This tool tracks COVID-19 related fiscal spending policies announced by the 33 Latin America and Caribbean countries, updated every week.
The LAC Recovery Tracker brings transparency to regional government spending practices, both highlighting where funds are going and their potential economic, environmental, and social impacts. The Tracker is designed to showcase policy solutions and identify investment opportunities for governments and partners that are more impactful and sustainable.
Preliminary Results
Economies deploying a majority of sustainable recovery policies secure a stronger, more resilient, and sustainable future.
So far, Latin American and Caribbean countries are spending 2.2% of total recovery spending on green initiatives, missing crucial opportunities to achieve potential long-term economic growth, counter environmental crises and deliver significant social benefits.
Check out the LAC Recovery Tracker to see country breakdowns, sectoral breakdowns, and individual policy assessments.
Tracking matters
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted world economies, plunging millions into unemployment, insecurity, and poverty. Across the world, national governments are deploying significant recovery packages to immediately help their economies out of this downturn. These recovery programs have the potential to be powerful tools to solve the simultaneous crises of climate change and COVID-19, while inclusively protecting social welfare.
About this tool
The LAC Recovery Tracker tracks and assesses every individual COVID-19 related fiscal spending policy announced by 33 LAC countries for potential impacts on the environment and the socio-economy. The Tracker database is updated weekly by the Oxford University Economic Recovery Project. This data visualization is developed by UNDP and utilizes the Tracker data. It also draws inspiration from a report led by UNEP’s Latin America and the Caribbean Office and Oxford University Economic Recovery Project, “Is the COVID-19 economic recovery building a sustainable future? A snapshot from Latin America and the Caribbean”.
UNEP’s Latin America and Caribbean Office contributions are enabled by the financial support of the European Union, through the EUROCLIMA+ Programme, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).
Recovery packages across the region should finance the transformations needed for a green, digital and just future. The LAC Recovery Tracker also captures the economic, environmental and social impacts of the COVID-19 spending policies.
Methodology
Policies are assigned to one of 40 policy archetypes and 158 sub-archetypes which are assessed for environmental impacts, social impacts, and economic impacts.
A methodology document including a full list of archetypes, sub-archetypes, and assessments is available with the Global Recovery Observatory.
The Global Recovery Observatory
The LAC database is based on the Global Recovery Observatory (GRO), a live database of all COVID-19 related government fiscal spending across 89 countries. The LAC Recovery Tracker was developed as part of the GRO, an initiative led by the Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and housed under the Green Fiscal Policy Network – a partnership between the UN Environment Programme, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ).
