

“Water is the service that generates the most suspension of classes in Venezuela,” Pernalete said. “Classes can be held without electricity in the school, but you can’t do without water, and if the service fails in the community or in the whole town, then it’s hard for teachers to go to work or the families don’t send their children to school.”

The backpack decorated with the tricolor Venezuelan flag, which is given to primary school students in the country’s public schools, is often carried by immigrants, such as these walking along a Colombian highway, as many students and teachers, in addition to dropping out of school, go abroad. CREDIT: JRS

Con la Escuela also found that 36 percent of the classrooms are insufficient for the number of youngsters enrolled, 44 percent of the schools have classrooms in poor condition and 50 percent reported desks in poor condition.

Moreover, the Ucab investigation found “ghost schools”, which appear in the Education Ministry figures but are actually only empty shells.

“We have gone to the field with the list of these schools and we have found that they no longer exist. There are just four walls standing,” said Eduardo Cantera, director of Ucab’s Center for Educational Innovation.

From precariousness to backwardness

If the salary of a new teacher in a public school is 20 dollars a month, those who are five levels higher in the ranks do not earn much more, just 30 or 35 dollars, although they do receive some bonuses that are not part of the salary.

In Caracas, private schools – which serve from kindergarten to the end of high school – a teacher earns about 100, maybe 200 or more dollars, depending on seniority, hours of work, and the families’ ability to pay.

The drop in wages cuts across the entire labor spectrum. The basic minimum is around five dollars a month, although there are food bonuses, and the average salary of formal sector workers is around 100 dollars.

It is a difficult figure to reach for many of those who work in the informal sector of the economy – 60 percent of the country’s workers according to the Survey of Living Conditions that Ucab carried out in 2022 among 2,300 households across the country.

A view of the María Auxiliadora school in a middle and upper-middle class area of Caracas. In private education, families must make extraordinary contributions to improve teachers’ salaries and thus hold onto them. CREDIT: Oema

It is a consequence of the gigantic setback of the Venezuelan economy – GDP shrank by four-fifths between 2013 and 2021 – compounded by almost three years of hyperinflation between 2017 and 2020, and depreciation that liquefied the value of the local currency, the bolivar, and led to a costly de facto dollarization.

Although public education is formally free, parents must contribute a few dollars each month to help maintain the schools. In private schools, prices are raised under the guise of extraordinary fees – the only way to obtain funds that make it possible for them to hold onto their teachers.

Pernalete says that in the interior of the country many teachers have to walk up to an hour to get to school -there is no public transportation or they can’t afford to take it-, not to mention the lack of water or electricity in their homes, or the absence of or the poor quality of internet connection, if they can afford it, or the lack of other technological resources.

And if they do have internet, that’s not always the case for their students.

Damelis, a domestic worker who lives in a poor neighborhood in Los Teques, a city neighboring Caracas, has three children in school. Some teachers, she told IPS, assign homework through a WhatsApp group, but in her home no one has a computer, internet or smartphone.

What is the result? The initial reading assessment test that Ucab recently administered to 1,028 third grade students nationwide showed high oral and reading comprehension (82 and 85 percent, respectively), but low reading aloud and decoding skills (43 and 53 percent).

More than 40 percent of the students only read 64 words per minute or less, when they should read 85 or more. Con la Escuela applied the test to 364 students in Caracas and the neighboring state of Miranda, and the children only read 48 words per minute.

There is also discouragement among teachers. The main public teaching university in the country has almost no applicants. In the School of Education at Ucab, the first two years have been closed due to a lack of students, despite the fact that the university offers scholarships to those who want to train as teachers.

What can be done? “The physical recovery of schools should be one of the first steps to guarantee their fundamental function: to serve as a center for socialization and meeting of teachers, students and representatives around the teaching-learning process,” said Cantera.

“Otherwise, the consequences will be very serious for the country’s development,” he said.

Labrador said she observes “a gradual privatization of education, it is no longer truly free,” and the disparity between public and private education is increasing inequality in a country where in the second half of the 20th century public education stood out as the most powerful lever for social ascent.

Pernalete said it is a matter of complying with the 1999 Constitution, which stipulates that workers’ salaries must be sufficient to live on and establishes the government’s commitment to the right to education, as it states that education and work are the means for the realization of the government’s goals.

A photo of journalists dedicated to covering the agendas of nearby communities, like these ones in a town in Colombia, is uncommon in poor areas of Latin American countries, where millions of people have no access to information of local interest. CREDIT: Chasquis Foundation

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jun 14 2023 (IPS)

Without the means to receive information about what is happening around them, millions of Latin Americans who live in poor remote rural or impoverished urban areas inhabit veritable news deserts, according to an increasing number of studies conducted by journalistic organizations in the region.

There are, for example, 29 million people in Brazil, 10 million in Colombia, seven million in Venezuela and up to three-quarters of the Argentine territory without access to journalism due to the absence of media outlets, or because the few existing local outlets are dedicated to entertainment, rather than news.“When we talk about information deserts, we are also talking about what a robust media ecosystem implies: that there are not only enough media outlets, but also pluralism.” -- Jonathan Bock

“When we talk about information deserts, we are also talking about what a robust media ecosystem implies: that there are not only enough media outlets, but also pluralism,” said Jonathan Bock, director of the Colombian Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP).

This plurality must encompass “the topics that are covered, diversity of formats, media that address different audiences. A healthy ecosystem,” Bock added in a conversation with IPS from the Colombian capital.

A Jun. 7 forum organized by the Venezuelan branch of the Press and Society Institute (IPYS) displayed atlases and maps on news deserts in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela, based on research by organizations of journalists and academics from those countries.

Even without extrapolating from the results of these assessments, it is possible to estimate that news deserts affect a good part of the region, judging by the structural deficiencies of the population, and by conflictive situations in the media and journalism in nations such as those of Central America and the Andes.

“The social and geographical marginalization found in parts of our countries means that important segments of the population are in these news deserts. For example, indigenous populations lacking media outlets in their languages,” Andrés Cañizález, founder and director of the Venezuelan observatory Medianálisis, told IPS.

Journalistic organizations from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela show maps or atlases that indicate, using colors, the most and least deserted areas in terms of access to news in their respective countries. CREDIT: IPS

Atlases and statistics

A study by the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA), coordinated by Irene Benito, took a census of 560 areas in that country and considered 47.9 percent of them news deserts, 25.2 percent in “semi-desert” conditions, 17.1 percent as “semi-forests”, and 9.8 percent as “forests”, or areas with an abundance of media outlets and news.

“As in other Latin American nations, in many areas there are media outlets and journalists, but there is no quality coverage. They deal with other things, not the interests of their communities, while the propaganda apparatus of the powers-that-be is in overly robust health,” Benito said in the IPYS forum.

In Brazil, the most recent News Atlas, released in March, recorded the existence of 13,734 media outlets in that country of 208 million inhabitants, but not a single one in 312 of its 5,568 municipalities. These 312 municipalities are home to 29.3 million people with no access to local news.

Although hundreds of online media outlets emerge every year “and now more municipalities have at least one or two media outlets, many are not independent or are biased, because they depend on the city government or religious movements,” said Cristina Zahar, from the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ARAJI).

In a third of Colombia, where 10 of the country’s 50 million inhabitants live – many areas far from the big cities – there are no mass media, and in another third, home to 16 million people, the existing media outlets are dedicated to entertainment, according to FLIP’s Cartography of Information.

In Venezuela, seven million people live in municipalities where there are no media outlets, and that figure rises to 15 million – in a country of 28 million people – if municipalities with only one or two media outlets, considered “semi-deserts”, are included, according to IPYS.

Unlike other countries, “the situation has worsened, with the massive closure of radio stations ordered by the government – at least 81 in 2022 alone, and 285 since 2003 – with radio being the medium that has the greatest penetration in remote areas,” Daniela Alvarado, head of freedom of information at IPYS, told IPS.

Remote rural areas far from the main cities and often in border regions are among the most affected by deficient infrastructure and lack of media outlets that enable local residents access to general information about their local environment and possibilities of participation in decisions that concern them. CREDIT: ECLAC

Exclusion, once again

In the case of Colombia, one cause for the breadth of news deserts is violence, “war, one of whose strategic aims is to pressure or close down news, journalism that can reveal, report, warn and monitor what happens in areas of conflict,” said Bock.

In 45 years of armed conflict in Colombia, 165 journalists were murdered, “strategic killings, because they reported on things, and became symbols,” Bock stressed.

“But it also has to do with a different kind of exclusion, of weak economies and little interest on the part of politics and government institutions in promoting independent and plural journalism, seen in some contexts as the enemy, and with society getting used to it and not demanding” independent reporting, the Colombian analyst said.

Another thing that has happened in countries in the region is that “traditional media, and many new digital outlets, emerged and are concentrated where there was already an audience and sources of advertising, which is combined with pre-existing inequalities to create an abyss between big cities and small towns and the countryside,” said Cañizález.

In news deserts, infrastructure failures abound and there are absences or deficiencies in internet services, with providers that do not access these territories, aggravating the situation of local inhabitants who often only have simple mobile phones and cannot obtain news and information through digital or social networks.

However, news deserts are not exclusive to rural, remote or border areas; in cities themselves there is a dearth of local media outlets, or the outlets have their own agendas on issues in poor urban communities, which are also impacted by the crises that face journalism in general.

This is the case of Venezuela, which “is caught up in a complex and continuous economic, political and social crisis that has led to the deterioration of its media ecosystem,” Alvarado said, adding that it also faces “a communicational hegemony (on the part of the State) that is manifested in censorship and self-censorship.”

Newspapers and television stations were driven to shut down, by government decision or suffocated due to lack of paper and advertising, or their sale paved the way for their closure; or, as in the case of many radio stations, closure is a constant looming threat. Online media suffer from internet cuts and harassment of their journalists.

Even in urban areas, such as this one in Caracas, the adverse climate of news deserts has an impact, for example with the closure of print media outlets caused by political decisions or economic crises, which forces traditional kiosks to subsist by replacing newspapers, which are no longer available, with candy and snacks. CREDIT: Public domain

What can be done?

“The challenge seems immeasurable, but we are not sitting quietly by, we must not give up on what is our right as a community public service,” said Benito.

The State “should promote, at least in the area of ​​its competence, which is radio, television and internet, inclusive policies throughout the nation’s territory, guaranteeing basic rights, including the right to communication and information for all citizens,” stated Cañizález.

Zahar said that “sustainability is the challenge,” due to the difficulties many new media outlets, local or not, face in supporting themselves, and the advantages of digital media “that have fewer barriers to entry, can experiment with formats and financing mechanisms, and make quick changes.”

Bock said “we must think about the financing of journalism where there are fragile economies, see it as a public service but an independent one, to address the training of people practicing journalism in those places.”

Together with the support of the government and the international community, “models could be developed in which the big media sponsor local media in very small places or where there is clearly a news desert,” Cañizález said.

“But that’s still not even discussed in a number of our countries,” he said. “It is an issue that concerns journalism but has not drawn public attention. The debate is still very much confined to reporters.”

Young women from the Brazilian state of Bahia attend an informational campaign which also hands out menstrual hygiene products. Poverty and the lack of adequate information on this subject affect millions of girls, adolescents and adult women. CREDIT: Government of Bahia

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, May 26 2023 (IPS)

Menstrual hygiene management is elusive for millions of poor women and girls in Latin America, who suffer because their living conditions make it difficult or impossible for them to access resources and services that could make menstruation a simple normal part of life.

“When my period comes, I miss class for three or four days. My family can’t afford to buy the sanitary napkins that my sister and I need. We use cloths for the blood, although they give me an uncomfortable rash,” says Omaira*, a 15-year-old high school student.

From her low-income neighborhood of Brisas del Sur, in Ciudad Guayana, 500 kilometers southeast of Caracas, she speaks to IPS by phone: “We can’t buy pills to relieve our pain either. And my period is irregular, it doesn’t come every month, but there are no medical services here for me to go and treat that.”

In Venezuela, “one in four women does not have menstrual hygiene products and they improvise unhygienic alternatives, such as old clothes, cloths, cardboard or toilet paper to make pads that function as sanitary napkins,” activist Natasha Saturno, with the Solidarity Action NGO, tells IPS.

“The big problem with these improvised products is that they can cause, at best, discomfort and embarrassment, and at worst, infections that compromise their health,” says Saturno, director of enforceability of rights at the NGO that conducts health assistance and documentation programs and surveys.

Campaigns that adult and young women have carried out in Mexico and Colombia demanding the right to menstrual health managed to get the authorities to eliminate the value added tax on essential feminine hygiene products. CREDIT: Nora Hinojo/UN Mexico

Universal problem, comprehensive approach

Is this a local, focalized problem? Not at all: “On any given day, more than 300 million women worldwide are menstruating.  In total, an estimated 500 million lack access to menstrual products and adequate facilities for menstrual hygiene management (MHM),” states a World Bank study.

“Today more than ever we need to bring visibility to the situation of women and girls who do not have access to and education about menstrual hygiene. Communication makes the difference,” said Hugo González, representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Peru.

UNFPA says there is broad agreement on what girls and women need for good menstrual health, and argues that comprehensive approaches that combine education with infrastructure and with products and efforts to combat stigma are most successful in achieving good menstrual health and hygiene.

The essential elements are: safe, acceptable, and reliable supplies to manage menstruation; privacy for changing the materials; safe and private washing facilities; and information to make appropriate decisions.

UNFPA’s theme this year for international Menstrual Hygiene Day, which is celebrated every May 28, is “Making menstruation a normal fact of life by 2030”, the target date for compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the international community at the United Nations.

United Nations Population Fund workers prepare packages of menstrual hygiene items for women from poor communities in Central America. The cost of some of these products makes them unaffordable for many families. CREDIT: UNFPA

The pink tax

Nine out of 31 countries in the region consider menstrual hygiene products essential, which makes them exempt from value added tax or reduced VAT, according to the study “Sexist Taxes in Latin America” ​​by Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

After a “Tax-free Menstruation” campaign, in 2018 Colombia became the first country in the Americas to eliminate VAT – 16 percent – on menstrual hygiene products. Its neighbor Venezuela still charges 16 percent VAT, and Argentina, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay charge VAT between 18 and 22 percent on such products.

Colombia was joined by Ecuador, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico – where street demonstrations were held against charging VAT on menstrual products – Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Other countries have reduced VAT, such as Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay and Peru, while in Brazil VAT differs between states and averages 7 percent.

The so-called “pink tax” obviously affects the price of menstrual hygiene products such as disposable and reusable sanitary pads and menstrual cups, which becomes especially burdensome in countries with high inflation and depreciated currencies, such as Argentina and Venezuela.

