Much of Latin America’s Left Has a Blind Spot: The Environment
March 17, 2021
As center-left leaders in Europe and the U.S. prioritize the fight against climate change, the same cannot be said of their Latin American peers. Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaks during a press conference on March 10, 2021.Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images
SÃO PAULO – When former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made his much-awaited first speech as a de facto 2022 candidate last week, he cleverly projected himself as the exact opposite of Jair Bolsonaro: statesmanlike, centrist, pro-science and well-connected across the world. The former president also lambasted Bolsonaro’s mishandling of the pandemic, the economy and his controversial foreign policy, describing the former army captain as both divisive and incompetent.
Brazilian Democracy Is Holding Up But the Biggest Test Will Come in 2022
March 8, 2021
Jair Bolsonaro has so far fallen short of the worst doomsday predictions of becoming an authoritarian ruler. Brazil s President Jair Bolsonaro, Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco and President of Lower House Arthur Lira attend the opening session of the Legislative.Andre Borges/NurPhoto via Getty Images
SÃO PAULO – When in 2018 Brazilians elected as president a former army captain with an explicitly authoritarian rhetoric, who glorified the military dictatorship, worshipped a torturer and openly spoke about imprisoning his political opponents and undermining checks and balances, numerous scholars, journalists and policymakers expressed concern that irreparable damage would be done to Brazil’s democracy. Since then, Brazilian observers have almost constantly been on edge about the state of the country’s three-decade-old democracy and the risk of a return to the dark days of authorit
The Complex Task of Reviving Multilaterals in Latin America IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and World Bank Group President David Malpass.Samuel Corum/Gettty Images
SÃO PAULO – We all have witnessed how the pandemic aggravated the toxic mix of extreme inequality and poor public services in Latin America. While cash transfer programs and social distancing measures to combat the pandemic were enacted across the region, polarization and the risk of economic and political instability remain significant.
At first sight, this scenario provides a unique opening for multilateral institutions, such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to show their capacity to provide regional public goods and help countries mitigate the pandemic’s damage. Indeed, recognizing the importance of regional cooperation in tackling the pandemic’s aftermath, many countries in the regi