Inter-American Foundation
3 | IAF’s Response to COVID-19 and Emerging Challenges The COVID-19 pandemic unleashed the worst health and economic crisis in Latin American and Caribbean history. Experts suggest that the crisis has unwound a decade of development progress. The number of people living in poverty in the region rose by 22 million to an estimated 209 million in 2020—in other words, nearly one in three people.14 When the pandemic struck Latin America and the Caribbean, already vulnerable communities faced heightened food insecurity, income loss, health risks, and gender-based violence. IAF grantees joined the front lines helping people survive by distributing food and personal protective equipment, investing in economic recovery, and supporting longer-term environmental and economic resilience across the region. The IAF quickly adjusted its grant processes to facilitate rapid community-level response, providing additional emergency funding and allowing grantees to reprogram funds for critical activities. Our response was timely enough that, according to the Center for Effective Philanthropy, 84% of our grantees managed to continue their most important work as safely as possible and without interruption.15 Our extensive network of grassroots partners in remote and underserved areas followed communities’ lead, working on three levels simultaneously: • Response: Delivering food, sanitary supplies, and locally-sourced protective equipment to keep communities healthy and safe. Disseminating accurate information to slow COVID-19 transmission. • Recovery: Investing in economic recovery to create opportunities for people to earn a living, return to school, and access services as economies reopen. • Resilience: Bolstering longer-term resilience against future economic, social, and environmental shocks in underserved communities. Our grantees pivoted quickly to working primarily virtually. Even as grantees remained committed to their core mandates like enterprise development and food security, most took on additional activities to help their communities weather the COVID-19 crisis: 72% supported basic needs, 44% invested in communications technology, and 21% provided micro-business support.
IAF Grantee Examples: Pivoting Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic IAF grantee Iniciativas para el Desarrollo de una Economía Alternativa y Solidaria (Ideas Comunitarias) had already trained more than 500 young leaders from migration-prone, Indigenous Mixteca communities of Oaxaca to develop income-generating projects and strengthen their organizations when the pandemic hit. In Oaxaca, access to education, health services, housing, and household assets is one of the lowest among Mexican states.16 In the state that already had the third-highest poverty level in Mexico at 57%, the economic impact of the pandemic has been severe.17 In response, supplemental IAF support enabled Ideas Comunitarias to fund new youth-led initiatives in 16 communities with 170 participating families to address food scarcity, generate income, and inform community members about the virus and methods of preventing transmission. As a result, 441 people experiencing food shortages increased their access to food, 16 youth groups received support for income-generating activities, and 348 participants implemented new COVID-19 prevention practices to limit the spread of the pandemic.
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