According to the average price of the cheapest brands, ten disposable sanitary pads can cost just under a dollar in Mexico, 1.50 dollar in Argentina or Brazil, 1.60 dollar in Colombia, Peru or Venezuela, and almost two dollars in Costa Rica.

“It’s an important problem,” Saturno points out, “in a country like Venezuela, where the majority of the population lives in poverty and the minimum wage – although it has been increased with some stipends – is still just five dollars a month.”

Adult women, young women and girls participate in a session to share information and experiences organized by the Colombian association Menstruating Princesses, which emphasizes the importance of education to combat taboos and make menstruation a normal, stress-free experience. CREDIT: Menstruating Princesses

Hostile environment, scarce education

“If you often can’t buy sanitary pads, that’s the smallest problem. The worst thing is the shame you feel if you go to work and the cloth fails to keep your clothes free of blood, or if you catch an infection,” Nancy *, who at the age of 45 has been an informal sector worker in numerous occupations and trades in Caracas, told IPS.“Poverty causes women and adolescent girls to miss days of secondary school or work because they do not have the supplies they need when they menstruate. It becomes a vicious circle, because their academic or work performance is affected, hindering their chances of developing their full potential and earning a better income.” -- Natasha Saturno

The mother of four young people lives in Gramoven, a poor neighborhood in the northwest of the capital. Her two unmarried daughters, ages 18 and 22, have had experiences similar to Nancy’s on their way to school, in the neighborhood, on the bus, and on the subway.

“The thing is, the period is not seen as something natural, boys and men see it as something dirty, at work they sometimes do not understand that if you are in pain you have to stay at home,” said Nancy. “And when you work for yourself, you have to go out no matter what, because if you don’t go out, no money comes in.”

Saturno says that “poverty causes women and adolescent girls to miss days of secondary school or work because they do not have the supplies they need when they menstruate.”

“It becomes a vicious circle, because their academic or work performance is affected, hindering their chances of developing their full potential and earning a better income,” she adds.

But the problem “goes far beyond materials, it does not end just because someone obtains the products; it includes education and decent working conditions for women,” psychologist Carolina Ramírez, who runs the educational NGO Menstruating Princesses in the Colombian city of Medellín, tells IPS.

For this reason, “we do not use the term ‘menstrual poverty’ and speak instead of menstrual dignity, vindicating the need for society, schools, workplaces and States to promote education about menstruation and combat illiteracy in that area,” says Ramírez.

To illustrate, she mentions the widespread rejection of using tampons and cups “because of the old taboo that the vulva shouldn’t be touched, that the vagina shouldn’t be looked at,” in addition to the fact that many areas and communities in Latin American countries not only lack spaces or tools to sterilize products but often do not have clean water.

A concern raised by both Saturno and Ramírez is the great vulnerability of migrant women in the region – which has received a flood of six million people from Venezuela over the last 10 years, for example – in terms of menstrual and general health, as well as safety.

Another worrying issue is women in most Latin American prisons, which are unable to provide adequate menstrual hygiene, since they do not have access to disposable products or the possibility to sterilize reusable supplies.

Throughout the region, “greater efforts are required to break down taboos that violate fundamental rights to health, education, work, and freedom of movement, so that menstruation can be a stress-free human experience,” Ramírez says.

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the interviewees.

Excerpt:

Construction workers in Chile are among those who will benefit from the gradual reduction of the workweek from the current 45 hours to 40, within five years. A 40-hour workweek already exists in countries such as Ecuador and Venezuela, but in most of the region the workweek is longer. CREDIT: Camila Lasalle/Sintec

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, May 4 2023 (IPS)

The reduction in the workweek recently approved by the Chilean Congress forms part of a trend of working fewer hours and days that is spreading in today’s modern economies, but also highlights how far behind other countries in Latin America are in this regard.

Latin America “has legislation that is lagging in terms of working hours and it is imperative that this be reviewed,” said the director of the International Labor Organization (ILO) for the Southern Cone of the Americas, Fabio Bertranou, after Chile’s new law was passed."Non-human work, that of artificial intelligence, can massively reduce employment and make 40 hours a week seem like an immense amount of work." -- Francisco Iturraspe

The workweek in Chile will be gradually reduced from 45 to 40 hours, by one hour a year over the next five years, according to the bill that a jubilant President Gabriel Boric signed into law on Apr. 14.

“After many years of dialogue and gathering support, today we can finally celebrate the passage of this bill that reduces working hours, a pro-family law aimed at improving quality of life for all,” said Boric.

The law provides for the possibility of working four days and taking three off a week, of working a maximum of five overtime hours per week, while granting exceptions in sectors such as mining and transportation, where up to 52 hours per week can be worked, if the worker is compensated with fewer hours in another work week.

Chile is thus aligning itself with its partners in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in some of which, such as Australia, Denmark and France, the workweek is less than 40 hours, while in others, such as Germany, Colombia, Mexico or the United Kingdom, the workweek is longer.

Chilean President Gabriel Boric (L) celebrates the modification of the labor law by the Chilean Congress to reduce the workweek, as an achievement aimed at “improving quality of life for all,” with the understanding that workers will have more time to rest and for family life. CREDIT: Presidency of Chile

The range in Latin America

According to ILO data, until the past decade two countries in the region, Ecuador and Venezuela, had a legal workweek of 40 hours, while, like Chile up to now, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Guatemala were in the range between 42 and 45 hours.

Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay had a workweek of 48 hours.

According to national laws, the maximum number of hours that people can legally work per week under extraordinary circumstances for specific reasons is 48 in Brazil and Venezuela, and between 49 and 59 in Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Uruguay.

In Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras the maximum is 60 or more hours, and in El Salvador and Peru there is simply no limit.

But in practice people work less than that, since the regional average is 39.9 hours, more than in Western Europe, North America and Africa (which range between 37.2 and 38.8 hours), but less than in the Arab world, the Pacific region and Asia, where the average ranges between 44 and 49 hours per week.

ILO figures showed that in 2016 in Latin America, male workers worked an average of 44.9 hours a week and women 36.3, 1.7 hours less than in 2005 in the case of men and half an hour less in the case of women.

Among domestic workers, the decrease was 3.3 hours among men and more than five hours among women (from 38.1 to 32.9 hours a week), which is partly attributed to the fact that after 2005 legislation to equate the workweeks of domestic workers with other workers made headway.

A teacher connects from her home with her students in an online class. This trend expanded in different sectors in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic and allows workers more freedom to organize their time, although sometimes it leads to longer working days. CREDIT: Marcel Crozet/ILO

Health and telework

A study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the ILO attributes the death of some 750,000 workers each year to long working hours – especially people who work more than 55 hours a week.

The study showed that in 2016, 398,000 workers died worldwide from stroke and 347,000 from ischemic heart disease – ailments that are triggered by prolonged stress associated with long hours, or by risky behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol and eating an unhealthy diet.

María Neira, director of the WHO’s Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, said in this regard that “working 55 hours or more per week poses a serious danger to health. It is time for all of us – governments, employers and employees – to realize that long working hours can lead to premature death.”

On the other hand, the telework trend boomed worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching 23 million workers in Latin America and the Caribbean, mainly formal wage- earners with a high level of education, stable jobs and in professional and administrative occupations.

Access to telework has been much more limited for informal sector and self-employed workers, young people, less skilled and lower-income workers, and women, who have more family responsibilities.

ILO Latin America expert Andrés Marinakis acknowledged in an analysis that “in general, teleworkers have some autonomy in deciding how to organize their workday and their performance is evaluated mainly through the results of their work rather than by the hours it took them to do it.”

But “several studies have found that in many cases those who telework work a little longer than usual; the limits between regular and overtime hours are less clear,” and this situation is reinforced by the available electronic devices and technology, explained Marinakis from the ILO office in Santiago de Chile.

This means that “contact with colleagues and supervisors is possible at any time and place, extending the workday beyond what is usual,” which raises “the need to clearly establish a period of disconnection that gives workers an effective rest,” added the analyst.

Artificial intelligence, for example with robots that work with great precision and speed, favors the technological development of countries and increases productivity by reducing costs in the production of goods or services, but it can lead to significant reductions in employment. CREDIT: IDB

The other face

Argentine labor activist Francisco Iturraspe told IPS by telephone that on the other hand, in the future it appears that “non-human work, that of artificial intelligence, can massively reduce employment and make 40 hours a week seem like an immense amount of work.”

Iturraspe, a professor at the National University of Rosario in southeastern Argentina and a researcher at the country’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, said from Rosario that the reduction in working hours “responds to criteria typical of the 19th century, while in the 21st century there is the challenge of meeting the need for technological development and its impact on our countries.”

He argued that “to the extent that abundant and cheap labor is available, and people have to work longer hours, business owners need less investment in technology, which curbs development.”

But, on the other hand, Iturraspe stressed that investment in technologies such as artificial intelligence reduces the cost of producing goods and services, evoking the thesis of zero marginal cost set out by U.S. economist Jeremy Rifkin, author of “The End of Work” and other books.

This translates into a reduction in the workforce needed to produce and distribute goods and services, “perhaps by half according to some economists, a Copernican shift that would lead us to a situation of mass unemployment.”

The quest to reduce the workday walks along that razor’s edge, “with the hope that the reduction of working time can give working human beings new ways of coping with life,” Iturraspe said.

LGBTIQ+ activists in Caracas protest outside the National Electoral Council, in charge of the civil registry, demanding enforcement of the legal statute that authorizes a change of name for trans, intersex or non-binary people. The agency has delayed compliance with the law for years. CREDIT: Observatory of Violence

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Mar 30 2023 (IPS)

The vulnerability and struggles of the LGBTIQ+ community in Venezuela were once again highlighted when the Supreme Court finally annulled the military code statute that punished, with one to three years in prison, members of the military who committed ” acts against nature.”

The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court ruled that the statute, in force since the last century, “is contrary to the fundamental postulate of progressivity in terms of guaranteeing human rights,” and also “lacks sufficient legal clarity and precision with regard to the conduct it was intended to punish.”

The statute, in the Code of Military Justice, was the only one that still punished homosexuality with jail in Venezuela, and it was overturned on Feb. 16."In Venezuela LGBTIQ+ people (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, intersex, queers and others) must still fight for the right to identity, to equal marriage, to non-discrimination in education, health and housing.” -- Tamara Adrián

However, “in Venezuela LGBTIQ+ people (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, intersex, queers and others) must still fight for the right to identity, to equal marriage, to non-discrimination in education, healthcare and housing,” transgender activist Tamara Adrián told IPS.

Even the procedure followed to overturn the statute, the second paragraph of article 565 of the Military Code, was an illustration of the continued disdain towards the LGBTIQ+ minority.

Activist Richelle Briceño reminded IPS that civil society organizations had been demanding the annulment of the statute for seven years, receiving no response from the Supreme Court.

“All of a sudden, the Ombudsman’s Office (in Venezuela all branches of power are in the hands of the ruling party) asked the court to overturn that part of the article and in less than 24 hours the decision was made, on Feb. 16,” Briceño observed.

In addition, the Ombudsman’s Office argued that the statute was not used in the last 20 years, but Briceño said that around the year 2016 there were several documented cases.

Different NGOs see the legal ruling as linked with the presentation, the following day, of reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council of serious violations on this question in Venezuela, including the non-recognition of the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community.

In the Venezuelan armed forces, homosexual conduct or acts “against nature” were still punishable by prison sentences of one to three years, until the statute was finally overturned by the Supreme Court in February. CREDIT: Mippci

Many pending issues

In Venezuela, “according to current medical protocols, blood donations by people who have sexual relations with people of the same sex are not even accepted,” Natasha Saturno, with the Acción Solidaria NGO, which specializes in health assistance and supplies, told IPS.

“Forty days ago they operated on my son. I brought a dozen blood donors, they were all asked this question, and several were turned away,” she said.

If these restrictions still exist, even further away are the hopes of the LGBTIQ+ community to obtain identity documents that reflect their gender option, to same-sex unions or equal marriage, or to outlaw all forms of discrimination, Saturno said.

Adrián said that “recognizing gender identity or equal marriage with both spouses enjoying the right to exercise maternity or paternity are achievements that are advancing or expanding throughout Latin America, and Venezuela, which has moved forward in civil rights since the 19th century, is now among the laggards.”

The activist, founder in 2022 of the political party United for Dignity, highlighted the progress made on this issue in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay, “with only Guyana, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela lagging behind in South America.”

With regard to identity, since 2009 the Civil Registry Law states that “everyone may change their own name, only once, when they are subjected to public ridicule (…) or it does not correspond to their gender, thus affecting the free development of their personality.”

But the rule is not enforced in the case of trans, intersex and non-binary people, with countless procedural obstacles in the way, which is why, frustrated by meaningless paperwork, LGBTIQ+ groups have protested before the Supreme Court, the Ombudsman’s Office and the National Electoral Council, which the civil registry falls under.

Adrián maintained that “we are guided by the opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which in 2017 recognized the right to identity as essential for the development of personality and non-discrimination in areas such as labor, health and education.”

A demonstration by the LGBTIQ+ community outside the Supreme Court in Caracas demanded the right to same-sex marriage, which is legal in many parts of Latin America but remains a distant dream in Venezuela. CREDIT: Acvi

Victims of violence

LGBTIQ+ people in Venezuela “suffer numerous forms of discrimination and violence, from the family sphere to public spaces,” said Yendri Velásquez, of the recently created Venezuelan Observatory of Violence against this community.

It manifests itself “in psychological violence, very present in the family sphere, beatings, denial of identity, access and use of public spaces – from restaurants to parks -, extortion, bullying based on gender expression, employment discrimination and even murder,” Velásquez said.

He pointed out that in 2021 there were 21 murders of people “just for being gay or lesbian,” and that in the second half of 2022 the Observatory recorded 10 “murders or cases of very serious injuries” with a total of 11 gay, lesbian or transgender victims.

The activists are advocating for norms and policies that help eradicate hate crimes and hate speech, as well as online violence, because through social networks they receive messages as serious as “die”, “kill yourself”, “I hope they kill you” or “you shouldn’t be alive.”

The organizations share these fears and are protesting that the legislature, in the hands of the ruling party, is drafting a law that would curtail and severely restrict the independence and work of non-governmental organizations.

Marches for the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community and against discrimination are growing in size in Venezuela, and groups of European residents and diplomats have even joined in on some occasions. CREDIT: EU

Healthcare as well

For the LGBTIQ+ community, healthcare is a critical issue, in the context of a complex humanitarian emergency that, among other effects, has led to the collapse of health services, with most hospitals suffering from infrastructure and maintenance failures, lack of equipment and supplies, and the migration of health professionals.

Adrián said “there are barriers to entry into health centers, both public and private, for people who are trans or intersex, for their stay in hospitals – sometimes they are treated in the corridors – and for adherence to the treatments.”

An additional problem is that hormones have not been available in Venezuela for 10 years, and users who resort to uncontrolled imports are exposing themselves to significant health risks.

