The briefing ‘Paradox of Recovery in Latin America and the Caribbean. Growth with Persistent Structural Problems: Inequality, Poverty, Low Investment and Low Productivity’ stated so and was presented online in Santiago, Chile.

The ECLAC study warns that such rise does not ensure sustained growth since the social impact of the health crisis and the region’s structural problems sharpened and will continue to worsen.

In her presentation, ECLAC Executive Secretary Alicia Barcena called on countries to maintain emergency policies to strengthen a sustainable, fairer, more egalitarian and environmentally friendly economic recovery.

Barcena deemed as necessary the policies to boost the growth of more technology-intensive sectors that generate quality jobs, and the restructure of the health and education systems.

She also called for universalizing a basic emergency income, ensuring access to a basic food basket, strengthening support for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and encouraging cross-cutting policies to move towards a new development model.

ECLAC forecasts an average growth of 2.9 percent in the region in 2022, which implies a deceleration with respect to 2021, which, experts warn, could maintain the low growth dynamic prior to 2020.

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