The community was greatly affected by the AIDS epidemic, although in 2001 civil society organizations managed to get the Supreme Court to make it obligatory for the government to provide antiretroviral drugs free of charge.

They were available for years, although Saturno points out that the supply became intermittent starting in 2012.

That year marked the start of the current economic and migration crisis suffered by this oil-producing country of 28 million people, with the loss of four-fifths of GDP and the migration of seven million Venezuelans.

Currently, deliveries are made regularly, according to the NGOs dedicated to monitoring the question, although usually with only one of the treatment schemes prescribed by the Pan American Health Organization, “and not everyone can take the same treatment,” Saturno said.

Some 88,000 HIV/AIDS patients are registered in Venezuela’s master plan on HIV/AIDS that the government and United Nations agencies support. But according to NGO projections, there could be as many as 200,000 HIV-positive people in the country.

The activists also note that the climate marked by the denial of identity and rights for individuals and couples, discrimination, harassment, violence and work handicap, plus health issues, push LGBTIQ+ people to form part of the flow of migrants that has spread across the hemisphere.

Jehyson Guzmán, the governor of the state of Mérida, in the Venezuelan Andes, delivers a solar panel installation to the rural community of El Anís that will benefit dozens of families. Parliament is preparing, meanwhile, new legislation to try to promote these alternative energies in the country. CREDIT: Government of Mérida

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Mar 21 2023 (IPS)

The installation of solar panels in a remote village in ​​the Andes highlands in late February marked a second incursion by the Venezuelan government into the field of solar energy, previously uncharted territory in this country that for a century was a leading global oil producer.

The governor of the Andean state of Mérida, Jehyson Guzmán, inaugurated the 135 solar panels that will initially serve 17 families in the El Anís village near the town of Lagunillas, 600 kilometers southwest of Caracas, and will later provide electricity to a total of 2,500 people, in neighboring communities as well.

“They’re presenting it as something new, but they probably brought materials from a facility they had in the area around PDVSA (the state-owned oil company), where an industrial-scale project failed and was abandoned,” alternative energy expert Alejandro López-González told IPS."Compared to an average cost of 0.20 dollars per kilowatt-hour in other Latin American countries, in Venezuela people pay 0.002 dollars….and a cultural issue is that Venezuelans are not used to saving energy and many people, between 30 and 40 percent of users, simply do not pay for electricity." -- Luis Ramírez

López-González also pointed out that the government program “Sembrando Luz”, developed by Venezuelan and Cuban engineers, installed close to 2,300 small solar power systems, mainly in rural and indigenous communities, between 2005 and 2012.

Venezuela was then governed by the late Hugo Chávez (1999-2013). During his time in office the country went through a cycle of oil wealth, followed by the collapse of the oil industry and numerous infrastructure and service projects, such as alternative electricity, most of which were abandoned half-complete.

There are also wind farms on the peninsulas of Paraguaná and Guajira, in the northwest – where the trade winds are constant, strong and fast – and adding more than 100 wind turbines could contribute up to 150 Mwh to the local grid in one of the areas hardest-hit by blackouts so far this century.

Wind turbines began to be installed starting in 2006 in Paraguaná and 2011 in La Guajira, and more than 400 million dollars were invested, with the idea of ​​supplying numerous indigenous communities mainly of the Wayúu people.

But the installation of more wind turbines and equipment was delayed, the project fell by the wayside, many materials were stolen to be sold as scrap, and by 2018 the then minister of electric power, Luis Motta, gave it up for lost.

A similar fate befell hundreds of small solar energy projects – in some cases accompanied by wind power – in peasant and indigenous communities, which would have “benefited up to 200,000 people throughout the country but were put out of service due to lack of maintenance and attention,” lamented López-González.

Actually, before “Sembrando luz”, there were specific and especially rural initiatives for solar and wind energy – for example, to dig water wells in the plains of the Orinoco – organized by individuals, universities and some public entities.

The green roof of the postgraduate studies building at the Andrés Bello Catholic University blocks excess heat from some of the classrooms and serves as the basis for the installation of solar panels that provide electricity to various parts of campus. In the background can be seen the poor neighborhood of Antímano, in western Caracas. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

The universities’ turn

Now the initiatives are reaching urban areas, among individuals in cities hard-hit by long power cuts, such as the hot city of Maracaibo in the northwest, the country’s oil capital, commercial establishments, health centers, and an exemplary installation in the private Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), in Caracas.

UCAB “decided to incorporate ecology and sustainability into programs, practices, the management of its 32-hectare campus where there are some 5,000 students in various disciplines, as an experiment and contribution to environmental science in the country,” Joaquín Benítez, director of Environmental Sustainability, told IPS.

Thus, since 2019, the roof of the postgraduate studies building has been transformed into a green roof, with an 800-square-meter garden of low-lying succulent plants that store water.

Several classrooms under that roof, where temperatures at 3:00 p.m. local time reached 31 degrees Celsius for most of the year in 2013, now have an average temperature of 25 degrees, Benítez said.

The garden was followed by the installation of 30 solar panels along the edge of the roof, plus a backup wind generator, to support research and study projects, provide energy to part of the building and feed the watering device for the plants.

Enough energy is generated to serve a house for five people, with three bedrooms on two floors, two bathrooms and a small garden, Benítez said.

Solar panels were installed at the private Andrés Bello Catholic University, in the capital of Venezuela. While waiting for large projects, installations like these are gaining ground in homes, farms and businesses, sometimes combined with the use of the national power grid or diesel-fueled plants. CREDIT: UCAB

Learning from failures

But a panel installation in a home, farm or small business, even if it is only complementary to the national electrical grid or used to power only a few appliances, costs from 4,000 dollars up to five times that amount. This is a huge sum in a country where the majority of the population is living in poverty and the monthly minimum wage is less than six dollars.

However, hundreds of private solar power installations have sprung up, often in combination with diesel-fired plants – and also small wind turbines – in areas of the west and the central and eastern plains, with a handful of companies dedicated to installation and maintenance.

The electricity crisis has been part of an economic depression and social and political crisis that has pushed more than seven million Venezuelans to leave the country in the last decade under President Nicolás Maduro, reducing the population to an estimated 28 million inhabitants.

The northwestern oil and ranching state of Zulia alone, covering 63,000 square kilometers and home to five million people, suffered 37,000 power failures last year, according to the Committee of People Affected by Blackouts.

Outages across the country totaled 233,000 last year and 196,000 in 2021. Four years ago, in March 2019, a blackout left almost all of Venezuela, including much of Caracas, without power for between 72 and 100 continuous hours.

The country is supplied by the Guri hydroelectric complex in the southeast, with an installed capacity of 12,000 Mwh in three dams, and which covers two thirds of the national demand. Another 30 percent comes from thermal plants, and the rest from small distributed generation plants.

In total, the country’s installed capacity, which should have reached 34,000 Mwh according to the investments made over decades, barely reaches 24,000 Mwh, since much of the infrastructure is rundown, as are the distribution networks.

The supply deficit would be even worse were it not for the collapse of the economy, as the country’s GDP plunged by up to 80 percent between 2013 and 2021, and demand, which stood at around 19,000 Mwh in 2013, had dropped to 11,000 Mwh in 2019.

The Cecosesola central cooperative health center in the western Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto installed solar panels to power some of its services and raise awareness about the importance of clean energy. Years ago solar installations were made in remote rural areas, but recently they are making their way into cities. CREDIT: Cecosesola

Paying little or nothing

Renewable energy expert Luis Ramírez reminded IPS that electricity in Venezuela, in the hands of the State, is subsidized up to 99 percent.

“Compared to an average cost of 0.20 dollars per kilowatt-hour in other Latin American countries, in Venezuela people pay 0.002 dollars,” said Ramírez, who is also director of the graduate program in quality systems at UCAB.

However, since 2022 the rates for public services, such as water, electricity, cooking gas, gasoline, highway use and garbage collection have begun to rise in different regions of the country.

In addition, “a cultural issue is that Venezuelans are not used to saving energy and many people, between 30 and 40 percent of users, simply do not pay for electricity,” Ramírez explained.

The inhabitants of poor neighborhoods and shantytowns in Caracas and other cities connect themselves to the grid freely, and in small towns in the interior small business establishments often do the same.

This discourages investments in the sector and in particular in renewable energies, which often have higher installation and start-up costs than plants powered by fossil energy.

Pending policies, laws, initiatives and financing to establish solar or wind farms, hydroelectric power generated in the gigantic complex of Lake Guri, which feeds the Caroní River in the southeast of the country, remains the source that sustains two thirds of electricity consumption in Venezuela. CREDIT: Corpoelec

From law to potential

Publications from the Ministry of Electric Power indicate that an additional 500 Mwh are expected to be installed in the west of the country, mainly from renewable energies, but without specifying a timeframe, amounts to be invested or sources of financing.

In the legislature, controlled by the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the drafting of a renewable energy law was proposed since 2021, to stimulate and organize the sector, but the question has not been given priority by parliament or the government.

The experts consulted by IPS agree that the drafts of that law mainly repeat provisions already present in the current Organic Law on Electricity Service, without adding new aspects such as establishing a renewable energy research institute to help develop the industry, Ramírez said.

According to López-González, the fact that the electricity law enacted in 2010 still lacks regulations to specify policies in measures and technical and operational decisions shows the State’s disdain for ensuring compliance and promoting the development of the sector.

He said the new steps such as the small installation in the Andes and the announcements that a new law is being prepared are “an effort to publicize what is nothing more than a residual development, no more than zombies of abandoned projects.”

Venezuela’s solar potential is one of the highest in Latin America, with an average of 5.35 kilowatt hours per square meter per day (5.35 Kwh/m2), close to the highest in Chile (5.75) and Bolivia (5.42), according to studies by the Department of Sciences of the Universitiy de Los Andes, in the southwest of the country.

In the northern coastal region along the Caribbean Sea, the information collected in meteorological stations shows an even greater potential: between 5.8 and 7.3 Kwh/m2.

In the north, where the most populated and industrialized centers of the country are located, the potential of 12,000 Mwh awaits better times, López-González said. “We can have a wind Guri,” he said, making a comparison with the largest of the dams in the southeastern hydroelectric complex.

Venezuela, a leading oil producer for a century, which still has the largest reserves in the world (300 billion barrels, mostly unconventional), also has the potential to belong to the club of countries that are self-sufficient in renewable energy.

But this membership is still just a spot on the distant horizon.

The National Assembly of Venezuela, overwhelmingly pro-government since most of the opposition boycotted the elections, approved in a first reading a draft law that would make it necessary for NGOs to obtain authorization from the executive branch in order to function. CREDIT: National Assembly

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Feb 27 2023 (IPS)

The Venezuelan parliament, in the hands of the ruling party, is moving towards passing a law to control non-governmental organizations (NGOs) so that, in practice, they could not exist independently.

The new law “not only puts at risk the work of helping victims of human rights violations, but also all the humanitarian and social assistance work carried out by independent organizations,” Rafael Uzcátegui, coordinator of the human rights group Provea, one of the oldest and renowned NGOs in the country, told IPS.

Ali Daniels, a lawyer who is the director of the NGO Access to Justice, was also emphatic when he told IPS that the law “is contradictory and, by design, is made to be breached, since it is impossible to meet the 20 requirements and 12 sub-requirements that it imposes on civil society organizations.”

The bill, entitled the Law for the Control, Regularization, Action and Financing of Non-Governmental and Related Organizations, was approved without dissent at first reading as a whole in the single-chamber legislature on Jan. 24. It must now be debated article by article in order to be passed.

In the current legislature – which has 277 members, many more than the 165 provided for by the 1999 constitution – the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its allies hold 256 seats, and the rest are in the hands of groups that refused to take part in the boycott of the 2020 legislative elections called by the main opposition party.

The memorandum for the draft law states that it is inspired by a similar law passed in Bolivia in 2013, and highlights that NGOs “depend almost exclusively on ‘aid’ from Western governments, which generally goes to countries of geopolitical importance and is linked to an interventionist framework.”

Diosdado Cabello, the number two in the PSUV under President Nicolás Maduro and the president of the National Assembly, said that through NGOs opposition groups “conspire against the country. They are not non-governmental organizations. They do not depend on the Venezuelan state, but on the gringo (US) government; they are instruments of imperialism.”

The new law will “put an end to their easy life,” he said.

The PSUV not only has control over the executive and legislative branches, but also the judiciary, the electoral commission, the public prosecutor’s office, the comptroller’s office and the ombudsman’s office. In addition, it has staunch support from the armed forces.

The main opposition parties have been intervened by the judiciary, several of their leaders are in exile or disqualified from running for office, and press, radio and television outlets that provide anything but officially sanctioned news have practically been driven to extinction.

In addition, there are 270 political prisoners in the country (150 members of the military and 120 civilians), according to the daily registry kept by the human rights NGO Foro Penal.

In this context, different NGOs and the bishops of the Catholic Church stand out as critical and independent voices.

NGO programs to assist the needy with food and medicine in Venezuela, a country in the grip of a severe socioeconomic crisis, would be affected if they must meet the numerous requisites laid out in a draft law, warns a statement signed by more than 400 organizations. CREDIT: Alimenta la Solidaridad

Nearly a month after the bill was approved in first reading, it has not yet been officially presented, and the text that was leaked from parliament is setting off alarm bells among civil society organizations.

More than 400 organizations, including several from abroad such as Amnesty International, Civil Rights Defenders, Transparency International, Poder Ciudadano of Argentina, Chile Transparente and the Center for Rights and Development of Peru, produced a document expressing their alarm and rejection of the draft law.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, who visited Caracas two days after the preliminary approval of the draft law, said that when he talked to the authorities “I reiterated the importance of guaranteeing the civic space, and I called for a broad consultative process on the law.”

Hands tied

NGOs complain that, first of all, the new law will declare illegal any existing non-profit association, organization or foundation that fails to adapt to the new provisions, even though this violates the principle of non-retroactivity.

In addition to entities defined as NGOs, the law will also apply to charitable or educational foundations, chambers or other business associations and even social clubs – in other words, any kind of civil association.

It creates a long list of requirements and requisites, including mandatory registration and constant renewals, “without setting a time limit or clear evaluation criteria, or providing any guarantee of due process in case of denial.”

Daniels also said the new law requires a sworn statement of assets from the members, representatives and workers of each NGO, together with detailed information on how they obtain and use funds.

In addition, the new law states that organizations must not only register, but also must obtain express authorization from the government, which could thus decide which ones can and cannot operate.

The draft law on NGOS will affect programs carried out by foundations such as the Catholic Fe y Alegría, which for years has run a network of schools in rural areas and poor neighborhoods, as well as a network of educational radio stations. CREDIT: Fe y Alegría

In the event that the authorities suspect any irregularity, it must open an investigation, and by doing so it can suspend operations of the organization, by means of a precautionary measure.

NGOs are generically prohibited from carrying out political activities, which makes it possible to accuse them in cases of defense of rights or criticism of the State.

The sanctions for failing to comply with requirements include fines of up to 12,000 dollars, “which in Venezuela’s current crisis no NGO can comply with without closing down,” Daniels said. Criminal action can also be taken against the organizations.

Carlos Ayala Corao, former chair of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said the new law “violates the national and international legal system, and seeks to control society.”

Why now?

According to Uzcátegui, the law is the result of a years-long government policy of confronting NGOs, “in first place because we have been effective in attracting the attention of international mechanisms for the protection of human rights.”

“An investigation by the International Criminal Court, unprecedented in this continent, has been launched into possible crimes against humanity (by Venezuelan authorities), a major blow to Maduro’s international image,” Uzcátegui said.

The ICC is carrying out a preliminary investigation into accusations against the president and other political and military leaders, after complaints brought by families of their alleged responsibility in the death of demonstrators in protests, of opponents or military dissidents in interrogations, torture and other crimes.

Complaints from human rights groups, which are studied in investigations by entities such as the International Criminal Court, could have influenced the decision to draft a new law to prevent “political” aspects in the activities of NGOs. CREDIT: Civilisv

Venezuela experienced massive protests, some bloodily repressed, in 2014, 2017 and 2019, and so far in 2023 there have been dozens of demonstrations by public sector workers and pensioners, since the minimum wage and millions of pensions are equivalent to less than six dollars a month.

The head of Provea added that so far this year there have been dozens of workers’ protests against low wages and tiny pensions, “and the authorities are trying to curb this scenario of conflict with the actors of democratic society.”

He also said the new law could be another chess piece in the intermittent negotiations between the government and the opposition, “as are the political prisoners,” ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.

The consequences

If the law is passed, “it will prevent the work of critical voices, of support for victims of rights violations, but the most terrible consequences will not be experienced by the organizations but by the people who are the beneficiaries of our activities,” Uzcátegui stressed.

Daniels said the draft law does not cover companies such as banks, for example, but it does cover their chambers, which are civil associations, or the entities that run schools or soup kitchens, many of them in the neediest areas, and which have registered and act as foundations.

“This is the case of the community soup kitchens run by Caritas (a Catholic organization), or free medicine banks run by the NGOs Convite and Acción Solidaria, or the network of community schools run by Fe y Alegría (created by the Catholic Jesuit order),” Uzcátegui added.

More than 90 organizations called on Colombian President Gustavo Petro (L), seen at a border meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro on Feb. 16, to lobby for the NGO bill to be scrapped. CREDIT: Presidency of Venezuela

Consequences at an international level are also likely, given that most NGOs turn to international donors to finance their activities, and because various international entities do not act directly in the country but do so through NGOs that have become their local partners.

It will also influence the regional political game by following the path taken by Nicaragua, which has outlawed thousands of organizations, and “we are alerting neighboring countries that the crisis in Venezuela will expand and with it emigration, including activists from NGOs seeking refuge,” said Uzcátegui.

During Maduro’s 10 years in the presidency, marked by an acute economic crisis, with a drop of up to 80 percent of GDP and prolonged hyperinflation, more than seven million Venezuelans – almost a quarter of the population – have left the country, mainly to neighboring nations.

More than 90 organizations presented a letter to Colombian President Gustavo Petro, asking him to intervene by making an effort to get the law dismissed and to help persuade the government not to undermine free association as a human right.

Uzcátegui says final approval of the draft law will drive the United States and Europe to impose harsher sanctions on Venezuela.

Thus, “the hardships of the populace and the conflict will increase, when what we Venezuelans need are spaces for dialogue and understanding,” argued the head of Provea.

Deforestation, along with fires, reduces the region's forests, expands the agricultural frontier, shrinks the habitat of indigenous peoples and wildlife, destroys water sources, and brings more diseases to populated areas. CREDIT: Serfor Peru

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jan 31 2023 (IPS)

The environmental priority for South America in 2023 can be summed up in the management of its terrestrial and marine protected areas, together with the challenges of the extractivist economy and the transition to a green economy with priority attention to the most vulnerable populations.

This management “must be effective, participatory, and based on environmental and climate justice, with protection for the environment and environmental and indigenous activists,” biologist Vilisa Morón, president of the Venezuelan Ecology Society, told IPS.

Latin America and the Caribbean is home to almost half of the world’s biodiversity and 60 percent of terrestrial life, and has more than 8.8 million square kilometers of protected areas, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

It is thus the most protected region in the world, with the combined protected area greater than the total area of ​​Brazil or the sum of the territories of Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia and Paraguay, from largest to smallest. The leaders in percentage of protected territory are the French overseas departments and Venezuela.

The second great environmental challenge in the region for 2023 and the following years lies in the extractivist economies, which run counter to the region’s responsibility to the planet as a major reserve of biodiversity.

The extractivist economy involves the mining of metals in the Andes region, the Guyanese massif and the Amazon rainforest, and the exploitation of fossil fuels in most South American countries and Mexico.

Extractivism, plus the pollution in urban areas and in rivers and other sources of fresh water, weighs like a stone on the region’s transition towards a green economy that would rethink the management of these areas as a challenge, says Morón.

Other difficulties for the defense of the environment in the region are the destruction of the habitat, livelihoods and cultures of indigenous peoples, and the murders of environmental leaders and activists.

A view of a gold mining camp next to a river in the territory of the Yanomami, an ancient people who live in the extreme south of Venezuela and north of Brazil. Extractivism in search of precious minerals and hydrocarbons is a severe problem in the Amazon rainforest. CREDIT: Rogério Assis/Socio-Environmental Institute

Deforestation, a key issue

A major problem in Latin America, and particularly in South America, is deforestation of land for agriculture and livestock, or as a consequence of mining.

According to the report “Amazonia Viva 2022” by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), 18 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been completely lost, another 17 percent is degraded, and in the first half of 2022 the damage continued to grow.

The loss of the Amazon jungle can directly affect the livelihoods of 47 million people who live in that ecosystem which forms part of eight nations, including 511 different indigenous groups (totalling more than one million individuals), as well as 10 percent of the biodiversity of the planet, said the WWF.

At the fifth Amazon Summit of Indigenous Peoples, held in September 2022 in Lima, the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-environmental Information (RAISG) presented “Amazonia against the clock: A Regional Assessment on Where and How to Protect 80% by 2025”.

Brazil is the main focus of the deforestation, because 62 percent of the Amazon is located in that country, where the jungle is rapidly being cleared for agriculture and livestock, as well as the devastation caused by fires.

Indigenous people protest in the state of Pará, in northern Brazil, against companies that expand the agricultural frontier to produce biofuels, to the detriment of the lands that have been occupied by native peoples from ancient times. CREDIT: Karina Iliescu/Global Witness

For this reason, environmentalists around the world breathed a sigh of relief on Jan. 1, when moderate leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took over as president from the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, who turned a deaf ear to calls to curb deforestation and favored the expansion of the agricultural frontier.

Brazil “has shown that it is possible to reduce deforestation by implementing clear policies,” said researcher Paulo Barreto, co-founder of the Amazon Institute of Man and the Environment (IMAZON), based in the northern city of Belém do Pará, from which he spoke to IPS.

Barreto has faith in the environment minister appointed by Lula, Marina Silva, who already held that position when Lula was president, between 2003 and 2008.

Among the necessary policies that challenge the environmental agenda, according to Barreto, is the application of protective laws and, at the same time, addressing the social and economic issue represented by half a million smallholders in the Amazon and the Cerrado ecosystem.

The Cerrado is a more open forest, extending over 1.9 million square kilometers to the east of the Amazon basin.

According to the expert, policies aimed at reforestation and forest recovery “can be part of the solution in generating jobs and income, if, for example, payment is made for avoiding deforestation,” an initiative that he sees as positive in terms of bringing in foreign aid.

Barreto welcomed Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s launch of a new fund and new cooperation programs in the region to save the Amazon rainforest, based on extensive accumulated experience.

Peasant farmers from Peru’s Andes highlands engage in reforestation work and care for local fauna and water sources while expressing their native cultural traditions. CREDIT: Ecoan

Words and mining

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) says the restoration of 20 million hectares of degraded ecosystems in the region could generate 23 billion dollars in benefits over 50 years.

Peruvian biologist Constantino Aucca said that “In our countries and in general in the world there is a lack of political will to protect and recover our natural areas. More action is needed and fewer words,” he told IPS from New York, where he is staying temporarily.

In November Aucca received the Champions of the Earth award, the highest environmental honor given by the United Nations, in recognition of 35 years of work to restore the high Andean forests in 15 nature reserves in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru.

The Association of Andean Ecosystems that he heads has led the planting of three million trees in Peru and as many in neighboring countries, but Aucca insists that “much more is needed. Climate change is coming hard and fast and the Andes are already facing severe problems.”

“Enough egos, we need honest leaders who do not allow their heads to be turned by power. In some countries in our region a mining permit is granted in three weeks while studies for a protected natural area take five years,” he complained.

Unregulated illegal gold mining in southern Venezuela, eastern Colombia and northern Brazil is another major environmental challenge in the region, which combines the destruction of the natural environment – the habitat of native peoples – with the contamination of water and soil, Morón said.

Another problem is the presence of irregular armed actors, such as groups of garimpeiros (illegal miners) from Brazil, criminal “syndicates” from Venezuela or remnants of the guerrillas and other illegal armed groups from Colombia.

Morón stressed that illegal mining, bolstered by weak institutions in the region, as well as the oil industry that is active in most South American nations, is a constant source of environmental and social liabilities.

The harassment and murder of environmental defenders is another pending issue on the human rights agenda in Latin America. The Escazú Agreement, adopted by 25 countries in the region, is seen as a step forward in establishing policies and regulations for their protection. CREDIT: Diego Pérez/Oxfam

Drought, crime and indigenous people

In Argentina, three years of drought in most of the country have severely hit the indebted economy and public accounts, along with more than 6,700 fires that affected some 2.3 million hectares in the same period.

It is an urgent issue for Argentina, a global agricultural powerhouse whose economy depends on food exports to its clients, mainly Brazil, the United States and East Asia.

In addition, a serious regional problem is the murder of human rights defenders, including activists for the environment and the rights of indigenous peoples.

Of the 1,733 murders of environmental activists documented between 2012 and 2021 around the world, 68 percent were committed in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Colombia was the most dangerous country for them between 2020 and 2021, accounting for 33 of the 200 murders documented in that period by the Global Witness organization.

In this sense, the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Escazú Agreement because it was adopted in that Costa Rican city in March 2018, has a key role to play.

The agreement, signed by 25 countries and ratified by 14, seeks to ensure “adequate and effective measures to recognize, protect and promote all the rights of human rights defenders in environmental matters, including their right to life, personal integrity, freedom of opinion and expression.”

The sources interviewed also agreed on the need to give priority to indigenous peoples and local communities in all pending environmental management in the region, since their habitat is directly at stake in the short term.

The Escazú Agreement also provides an effective way of taking care of the territory and paying attention to the social debt that has accompanied the many decades of environmental degradation.

Headquarters in Caracas of the state-owned National Telecommunications Commission, which has closed more than 100 radio stations this year for not complying with the requirements it has established, which NGOs criticize for eliminating windows of expression and information for communities. CREDIT: Conatel

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jan 9 2023 (IPS)

More than 100 radio stations were shut down by the Venezuelan government this year, accentuating the collapse of the media and further undermining the already meager capacity of citizens to stay informed.

In Venezuela’s provinces, “radio stations had become the last or only window for citizens to stay informed, and now they are being rapidly lost,” journalism professor Mariela Torrealba, co-founder of the media observatory Medianálisis, told IPS."We have a populatce that is not only impoverished, but deeply uninformed, with access mainly to the official media line, fertile ground for hoaxes or disinformation campaigns, and without the capacity to build public opinion references with other people.” -- Marianela Torrealba

The wave of closures carried out by the state-owned National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel) comes at the end of what the journalists’ unions call an “information desert” – a long decade of measures that have reduced the space for the rights of expression and information, in a country governed since 1999 by a self-styled leftist government with a gradual authoritarian drift.

Most of the stations closed this year are small private or community enterprises that did not meet all the requirements set by Conatel to maintain their permits, and they were often stations with programming segments that were critical of the national or local authorities.

Venezuela, a country of 28.5 million people, most of whom live in the north near the Caribbean Sea, had more than 100 printed newspapers a decade ago. But over 70 closed down because during years of exchange controls and state monopoly of foreign currency, it became more and more difficult to import printing paper.

Several of the main national newspapers, as well as the private television news station, were sold to firms that changed their editorial line. Radio stations critical of the government, such as the pioneer Radio Caracas Radio, founded in 1930, were unable to renew their operating licenses.

A number of media outlets moved to the internet, without achieving the audiences or readership of the past, and hundreds of journalists and other media workers who lost their jobs in the cascade of downsizing of media outlets other than state-owned ones also migrated to other countries or occupations.

Venezuela has lived through a decade of crisis marked by a recession that reduced its gross domestic product by up to 75 percent, several years of hyperinflation and sharp depreciation of its currency, harsh political clashes and social crisis, which pushed more than seven million Venezuelans to leave the country.

Journalists and other press workers take part in a protest in the plains area of Venezuela over the closure of radio stations. Most of the stations forced off the air operated in western and central states of the country. CREDIT: Sntp

Poor and uninformed

Torrealba said her organization holds small events with the public in the interior of the country who are asked how they stay informed, and “very few say through the media. Most of them say they use the social networks, but in a patchy manner because of weak internet access or lack of electricity.”

For example, in Yaritagua, a city in the center-west of the country, with a population of about 100,000 and an agricultural environment, 40 people, mostly older adults, were surveyed by activists in a soup kitchen in December.

Only three had email, and 14 said they had cell phones, but almost all of those devices actually belonged to a child, grandchild or neighbor.

“We have a populatce that is not only impoverished, but deeply uninformed, with access mainly to the official media line, fertile ground for hoaxes or disinformation campaigns, and without the capacity to build public opinion references with other people,” Torrealba said.

Radio Caracas Radio, a pioneer station with an editorial line critical of the government, had to go off the air in 2019 because the authorities refused to renew the frequency concession that it had used uninterruptedly since 1930. Every year dozens of radio stations in Venezuela are shut down. CREDIT: RCR

Goodbye information, hello music

Ricardo Tarazona, head of the National Union of Press Workers in Yaracuy, a small central-western state with some 700,000 inhabitants, told IPS that in his state “the closure of radio stations continues, with at least five this year, after 14 stations were shut down in 2014.”

“Seven of the 14 recuperated their signals and reopened, but without the news, opinion and community reporting spaces that they had before, and they dedicate themselves now to playing music and to advertising,” said Tarazona.

The remaining stations “are constantly called upon to chain themselves to the signal of VTV,” the government television station, “and no longer give space to producers and communicators dedicated to reflecting the voices of the communities,” he added.

Carlos Correa, director of the NGO Espacio Público, a defender of freedom of expression and the right to information, told IPS that many private radio stations “without needing to be told to do so by an official body, stick to the information provided by government TV.”

This is one of the explanations why the mandatory radio and television broadcasts that President Nicolás Maduro gave intensively, up to several times a week, during the first few years after he took office in 2013, have diminished. In practice, they are hardly necessary anymore.

View of the city of Maracaibo and the 8.7 km bridge that crosses the lake that bears its name. It is the capital of the western oil-producing state of Zulia, the most populated in the country, where 33 radio stations were closed this year. CREDIT: Megaconstrucciones

Dollars and ratings

Correa described this year’s shutdown of radio stations as part of a broader movement of groups aspiring to open radio stations and even networks of stations, and also blamed the influence of regional or municipal political leaders who wish to have their own media outlets or stations that are favorable to them.

Radio advertising, which plummeted in the second decade of this century along with the Venezuelan economy as a whole, has revived along with commercial activity, mainly in the context of a rebound in the Venezuelan economy of up to 12 percent this year, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

The Venezuelan Chamber of the Broadcasting Industry issued a statement saying that “practically all of the radio stations closed by Conatel are clandestine,” and harm legally registered stations because they interfere with their signal.

One difficulty that dozens of radio stations have not been able to overcome, two radio broadcasters told IPS anonymously, is that Conatel sets numerous requirements and delays the evaluation of the documents presented by those requesting to regularize the use of their radio frequency.

They said that owners of closed radio stations often refrain from publicly voicing their criticism and complaints, waiting for Conatel to lift the punishment.

Correa pointed out that the technical study that radio stations are required to produce is estimated to cost between 5,000 and 10,000 dollars, a figure that is easy to cover for a station with resources but too costly for a small provincial one.

Espacio Público and other NGOs, as well as the National Journalists Association and the Press Workers Union, have criticized the fact that administrative procedures outweigh the need to guarantee the right to pluralistic information in the official evaluation of radio stations.

With the closure of radio stations, several thousands of workers have been left unemployed. For example, when Sonora 107.7 FM, which had been broadcasting for 20 years in the city of Araure, in the west-central plains of the country, went off the air on Dec. 12, 25 people lost their jobs.

Estimating the size of lost audiences is more difficult, but for example in the oil-producing state of Zulia (in the northwest bordering Colombia), home to nearly five million inhabitants and with a regional governor who is in the opposition, 33 radio stations were closed this year.

Marianela Balbi, of the Press and Society Institute, warned in a recent university forum that “total and partial news deserts have formed in regions where nearly 14 million Venezuelans live.”

The United Nations and the Organization of American States’ rapporteurs for freedom of expression also issued a joint statement on Aug. 30 warning about the situation of the media and journalists in Venezuela.

“The government-ordered closure of media outlets and/or seizure of their equipment increasingly limit citizens’ access to reliable information from independent sources, while accentuating a general atmosphere of self-censorship among the media,” they said in their statement.

The World Food Program has been active in Venezuela since last year, delivering bags of food to families of schoolchildren in some poor areas, such as remote areas accessed by river in the Arismedi municipality, in the southwestern plains state of Barinas. CREDIT: Gabriel Gómez/WFP

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Dec 15 2022 (IPS)

The social crisis and humanitarian emergency in Venezuela became international headline news again once the government and the opposition, bitter adversaries for two decades, agreed to direct three billion dollars in state funds held abroad to social programs.

When the pact was signed on Nov. 26, renowned nutritionist Susana Raffalli published a photograph of the legs of a girl whose height is eight centimeters shorter than what is appropriate for her age. “I measured her today. Her growth has been irreversibly stunted,” she said.

“Between the first announcement of the social roundtable (meetings to that purpose were already held in 2014) and the one signed today in Mexico, a generation of Venezuelans like her was born. The agreement is not a trophy. It is a commitment to hope,” Raffalli stated.

The Social Agreement signed in Mexico “is an important contribution, which could mean urgent aid for children, the elderly, the disabled and indigenous people, whose situation is extremely critical,” Roberto Patiño, founder of Alimenta la Solidaridad, a network of soup kitchens for children, told IPS.

The resources involved in the agreement are Venezuelan state funds frozen in the United States and European nations that in 2019 refused to accept the re-election of President Nicolás Maduro, in power since 2013, adopted sanctions and recognized opposition lawmaker Juan Guaidó as president.

Now, in talks between the government and the opposition, with the mediation of governments from this region and Norway, an agreement was reached to unfreeze part of the funds and allocate them to social programs under United Nations supervision.

The United States and European countries are participating in the deal as sanctioning parties and the UN as manager of the released funds and social programs covered by them.

“These are absolutely insufficient resources in the face of the crisis, but well-managed they can have a positive impact given the country’s complex humanitarian emergency,” Piero Trepiccione, coordinator of the network of social centers in Latin America and the Caribbean run by the Catholic Jesuit order Society of Jesus, told IPS.

The HumVenezuela Platform, made up of dozens of civil society organizations, has maintained since 2019 that the social situation in this South American country is a complex humanitarian emergency, based on its records on food, water and sanitation, health, basic education and living conditions.

The sharp deterioration in the living conditions in this country over the last decade has gone hand in hand with the decline of the Venezuelan economy – a collapsed oil industry and several years of hyperinflation – whose most visible international consequence has been the migration of seven million Venezuelans.

Renowned nutritionist Susana Raffalli published, as an example of a generation of children born and growing up with malnutrition and other problems in Venezuela, a photograph of the legs of a girl who, the day the government-opposition agreement was reached, was eight centimeters shorter than the appropriate size for her age. CREDIT: Susana Rafalli/Twitter

Barrier against life

In recent years, U.S. sanctions and the political clash with other governments, as in the case of Colombia, a neighbor with which the borders and the transit of people and goods were closed, have had a major impact.

For example, tragedy struck the low-income family of Michel Saraí, a five-year-old girl with pneumonia who was treated at a small hospital in La Fría, a small town in the southwest near the border with Colombia, which lacked the equipment needed for the necessary tests and treatment.

When her health took a turn for the worse on Nov. 30, her parents decided not to take her to the public hospital in the regional capital, San Cristóbal, because they did not have the dozens of dollars charged there to accept patients, who must bring their own supplies and pay for tests.

A Civil Defense ambulance, with fuel donated by a neighbor – gasoline is scarce in the state of Táchira and others – took the girl and her mother some 25 kilometers to the border bridge in the town of Boca de Grita, so that she could be treated free of charge in the cities of Cúcuta or Puerto Santander, on the Colombian side.

With the border formally closed, the Colombian military agreed to receive the ambulance due to the emergency, but the Venezuelan National Guard refused to allow passage of the vehicle carrying the little girl connected to oxygen.

“We had no money to offer them to see if they would let her get through,” the father, Jonathan Pernía, told local reporters a few days later.

In desperation, the mother and an aunt accepted what seemed like the only alternative: disconnecting her from the oxygen, placing her on a wheelbarrow – “as if she were a sack of potatoes,” Pernía lamented – and running with her through the rain to the Colombian side of the bridge, where another ambulance was waiting for them. But the little girl arrived without vital signs.

At the morgue of the hospital in San Cristobal her parents picked up the body. A week later they were still trying to find the money needed to pay the burial expenses.

Jonathan Pernía, the impoverished father of a little girl who died when an ambulance was prevented from crossing the border between Venezuela and Colombia to give her emergency treatment, shows journalists the bill for the funeral expenses, which he has not been able to cover either. CREDIT: Courtesy of Bleima Márquez

Figures behind the crisis

In Venezuela, poverty – defined as those who cannot afford the basic food basket – currently affects 81.5 percent of the population (90.9 percent in 2021), according to the Living Conditions Survey of the Andrés Bello Catholic University, which surveyed 2300 households throughout the country. This is the first time in seven years that it has gone down, partly attributable to a rebound in the economy and remittances from migrants.

Meanwhile, multidimensional poverty – which takes into account housing, education, employment, services and income – fell from 65.2 percent in 2021 to 50.5 percent in 2022, and extreme poverty dropped from 68 percent in 2021 to 53.3 percent in 2022.

Venezuela is the most unequal country in the Americas, and along with Angola, Mozambique and Namibia is one of the most unequal in the world, as the richest 10 percent earn 70 times more (553.20 dollars per month on average) than the poorest 10 percent (7.90 dollars).

Seven million children are in school, down from 7.7 million in 2019, and an estimated 1.5 million children and adolescents are not in the educational system. Preschool and daycare coverage is just 56 percent.

The survey reported an improvement in formal employment and income this year, with average monthly earnings of 113 dollars for public employees, 142 dollars for the self-employed, and 150 dollars for people working in private sector companies.

As a consequence, food insecurity declined from 88 percent of Venezuelans worried about running out of food in 2021, to 78 percent, while the proportion of people who have gone a whole day without eating dropped to 14 percent, from 34 percent in 2021.

More than 90 percent of poor households have received food assistance from the government -especially carbohydrates- but only one third receive these products monthly.

In health, according to the survey, the use of public services is decreasing (70 percent) and health care is becoming more expensive because, while prices in private clinics are skyrocketing, 13 percent of those who turned to public services had to pay in outpatient clinics and 16 percent in hospitals, and in 65 percent of the cases they had to pay themselves for the medicine that was prescribed for them.

Venezuelan government and opposition negotiators, meeting in Mexico with that country’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and Norwegian mediator Dag Nylander, agreed to help address social needs in their country, as a preliminary step to a possible agreement to solving the political crisis. CREDIT: National Assembly of Venezuela

Mexican formula

Jorge Rodríguez, president of the legislative National Assembly and the ruling party’s lead negotiator, said that with the funds released after the agreement reached in Mexico, the infrastructure and materials in 2300 schools will be covered, and the vaccines required in accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines will be purchased.

Medicine for oncological and HIV patients will be obtained, radiotherapy programs, blood banks and at least 21 hospitals will be revived, while more than one billion dollars will be allocated to the national electricity grid.

The World Food Program (WFP), meanwhile, which now delivers food to families of 100,000 schoolchildren in poor areas in the north of the country, hopes to raise funds to provide meals to more than one million people by the end of 2023.

According to Trepiccione, of the Jesuit network, resources should be directed “to the recovery of the infrastructure of hospitals and schools, which are in terrible condition, because that generates a chain of jobs, services and economic activity along with the obvious improvements in the provision of health care and the quality of education.”

“The same can be said of reactivating the electrical system, hit by blackouts that affect above all the economy and the life of people in the western part of the country,” he added.

Patiño, from the network of soup kitchens, said priorities were “programs for early childhood care, pregnant women, school feeding, as well as care for the elderly and indigenous communities, segments where many are dying too young due to lack of urgent health care.”

Groups of retirees and pensioners hold constant demonstrations in Caracas and other cities in protest against their tiny pensions, which in Venezuela are equal to the legal minimum wage and this December barely reached the equivalent of nine dollars for the entire month. CREDIT: Courtesy of Efecto Cocuyo

Government pensions, which are equal to the minimum wage, were equivalent to 30 dollars at the beginning of the year, but with the depreciation of the local currency they are equivalent to just nine dollars per month as of this December.

“We must also emphasize that this social agreement is absolutely insufficient in the face of the precarious conditions that exist in our country. These are resources that will be exhausted and the needs will not disappear,” said Patiño.

In his view, “the only thing that can really solve the crisis, the best possible social program, is a decent job, with a sufficient income and with a social security and public health program that takes care of the most needy.”

Funds for the agreement, frozen in banks in industrialized countries, will be released gradually under the supervision of a government-opposition committee and with UN agency management to tender, implement and oversee the programs, in 2023 and 2024.

And over the coming year new meetings will be held and further political agreements are expected, which may lead to an easing or lifting of sanctions and, eventually, to an improvement in the living conditions of Venezuela’s 28 million people.

View of the bulk fuel plant in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Because the kingdom needs oil prices to remain high to balance its budget, it pushed OPEC and its allies to decide on a production cut as of Nov. 1. CREDIT: Aramco

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Nov 1 2022 (IPS)

The decision to cut oil production by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies as of Nov. 1 comes in response to the need to face a shrinking market, although it also forms part of the current clash between Russia and the West.

The OPEC+ alliance (the 13 members of the organization and 10 allied exporters) decided to remove two million barrels per day from the market, in a world that consumes 100 million barrels per day. The decision was driven by the two largest producers, Saudi Arabia – OPEC’s de facto leader – and Russia.

The cutback “is due to economic reasons, because Saudi Arabia depends on relatively high oil prices to keep its budget balanced, so it is important for Riyadh that the price of the barrel does not fall below 80 dollars,” Daniela Stevens, director of energy at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, told IPS.

The benchmark prices at the end of October were 94.14 dollars per barrel for Brent North Sea crude in the London market and 88.38 dollars for West Texas Intermediate in New York."Notwithstanding Mohammed bin Salman's sympathy for Putin, the cut was due to his concern about the balance of the world oil market, and not to support Russia." -- Elie Habalián

“At the time of the cutback decision (Oct. 5) oil prices had fallen 40 percent since March, and the OPEC+ countries feared that the projected slowdown in the global economy – and with it demand for oil – would drastically reduce their revenues,” Stevens said.

With the cut, “OPEC+ hopes to keep Brent prices above 90 dollars per barrel,” which remains to be seen “since due to the lack of investment the real cuts will be between 0.6 and 1.1 million barrels per day and not the more striking two million,” added Stevens from her institution’s headquarters in Washington.

A month ago, the alliance set a joint production ceiling of 43.85 million barrels per day, not including Venezuela, Iran and Libya (OPEC partners exempted due to their respective crises), which would allow them to deliver 48.23 million barrels per day to the market.

But market operators estimate that they are currently producing between 3.5 and five million barrels per day below the maximum level considered.

The alliance is made up of the 13 OPEC partners: Algeria, Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, plus Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan and South Sudan.

The giants of the alliance are Saudi Arabia and Russia, which produce 11 million barrels per day each, followed at a distance by Iraq (4.65 million), United Arab Emirates (3.18), Kuwait (2.80) and Iran (2.56 million).

In July, U.S. President Joe Biden met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom he discussed human rights and abundant oil supplies for the global market. A few months later Riyadh led the decision for an oil cut that has been seen as a betrayal by Washington. CREDIT: Bandar Algaloud/SRP

United States takes the hit

U.S. President Joe Biden was “disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” a White House statement said.

The price of gasoline in the United States has soared from 2.40 dollars a gallon in early 2021 to the current average of 3.83 dollars – after peaking at five dollars in June – a heavy burden for Biden and his Democratic Party in the face of the Nov. 8 mid-term elections for Congress.

Biden visited Saudi Arabia in July, while the press reminded the public that during his 2020 election campaign he talked about making the Arab country “a pariah” because of its leaders’ responsibility for the October 2018 murder in Istanbul of prominent opposition journalist in exile Jamal Khashoggi.

The U.S. president said he made clear to the powerful Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman his conviction that he was responsible for the crime. But the thrust of his visit was to urge the kingdom to keep the taps wide open to contain crude oil and gasoline prices.

Hence the U.S. disappointment with the production cut promoted by Riyadh – double the million barrels per day predicted by market analysts – which, by propping up prices, favors Russia’s revenues, which has had to place in Asia, at a discount, the oil that Europe is no longer buying from it.

Biden then announced the release of 15 million barrels of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve – which totaled more than 600 million barrels in 2021 and just 405 million this October – completing the release of 180 million barrels authorized by Biden in March, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that was initially supposed to occur over six months.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Vladimir Putin chat cordially during a visit by the Russian leader to Riyadh in October 2019. The two major oil exporters lead the 23-state alliance that upholds production cuts to prop up prices. CREDIT: SPA

Shift in Washington-Riyadh relations

Karen Young, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University in New York, wrote that “oil politics are entering a new phase as the U.S.-Saudi relationship descends.”

“Both countries are now directly involved in each other’s domestic politics, which has not been the case in most of the 80-year bilateral relationship,” she wrote.

“….(M)arkets had anticipated a cut of about half that much. Whether the decision to announce a larger cut was hasty or politically motivated by Saudi political leadership (rather than technical advice) is not clear,” she added.

Saudi leaders could apparently see Biden as pandering to Iran, its archenemy in the Gulf area, with positions adverse to Riyadh’s in the conflict in neighboring Yemen, and would resent the accusation against the crown prince for the murder of Khashoggi.

Young argued that “the accusation that Saudi Arabia has weaponized oil to aid Russian President Vladimir Putin is extreme,” and said “The Saudi leadership may assume that keeping Putin in the OPEC+ tent is more valuable than trying to influence oil markets without him.”

Gasoline prices in the United States, while down from their June level of five dollars per gallon, are still at a high level for many consumers ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

More market, less war

OPEC’s secretary general since August, Haitham Al Ghais of Kuwait, said on Oct. 7 that “Russia’s membership in OPEC+ is vital for the success of the agreement…Russia is a big, main and highly influential player in the world energy map.”

Writing for the specialized financial magazine Barron’s, Young stated that “What is certainly true is that energy markets are now highly politicized.”

“The United States is now an advocate of market manipulation, asking for favors from the world’s essential swing producer, advocating price caps on Russian crude exports and embargoes in Europe,” Young wrote.

For its part, the Saudi Foreign Ministry rejected as “not based on facts” the criticism of the OPEC+ decision, and said that Washington’s request to delay the cut by one month (until after the November elections, as the Biden administration supposedly requested) “would have had negative economic consequences.”

In its most recent monthly market analysis, OPEC noted that “The world economy has entered into a time of heightened uncertainty and rising challenges, amid ongoing high inflation levels, monetary tightening by major central banks, high sovereign debt levels in many regions as well as ongoing supply issues.”

It also mentioned geopolitical risks and the resurgence of China’s COVID-19 containment measures.

The two million barrel cut was decided “In light of the uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks, and the need to enhance the long-term guidance for the oil market,” said the OPEC+ alliance’s statement following its Oct. 5 meeting.

Oil analyst Elie Habalian, who was Venezuela’s governor to OPEC, also opined that “notwithstanding Mohammed bin Salman’s sympathy for Putin, the cut was due to his concern about the balance of the world oil market, and not to support Russia.”

Latin America, pros and cons

Stevens said the oil outlook that opens up this November will mean, for importers in the region, that their fuels will be more expensive but probably not by a significant amount, and net importers in Central America and the Caribbean will be the hardest hit.

Exporters will benefit from higher prices. Brazil and Mexico have already increased their exports of fuel oil, and Argentina and Colombia have hiked their exports of crude oil. And higher prices would particularly benefit Brazil and Guyana, which are boosting their production capacity.

Argentina could have benefited if it had begun to invest in production years ago, but its financial instability left it with little capacity to take advantage of this moment. And Venezuela not only faces sanctions, but upgrading its worn-out oil infrastructure would require investments and time that it does not have.

Venezuelan migrants stranded in Guatemala after their journey to Mexico was cut short by new restrictions issued by the United States. Most of them, unable to afford to return to their home country, await possible humanitarian return flights. CREDIT: IMG

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Oct 28 2022 (IPS)

Thousands of Venezuelans who have crossed the treacherous Darien jungle between Colombia and Panama, or who have made the perilous journey through Central America and Mexico to reach the United States, have found themselves stranded in countries that do not want them, unable to continue their journey or to afford to return to their country.

Unexpectedly, on Oct. 12, the U.S. government announced that it would no longer accept undocumented Venezuelans who crossed its southern border, would deport them to Mexico and, in exchange, would offer up to 24,000 annual quotas, for two years, for Venezuelan immigrants to enter the country by air and under a new set of requirements.

“We were already in the United States when President Joe Biden gave the order, but they put us in a van and sent us back to Mexico. It’s not fair, on the 12th we had already crossed into the country,” a young man who identified himself as Antonio, among the first to be sent back to the border city of Tijuana, told reporters in tears.

He was one of approximately 150,000 Venezuelans who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border this year to join the 545,000 already in the U.S. by the end of 2021, according to U.S. authorities.

Raul was in a group that took a week to cross the jungle and rivers in the Darien Gap, bushwhacking in the rain and through the mud, suffering from hunger, thirst, and the threat of vermin and assailants. When he arrived at the indigenous village of Lajas Blancas in eastern Panama, he heard about the new U.S. regulation that rendered his dangerous journey useless.

There he told Venezuelan opposition politician Tomás Guanipa, who visited the village in October, that “the journey is too hard, I saw people die, someone I could not save because a river swept him away, and it was not worth it. Now what I have to do is return, alive, to my country.”

In Panama, as in Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala and of course Mexico, there are now thousands of Venezuelans stranded, some still trying to reach and cross the U.S. border, others trying to get the funds they need to return home.

They fill the shelters that are already overburdened and with few resources to care for them. Sometimes they sleep on the streets, or are seen walking and begging for food or a little money, abruptly cut off from the dream of going to live and work legally in the United States.

That aim was fueled by the fact that the United States made the possibility of granting asylum to Venezuelans more flexible, as part of its opposition to the government of President Nicolás Maduro, which U.S. authorities consider illegitimate.

In addition, it established a protection status that temporarily allowed Venezuelans who reached the U.S. to stay and work.

Venezuela has been in the grip of an economic and political crisis over the last decade which, together with the impoverishment of the population, has produced the largest exodus in the history of the hemisphere: according to United Nations agencies, 7.1 million people have left the country – a quarter of the population.

Venezuelan migrants walk in Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez between the Rio Grande and the wall that separates them from the United States, a border that they will no longer be able to cross on foot but only by air and with express permission from Washington. CREDIT: Rey R. Jáuregui/Pie de Página

Caught up in the elections

The flood of Venezuelan immigrants pouring across the southern border coincided with the tough campaign for the mid-term elections for the U.S. Congress in November, which could result in the control of both chambers by the Republican Party, strongly opposed to Democratic President Biden.

Republican governors and candidates from the south, strongly opposed to the government’s immigration policy and flexibility towards Venezuelans, decided to send busloads and even a plane full of Venezuelan asylum seekers to northern localities governed by Democratic authorities.

Thus, through misleading promises, hundreds of Venezuelans were bussed or flown and abandoned out in the open in New York, Washington, D.C. or Martha’s Vineyard, an island where millionaires spend their summers in the northeastern state of Massachusetts.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International denounced the use of migrants as political spoils or as a weapon in the election campaign.

Against this backdrop, the Biden administration changed its policy towards Venezuelans, closing the country’s doors to them at the southern border, reactivating Title 42, a pandemic public health order that allows for the immediate expulsion of people for health reasons, and reached an agreement with Mexico to return migrants to that country.

The 24,000 annual quotas provided as a consolation, for migrants who have sponsors responsible for their support in the United States, plus requirements such as not attempting illegal border crossings or not having refugee status in another country, is almost equivalent to the monthly volume of Venezuelans who tried to enter the U.S. this year.

A family of migrants reaches the end of their journey through the dangerous Darien jungle, between Colombia and Panama, on their long journey to reach the border between Mexico and the United States. But a new U.S. immigration measure prohibits access to the U.S. for Venezuelans. CREDIT: Nicola Rosso/UNHCR

What happens now?

In the immediate future, those who were on their way will be left in limbo and will now have to return to their country, where many sold everything – from their clothes to their homes – to pay for their perilous journey.

Hundreds of Venezuelans have begun to arrive in Caracas on flights that they themselves have paid for from Panama, while in Mexico and other countries they await the possibility of free air travel, of a humanitarian nature, because thousands of migrants have been left destitute.

There are entire families who were already living as immigrants in other countries, such as Chile, Ecuador or Peru – where there are one million Venezuelans in Lima for example – but decided to leave due to a hostile environment or the difficulties in keeping jobs or finding decent housing, in a generalized climate of inflation in the region.

This is the case told to journalists by Héctor, who with his wife, mother-in-law and three children invested almost 10,000 dollars in tickets from Chile to the Colombian island of San Andrés, in the Caribbean, from there by boat to Nicaragua, and by land until they were taken by surprise by the U.S. government’s announcement, when they reached Guatemala.

Now, in contact with relatives in the United States, he is considering the possibility of returning to the country he left three years ago for Chile, or trying to continue on, while waiting for another option to enter the U.S.

The United States has reported that crossings or attempts to cross its border by undocumented migrants have decreased significantly since Oct. 12.

Among the justifications for its action at the time, Washington said it sought to combat human trafficking and other crimes associated with irregular migration, and to discourage dangerous border crossings in the Darien Gap.

According to Panamanian government data, between January and Oct. 15 of this year, 184,433 undocumented migrants reached Panama from the Darien jungle, 133,597 of whom were Venezuelans.

After his return to the country on Oct. 25, Guanipa the politician told IPS that at least 70 percent of the migrants who crossed the Darien Gap in the last 12 months were Venezuelans, along with other Latin Americans and people from the Caribbean or African nations.

And, after collecting personal accounts of the death-defying crossing, he urged his fellow Venezuelans to “for no reason risk their lives” on this inhospitable stretch that is the gateway from South America to Central America.

At every Latin American border, migration rules are becoming more restrictive and Venezuelans wait patiently to be allowed access, often to try to reach the farthest destinations in the hemisphere, such as Chile or the United States. CREDIT: Gema Cortés/IOM

The Venezuelan government blames the massive exodus and the dangers faced in the Darien Gap on its political and media confrontation with the United States, while claiming that the numbers of reported migrants are wildly inflated and that, on the contrary, more than 360,000 Venezuelans have returned to the country since 2018.

Heads of United Nations agencies and international humanitarian organizations believe that given the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, the flow of migrants will continue, and they therefore call on host countries to establish rules and mechanisms to facilitate the integration of the migrants into their communities.

While the United States has slammed the door shut on Venezuelan migrants, in countries such as Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Mexico and some Central American nations, new rules are also being prepared to modify the policy of extending a helping hand to Venezuelans.

For example, Ecuador overhauled the Human Mobility Law to increase the grounds for deportation, such as “representing a threat to security”, and Colombia – which has received the largest number of Venezuelans – eliminated the office for the attention and socioeconomic integration of the migrant population.

Panama will require visas for those deported from Central America or Mexico, Peru is working to change regulations for the migrant population, and the government of Chile, which in the past has expelled hundreds of migrants on flights, announced that it will take measures to prevent unwanted immigration.

Of the 7.1 million Venezuelans registered as of September as migrants by U.N. agencies, the vast majority of them having left the country since 2013, almost six million were in neighboring Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Entire families have not only sought to reach the United States or Europe, but have traveled thousands of kilometers, in journeys they could never have dreamed of, with stretches by bus but often on foot, through clandestine jungle passes or cold mountains, to reach Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina or Chile.

Others tried their luck in hostile neighboring Caribbean islands and dozens lost their lives when the overcrowded boats in which they were trying to reach safe shores were shipwrecked.

Faced with the explosive phenomenon, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) established a platform for programs to help migrants in the region and host communities, which is coordinated by a former Guatemalan vice-president, Eduardo Stein.

Of their budget for 2022, based on pledges from donor countries and institutions, for 1.7 billion dollars, they have only received 300 million dollars, in another sign that Venezuelan migrants have ceased to play a leading role on the international stage.

A partial view of the city of Punto Fijo, with the Cardón refinery in the background, on the Paraguaná peninsula, projected as a special economic zone overlooking the Caribbean in northwest Venezuela. CREDIT: Megaconstrucciones

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Sep 3 2022 (IPS)

Venezuela is preparing to replicate the experience of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), a mechanism with which more than 60 countries have tried to draw investment and accelerate economic growth, while under its avowedly socialist government a “silent neoliberalism” is gaining ground.

The aim of the SEZs is “to provide special conditions to gain the economic confidence of investors from all over the world, and productive development to put an end once and for all to oil rentism,” said President Nicolás Maduro when he promulgated the Organic Law of Special Economic Zones on Jul. 20.

The SEZs, “90 percent of which are in the global developing South, are a catalyst for economic restructuring processes and go hand in hand with the expansion of the neoliberal economy,” sociologist Emiliano Terán, a researcher with the non-governmental Venezuelan Observatory of Political Ecology, told IPS.

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), there were 5,383 SEZs in the world in 2019 and another 508 under construction, of which 4,772 were in developing countries – 2,543 in China alone and 737 in Southeast Asia.

In Latin America and the Caribbean there were 486 – 73 in the Dominican Republic, some 150 in Central America, seven in Mexico and 39 in Colombia.

SEZs are mainly commercial, such as free ports or free trade zones, where import quotas, tariffs, customs or sales taxes are eliminated; industrial, with an emphasis on improving infrastructure available to companies; urban or mining ventures; or export processing.

Their main characteristic is that, in order to stimulate investment, especially foreign investment, there are more flexible regulations on taxes, investment requirements, employment, paperwork and procedures, access to resources and inputs, export quotas and capital repatriation.

One of the camping areas improvised by tour operators on La Tortuga, an island with no permanent population where tourist developments are being planned that are triggering environmentalist alarms, as they may severely affect the still almost pristine ecosystem of the island and its surrounding Caribbean waters. CREDIT: Jorge Muñoz/Aleteia

An eye on the environment

In Venezuela, the first five zones decreed are the arid Paraguaná Peninsula, in the northwest; Margarita Island, in the southeastern Caribbean; La Guaira and Puerto Cabello, which are the largest ports, along the central portion of the Caribbean coast; and the remote La Tortuga Island, some 200 kilometers northeast of Caracas.

Paraguaná (an area of 3,400 square kilometers) is home to a large oil refining complex, and Margarita Island (1,020 square kilometers) has for decades been a sales tax-free zone and a tourist mecca for Venezuela’s middle class.

Puerto Cabello and La Guaira are essentially ports for imports to the populated north-central part of the country, whose main exports, oil and metals, are shipped from docks in the production areas in the east and west.

Hotel complexes, airports, marinas and golf courses are being planned for La Tortuga, which covers 156 square kilometers and has no permanent population. Environmental groups warn that its waters, reefs and the island itself are home to five species of turtles, 73 species of birds and dozens of species of fish and cetaceans.

Sociologist Emiliano Terán (R) with economists Luis Crespo (C) and Carlos Lazo (L) take part in a forum at the Central University of Venezuela critical of the announced special economic zones. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

Limited economy

“The environmental issue is a concern, but it is hard to believe that the government has the resources or the investors for the number of hotels planned for La Tortuga,” economist Luis Oliveros, a professor at the Metropolitan and Central Universities of Venezuela, told IPS.

The decreed Venezuelan SEZs “seem more like announcements than realities, and although we like the government to think of growth and development hand in hand with private investment, much more is needed. It has yet to be clarified what exactly the government is pursuing with these zones,” Oliveros said.

In Venezuela “creating SEZs has limitations, such as the sanctions (imposed by the United States and the European Union) and the need to generate macroeconomic stability and legal certainty, which are pending issues,” he added.

After seven years of sharp decline – and three years of hyperinflation – Venezuela’s annual gross domestic product, which exceeded 300 billion dollars a decade ago, now stands between 50 and 60 billion dollars, according to economists.

Oil production, the main lever of the economy and source of tax revenues, has shrunk and is starved of new investments, while the State desperately seeks income by exporting crude oil at a discount or selling gold that is extracted at the cost of great environmental damage in the southeast of the country.

Attracting investment may be an uphill struggle for SEZs that have still not been fully mapped out, considering that, for example, major companies have not knocked on the door to raise oil production – 600,000 barrels per day when a decade ago it was three million – despite the favorable signals sent by the United States.

Since March, informal contacts between Washington and Caracas, prompted by the impact of the war in Ukraine on the world energy market, have explored, without success so far, easing sanctions and other measures to bring Venezuela back to the U.S. oil market with new investments.

Juan Griego Bay in the north of Margarita Island, already half a century old as a sales tax-free zone and tourist mecca for Venezuela’s middle class, is now one of the country’s five special economic zones. CREDIT: Mipci

Neoliberal plan

In the southeast of the country, an area rich in gold, iron, diamonds, coltan and other minerals, the 112,000 square kilometer Orinoco Mining Arc (larger than Bulgaria, Cuba or Portugal) was decreed in 2016 as a “strategic development zone”, and its control and management was handed over to the armed forces.

The Mining Arc “has been a precedent for a new model promoted by the State to attract investments, but with depredation of the environment and restriction of wages and workers’ rights,” warned Luis Crespo, professor of Economics at the Central University of Venezuela, during a forum at that university.

“The special economic zones are part of a silent neoliberal adjustment plan driven forward by the government of President Maduro,” said Crespo.

The Venezuelan SEZ law – enacted by the legislature, which has been boycotted by most of the political opposition – states that its purpose is to develop a new production model, promote domestic and foreign economic activity, and diversify and increase exports.

It also aims to promote innovation, industry and technology transfer, create jobs and “ensure the environmental sustainability of production processes.”

The terminology about socialism or transition to socialism, frequent in the political discourse of the government and the ruling United Socialist Party, is absent from the legislation of the SEZs and from the repeated calls for private capital.

“The example of China is being followed, as it is by other countries, in using the SEZs as a showcase for heterodox forms of capital accumulation, in a process of progressive neoliberalization of the economy, as the oil model of production and distribution of wealth is being exhausted,” Terán said.

He added that “the SEZs cannot be seen only in terms of macroeconomic indicators,” as they become “zones of social and environmental sacrifice, with a new political geography of dispossession, and with the cheapening of labor, especially that of women workers.”

According to UNCTAD, although there are differences in SEZs from one country to another and within countries, their common features include having a clearly defined geographic area, a regulatory regime that is distinct from the rest of the economy, and special infrastructure support for the development of their activities.

A view of the border crossing between Colombia and Venezuela over the Simón Bolívar Bridge (in southwest Venezuela and northeast Colombia), when there was free transit and intense activity before the border was closed and relations between the two countries broke down. Now Caracas proposes to create a binational special economic zone in the area. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

More politics

Venezuela’s SEZs will be guided by a council to be freely appointed by the president, each will have a single authority to be named by the president, and the decree establishing one of the zones must be considered by the legislature within 10 working days or it will be approved, without discussion.

Areas such as the SEZs, the Mining Arc or special military zones in practice modify the political-administrative division of the country, which only in theory is a federal republic with 23 states plus a capital district.

In another political move, on Aug. 23 Maduro publicly proposed to his new Colombian counterpart, leftwing President Gustavo Petro, who took office on Aug. 7, the creation of a special binational economic zone between southwestern Venezuela and northeastern Colombia.

“We are going to propose to President Petro the construction of a large economic, commercial and productive zone between the department of Norte de Santander (Colombia) and the state of Táchira (Venezuela),” Maduro said.

Diplomatic, political, commercial and transit relations between the neighboring countries have been severed since February 2019.

In Táchira, business spokespersons have expressed their support for this Andean state of 11,000 square kilometers to obtain special regimes that favor trade with the neighboring country, and their peers in Colombia are betting on a recovery of bilateral trade, which prospered until the first decade of this century.

Terán described the projected creation of the SEZs as a possible “new pact of elites in Venezuela,” after more than 20 years of acute political confrontation, but warned that “there is an alternative, because although fragmented, dispersed and with a new look, protests against these pacts have never ceased.”

Only artisanal fishing is allowed in the waters surrounding the Galapagos Islands, where it is possible to catch large, valuable fish. The area is a marine reserve, a nursery of species for the eastern Pacific and is off-limits to industrial fishing. But its continental shelf is increasingly under siege by the Chinese fleet. CREDIT: MAG Ecuador

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Aug 18 2022 (IPS)

Illegal and excessive fishing, mainly attributed to Chinese fleets, remains a threat to marine resources in the eastern Pacific and southwest Atlantic, as well as to that sector of the economy in Latin American countries bathed by either ocean.

Worldwide, “one out of every five fish consumed has been caught illegally, 20 percent of the nearly 100 million tons of fish consumed each year, and generally in areas closed to fishing,” veteran Venezuelan oceanographer Juan José Cárdenas told IPS.

An emblematic case, said the researcher from the Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, is the Galapagos Islands, 1,000 kilometers west of the coast of Ecuador, surrounded by a 193,000-square-kilometer protected marine area, a hotbed of species in great demand for human consumption.“For several species in the eastern Pacific we are already at the edge of the environmental precipice with legal fishing; a small additional fishing effort, illegal fishing, is enough to affect the sustainability and food security that these species provide." -- Juan José Cárdenas

Galapagos, an archipelago totaling 8,000 square kilometers, is famous for its unique biodiversity and as a natural laboratory used by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) for his theories on evolution.

The Ecuadorian Navy indicated that in June they maintained surveillance of 180 foreign vessels, including fishing boats, tankers and reefers, fishing near the 200 nautical mile (370 kilometers) limit of the Galapagos Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), also known as the continental shelf.

In 2017, 297 vessels were detected, 300 in 2018, 245 in 2019, and 350 in 2020. At the beginning of each summer they fish off Ecuador and Peru, then off of Chile, before crossing the Strait of Magellan and heading up the southwest Atlantic off Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.

In the Pacific they have fished intensively for giant squid (Dosidicus gigas). According to the satellite tracking platform Global Fishing Watch, 615 vessels did so in 2021, 584 of which were Chinese.

Alfonso Miranda, president of the Committee for the Sustainable Management of the South Pacific Giant Squid (CALAMASUR), made up of businesspersons and fishers from Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru, said that this year 631 Chinese-flagged vessels have entered Ecuadorian and Peruvian Pacific waters.

Miranda says that Peruvian fishermen report incursions by Chinese ships in Peru’s EEZ, and he does the math: if Peruvian squid production reaches 500,000 tons, with revenues of 860 million dollars a year, some 50,000 tons taken by the foreign fleet means the loss of 85 million dollars a year.

The giant squid is the second most important fishing resource for Peru, after anchovy, and its catch generates more than 800 million dollars a year and thousands of jobs, which is why the country seeks to prevent incursions into its waters by vessels of other flags, especially from China. CREDIT: Government of Peru

Accumulated problems

Cárdenas the oceanographer pointed out that the area is rich in tuna, of which more than 600,000 tons are caught annually (10 percent of the world total), but posing a serious threat to sustainability, for example with the use of fish aggregating devices or FADs that alter even the migratory habits of this species.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 34 percent of tuna stocks in the seven most widely used tuna species are exploited at biologically unsustainable levels.

For several species in the eastern Pacific, including some whose fishing is banned such as sharks, “we are already at the edge of the environmental precipice with legal fishing; a small additional fishing effort, illegal fishing, is enough to affect the sustainability and food security that these species provide,” said Cárdenas.

Pedro Díaz, a fisherman in northern Peru, told the Diálogo Chino news platform in the port of Paita that “we don’t just want to fish and catch. We want to allow the giant squid to breed and grow so that it can generate employment and foreign currency for the State.

“We also want the giant squid to have a sustainable season, and what will those who come after us, the young people who take up fishing, find?” he added.

FAO fisheries officer Alicia Mosteiro Cabanelas told IPS from the U.N. agency’s regional headquarters in Santiago, Chile that “it is not always possible to measure the impact of a given fleet operating in areas adjacent to the exclusive economic zone of coastal nations.”

This is because “there is not always a stock assessment of the target species, nor is there information available on retained, discarded and incidental catch, or on the number of vessels authorized to operate by the respective flag States and unauthorized vessels.”

In 2017 Ecuador seized the Chinese vessel Fu Tuang Yu Leng after finding in its holds more than 6000 sharks illegally caught in the Galapagos Marine Reserve. CREDIT: DPN Galapagos

Mosteiro Cabanelas noted that “overfishing always has a direct impact on the sustainability of resources, generating a decrease in income for the fishing sector and in the availability of fishery products for local communities and consumers in general. Latin America is no exception.”

And for FAO it is clear that “illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a global problem that compromises the conservation and sustainable use of fishery resources,” said the expert.

It also “harms fishers’ livelihoods and related activities, and aggravates malnutrition, poverty and food insecurity.”

The media in coastal countries also report that fishers in Latin America – citing cases from Brazil, Chile and Mexico – are violating bans and extracting valuable species whose fishing is not permitted. Ecuadorians have exported large quantities of shark fins, after declaring the sharks as bycatch.

Shark fins are highly sought after in places like Hong Kong – where shark fin soup can cost up to 200 dollars – and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates the global trade in shark and ray meat at 2.6 billion dollars.

The Argentine Navy carries out surveillance of a Chinese fishing vessel at the limits of the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone, which is rich in squid, hake and prawns. CREDIT: Argentine Naval Prefecture

Keeping an eye on poachers

Last year, some 350 Chinese-flagged vessels fished during the first half of the year off Argentina’s territorial waters, where there is a wealth of another kind of squid, the Argentine shortfin squid (Illex argentines), as well as Argentine hake, prawns and other prized species.

It is a fleet that, according to Argentine ship captains, commits IUU with unreported transshipments that camouflage illegal fishing, transferring fish between vessels and turning off the transponders that indicate the ships’ location.

A report published in June by Oceana, an international non-governmental organization that tracks IUU fishing, claimed that more than 400 Chinese-flagged vessels fished for about 621,000 hours along the Argentine EEZ between 2018 and 2021, and disappeared from tracking systems more than 4,000 times.

The Argentine government has reported that, in contrast to the 400,000 tons per year of Argentine shortfin squid that landed in its ports at the end of the 20th century, since 2015 less than 100,000 tons per year are caught, with just 60,000 in 2016.

Industry reports in the local media indicate that foreign vessels (Chinese, South Korean, Taiwanese or Spanish) have caught up to 500,000 tons of squid annually, near or within its EEZ – a volume that can represent between five and 14 billion dollars a year.

Fish aggregating devices or FADs are used in the eastern Pacific to facilitate and increase tuna catches, aggravating the threat of overfishing and even posing a risk of altering the migratory habits of the species. CREDIT: WWF

And the problem is not only seen in Argentina: last Jul. 4, the Uruguayan Navy captured in its territorial waters, 280 kilometers from the Punta del Este beach resort, a Chinese-flagged vessel, the “Lu Rong Yuan Yu 606”, dedicated to squid fishing, which was apparently fishing furtively at night in that area.

As the holds were empty, it could not be established with certainty that it was fishing in the Uruguayan EEZ, and the ship was released after payment of a fine for contravening other navigation regulations.

There was no repeat of the 2017 experience in Ecuador with the “Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999”, a vessel that functioned as a large refrigerator to store the catch of other vessels, which was operating illegally in the Galapagos Marine Reserve.

About 500 tons of fish, including vulnerable and protected species, were found on the ship, especially some 6,000 hammerhead sharks.

The Ecuadorian justice system handed prison sentences to the captain of the ship and three crew members for the crime of fishing for protected species, and fined them 6.1 million dollars. As the payment was not made, the vessel became the property of the Ecuadorian Navy.

China has formally banned its fleet from operating in prohibited waters and warned captains that it will withdraw licenses from those who violate these rules, and President Xi Jinping gave assurances to that effect to his Ecuadorian counterpart Guillermo Lasso when the latter visited Beijing in February.

Far from the shores of Latin America, on May 24 in Tokyo, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, U.S. President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) bloc, agreed on new surveillance mechanisms for the Chinese fishing fleet.

At the same time, Washington is working with countries such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Panama on agreements to help monitor the Chinese fleet, the largest in the world, which has 17,000 ships catching 15 million tons a year in the world’s seas.

The U.S. initiative is part of its renewed global confrontation with the Asian giant, the so-called new cold war.

The "bodegones" are Venezuela's new commercial boom. They sell imported products, mostly from the United States despite the sanctions, and have spread into middle and lower-middle class neighborhoods in Caracas and other cities, to attract consumers who receive remittances of foreign currency from the millions of Venezuelans who have migrated in recent years. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jul 7 2022 (IPS)

Economic sanctions against countries whose behavior is reproached by the West operate as punishment although they fail in their declared political objectives, and in cases such as Venezuela the contrast is clearly on display in the windows of high-end stores that sell imported goods.

“Experience has shown that sanctions are an instrument that does not achieve the supposed objective, political change, as in the cases of Cuba and now also in Venezuela,” Luis Oliveros, professor of economics at the Metropolitan and Central universities of Venezuela, told IPS.

"There is a club of sanctioned countries, they feed off each other, share information and mechanisms to circumvent sanctions, and they cooperate with each other, such as Russia with China or Iran, or Cuba and Iran with Venezuela, even obtaining support from third party countries such as Turkey." -- Luis Oliveros
Moreover, “there is a club of sanctioned countries, they feed off each other, share information and mechanisms to circumvent sanctions, and they cooperate with each other, such as Russia with China or Iran, or Cuba and Iran with Venezuela, even obtaining support from third party countries such as Turkey,” said Oliveros.

The most commonly used sanctions are bans on exports and imports, financial transactions, obtaining technology, spare parts and weapons, and travel and trade; the freezing of assets; the withdrawal of visas; bans on entering the sanctioning country; the expulsion of undesirable individuals; and the blocking of bank accounts.

Russia became embroiled in a thick web of sanctions since its troops invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, and measures against its products, operations, institutions and authorities, which numbered 2,754 before the conflict, according to the private organization Statista, have now climbed to 10,536 and counting.

Following Russia on that list of punishments of various kinds are Iran, which faces 3,616 sanctions, Syria (2,608), North Korea (2,077), Venezuela (651), Myanmar (510), and Cuba (208).

The major sanctioners are the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia, Japan, Israel and Switzerland.

In the case of Iran and North Korea, sanctions have mainly punished their nuclear development programs. Pyongyang has not stopped its missile tests and Tehran flips the switch on its nuclear program according to the vagaries of Washington’s international policy.

A pro-government march in Caracas against the sanctions imposed by the United States on civilian and military officials and several public companies, as a measure of pressure against the government of President Nicolás Maduro. The president blames the sanctions for all the country’s problems, which have driven 6.1 million people to migrate since he first took office. CREDIT: VTV

The Russian impact

Like a boomerang, sanctions sometimes hurt their proponents, and in the case of Russia their effects are felt in every corner of the planet.

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned on Jun. 23 that sanctions “are becoming a weapon in the world economy.”

“Economic sanctions deliver bigger global shocks than ever before and are easier to evade,” observed Nicholas Mulder, author of “The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War.”

Mulder, an assistant professor in the history department of Cornell University in the U.S. state of New York, argues that “not since the 1930s has an economy the size of Russia’s been placed under such a wide array of commercial restrictions as those imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine.” He was referring to measures against Italy and Japan after the invasions of Ethiopia and China.

The difference is that “Russia today is a major exporter of oil, grain, and other key commodities, and the global economy is far more integrated. As a result, today’s sanctions have global economic effects far greater than anything seen before,” says Mulder.

Industrialized economies in Europe and North America have been impacted by energy price hikes, and as sanctions remove Russian raw materials from global supply chains, prices are rising and affecting the cost of imports and the finances of less developed countries, says the author.

In Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, there are fears of increased food insecurity as supplies of grain, cooking oil and fertilizers from Ukraine and Russia have been disrupted and the costs have been driven up.

“The result of these changes is that today’s sanctions can cause graver commercial losses than ever before, but they can also be weakened in new ways through trade diversion and evasion,” Mulder warned in a paper released in June by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Nazanin Armanian, an Iranian political scientist exiled in Spain, argues that “the tactic of shocking the economy of rivals and enemies suffers from two problems: neglecting the risk of radicalization of those who feel humiliated and ignoring the network of connections in a world that is a village.”

She cites the example of Iran, which has found multiple ways to export its oil. That is also the case of Cuba, which has endured and circumvented U.S. sanctions for more than 60 years.

With respect to Cuba, it was then President Barack Obama (2009-2017) who said on Dec. 17, 2014 that “It is clear that decades of U.S. isolation of Cuba have failed to accomplish our enduring objective of promoting the emergence of a democratic, prosperous, and stable Cuba.”

The U.S. sanctions against Venezuela do not prevent luxurious commercial establishments in Caracas and other Venezuelan cities from selling U.S. and European products for consumption by a minority with ample access to foreign currency, benefited by the tax exemption on remittances. Meanwhile, four-fifths of the population are immersed in poverty. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

The case of Venezuela

It was also Obama who on Mar. 15, 2015 declared in an executive order the government of Venezuela as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” and that year sanctions were initiated against Venezuelan authorities, companies and public institutions.

Since then, Washington has sanctioned with a range of measures dozens of officials and their families, military commanders, government leaders, businesspersons who negotiate with the government and some one hundred companies, both public and private.

The EU also adopted sanctions, as did Canada and Panama, and U.S. sanctions also affect third country companies that do business with the Venezuelan government.

When the United States stopped buying Venezuelan crude oil and banned the sale of supplies to produce gasoline, Caracas appealed with some success to Iran, which has also sent equipment and personnel to refurbish Venezuela’s rundown refineries.

But the most visible demonstration of the ineffectiveness of the sanctions is that imported products are displayed and sold in hundreds of stores in Caracas and other cities and towns, even if only a minority can afford to buy them regularly.

There has been a proliferation of “bodegones” – up to 800 have been counted in Caracas, a crowded city of 3.5 million people located in a valley surrounded by mountains – the name given to new or quickly refurbished stores to give them a sophisticated appearance and satisfy tastes or the need to acquire imported foodstuffs and other perishable products, after years of widespread shortages.

The bodegones, as well as appliance stores and a handful of high-end restaurants and bars, have been the battering ram of the de facto dollarization that reigns in Venezuela, alongside the disdain for the bolivar as currency and the use of the Brazilian real and the Colombian peso in the border areas with those two countries.

Washington allows the export of food, agricultural, medicinal and hygiene products, while U.S. brands or imitations are imported from Asia, as well as household appliances, telephone and computer equipment and accessories. Wines, liquors and cosmetics arrive without major problems from Europe.

An apparent “bonanza bubble” has arisen, limited to trade and consumption by a minority, fed with income from the State – which sells minerals and other resources with a total lack of transparency -, and with remittances from the millions of Venezuelans who have migrated to escape the crisis over the last eight years.

In that period, poverty has expanded until reaching four-fifths of the country’s 28 million inhabitants and they have also suffered three years of hyperinflation. For this crisis, the government of President Nicolás Maduro tirelessly and systematically blames the sanctions from abroad.

The sanctions “have been an excellent business for the Maduro administration, because not only did it unify its forces based on a common external objective, but it forgot about paying the foreign debt and, under a state of emergency, exports without transparency or accountability, in a black market,” said Oliveros.
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In addition, “a good part of the opposition put all its eggs in the sanctions basket and forgot about doing political work, and that is why the public, after so many years of difficulties, are questioning the results of that strategy,” he added.

In short, “instead of helping to bring about political change, what the sanctions have done is to keep Maduro in power,” said Oliveros.

In the cases of Venezuela and Iran, Washington and its European partners are interested in obtaining gestures of change – in the Venezuelan case, resumption of dialogue with the opposition – that would justify a relaxation of sanctions, which in turn would lead to an increase in oil supplies, now that Russian oil is facing restrictions.

Meanwhile, with respect to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, as well as countries opposed by the West on other continents, sanctions continue to function, in the eyes of public opinion in the countries that impose them, as a sign of political will to punish governments considered enemies, troublemakers or outlaws.

View of the United Nations General Assembly, which on three occasions this year has censured the invasion of Russian forces in Ukraine and where many countries have expressed non-alignment with the positions taken by the contenders. CREDIT: Manuel Elias/UN

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jun 20 2022 (IPS)

Numerous countries of the developing South are distancing themselves from the contenders in the war in Ukraine, using the debate on the conflict to underscore their independence and pave the way for a kind of new de facto non-alignment with regard to the main axes of world power.

Meetings and votes on the conflict at the United Nations and in other forums, the search for support or neutrality, and negotiations to cushion the impact of the economic crisis accentuated by the war are the spaces where the process of new alignment is taking place, according to analysts consulted by IPS.

Once Russian forces began their invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the United States “activated and consolidated the transatlantic alliance with Europe to confront Moscow, and has been seeking to draw in allies in Asia, but the situation there is more complicated,” said Argentine expert in negotiation and geopolitics, Andrés Serbin, speaking from Buenos Aires."But if the confrontation escalates and spreads beyond Europe, it will be difficult to stay non-aligned. Our countries will then have to learn to navigate in troubled waters.” -- Andrés Serbin

Serbin, author of works such as “Eurasia and Latin America in a Multipolar World” and chair of the academic Regional Economic and Social Research Coordinator, believes that many Asian countries do not want any alignment that would compromise their relationship with that continent’s powerhouse, China.

The rivalry between the United States and China – a growing trading partner and investor in numerous developing nations – fuels the distancing demonstrated by countries of the so-called Global South in the face of the conflict in Ukraine, a priority for the entire West.

Doris Ramirez, professor of International Relations at the Javeriana University in Colombia, argues that “now countries are better prepared to take a position and vote in international forums according to their interests and not according to ideological alignments.

“Emblematic cases are India, which is not going to break its excellent relations with Russia, its arms supplier for decades, or Saudi Arabia, now more interested in its relationship with China as the United States withdraws from the Middle East,” Ramirez observed from Bogota.

The struggle between nations that were ideologically aligned – with the United States or the then Soviet Union – led in 1961 to the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which sought to stay equally distant from the dominant blocs while promoting decolonization and the economic interests of the South.

Its promoters were prominent leaders of what was then called the Third World: Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Sukarno of Indonesia, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Josip Broz “Tito” of Yugoslavia and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.

Over the years, the Non-Aligned Movement grew to 120 members, many of which were clearly aligned with one of the blocs and, although it still exists formally, its presence and relevance declined not only with the disappearance of its leaders, but also when the socialist bloc ceased to exist as such after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The display board of the votes at the UN General Assembly on the suspension of Russia from the Human Rights Council reflected the diversity of opinions, with more countries taking independent positions with respect to those of the Western powers. CREDIT: UN

UN display board reflects new non-alignment

The invasion of Ukraine was quickly addressed by the 193-member UN General Assembly, which on Mar. 2 debated and approved a resolution condemning the invasion by Russian forces and demanding an immediate withdrawal of the troops, reiterating the principle of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries.

After 117 speeches, the vote – for, against, abstentions and absences – reflected on the display board at UN headquarters, became a first snapshot of the current “non-alignment” – the decision by many countries of the South not to subscribe to the positions of Moscow or its rivals in the West, led by the United States and the European Union.

The resolution received 141 votes in favor, five against (Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, Russia and Syria), 35 abstentions and 12 absences.

“It is difficult for a country to support an invasion, it is not possible to find within the UN or international law a formula to justify it,” said former Venezuelan ambassador Oscar Hernández Bernalette, who has been a professor at the University of Cairo, in Egypt, and the Central University of Venezuela.

Therefore, “in order not to remain in the orbit of Moscow or Brussels or Washington, abstaining from voting is a way to demonstrate neutrality,” said Hernández Bernalette.

Russian anti-aircraft units during maneuvers in Egypt in 2019. Moscow’s military cooperation partly explains the political position of African countries, distant from the stances taken by their former colonial rulers, and their growing ties with powers such as Russia and China. CREDIT: MinDefense Russia

Of the 35 countries that abstained, 25 were from Africa, four from Latin America (Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador and Nicaragua; Venezuela was unable to vote because of unpaid dues) and 14 from Asia, including countries with a strong global presence such as China, India, Pakistan and Iran, and former Soviet or socialist republics such as Laos, Mongolia and Vietnam.

A second resolution was discussed and approved at the Assembly on Mar. 24, to demand that Russia, on humanitarian grounds in view of the loss of civilian lives and destruction of infrastructure, cease hostilities.

The vote was practically the same, with 140 votes in favor, the same five against, and 38 abstentions, which this time also included Brunei, Guinea-Bissau and Uzbekistan.

A third confrontation took place on Apr. 7, to decide on the suspension of Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, made up of 47 states chosen by the General Assembly, which meets several times a year in Geneva, Switzerland.

Moscow’s critics then drummed up 93 votes in the Assembly, but there were 24 against and 58 abstentions – evidence of independence and criticism of the web of alliances and institutions that guide international relations.

This time, countries that previously abstained, such as Russia’s neighbors in Central Asia, and Algeria, Bolivia, China, Cuba and Iran, voted against the proposal, and many of those who previously supported it, such as Barbados, Brazil, Kuwait, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, abstained.

The Summit of the Americas this June in Los Angeles, California served as an opportunity for a group of heads of state in the hemisphere to distance themselves from Washington by boycotting the meeting in protest against the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. CREDIT: US State Department

Grouping together, but in a different way

Bilateral and group forums and negotiations are being put on new tracks as the conflict in Ukraine drags on, with new proposals for understandings and alliances, and also new fears.

The impact of the war on the energy markets – as well as on food and finance – was immediate and created room for new realignments. Thus, the United States, as it watched the price of fuel rise at its gas stations, went in search of more oil supplies, from the Middle East to Venezuela.

Washington held two significant summits in recent weeks: one in Jakarta, with 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) interested in sustaining their relationship with the US while maintaining the ties woven with China, and another in Los Angeles, California: the ninth Summit of the Americas.

This triennial meeting served as an opportunity for governments in this hemisphere to demonstrate their independent stance and refrain from automatic alignment with Washington. In addition to the three countries not invited (Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela), the heads of state of seven other countries decided not to attend, to protest the exclusion of their neighbors.

This snub marked the Summit, in which Washington was barely able to cobble together an agreement on migration, with other issues pushed to the backburner, while Latin American countries, still lacking a united front, continue to develop their relations with rivals such as Russia and China.

In the Caribbean, in Asia and especially in Africa, the old relationship between former colonial powers such as France and the United Kingdom – which are confronting Moscow as partners in the Atlantic alliance – and their former colonies is also waning.

“The world no longer works that way,” said Hernandez Bernalette. “For many African or Asian countries, the relationship with new economic players such as China is much more important, in addition to the ties, including military ties, with Russia.”

However, the loose pieces in the international scaffolding also give rise to fears and problems that seriously affect the developing South, such as the possibility of an escalation of the conflict between China and Taiwan, or the grain shortages resulting from the war in Ukraine and affecting poor importers in Africa and Asia.

Serbin said that for the countries of the South, and in particular for those of Latin America, the conflict “offers opportunities, for the placement of energy or food exports for example, provided that the necessary agreements and balances with rival powers are maintained.”

“But if the confrontation escalates and spreads beyond Europe, it will be difficult to stay non-aligned. Our countries will then have to learn to navigate in troubled waters,” he concluded.