ECLAC presents a selection of key statistics on the development of the countries of the region

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) released today the Statistical Yearbook for Latin America and the Caribbean 2022available on the Internet, which presents a statistical synthesis that accounts for the sociodemographic, economic, and environmental development of the countries of the region.

This annual publication, one of the most important of the regional organization of the United Nations, constitutes a reference for those who wish to have comparable descriptive statistical data between countries and over time. This edition contains information that was available as of mid-December 2022.

He Statistical Yearbook 2022 It is organized into three chapters. The first presents demographic and social aspects that include indicators of population, work, education, health, housing and basic services, poverty and income distribution, and gender.

In the social field, the Yearbook data shows a slight recovery in some indicators after the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, poverty in Latin America reached 32.3% of the population, including 12.9% of the population in a situation of extreme poverty. These figures represent a slight drop compared to the previous year, of 0.5 percentage points in poverty and 0.2 points in extreme poverty.

The impact of the pandemic on employment continued despite the slight improvement in labor indicators. Indeed, the rate of participation of the population in economic activity for Latin America and the Caribbean rose to 61.4% compared to the minimum of 57.8% reached in 2020. On the other hand, there was a drop in the open unemployment rate, which went from 10.5% in 2020 to 9.3% in 2021. In both cases, the improvements registered in 2021 were not enough to reach the pre-pandemic values ​​of the aforementioned indicators.

The second chapter presents economic information referring to national accounts, balance of payments, foreign trade and price indices, among others.

The Yearbook shows that, in 2022, the economies of the region grew at an estimated rate of 3.7%, almost half the growth registered in 2021 (6.7%). This reflects, on the one hand, the exhaustion of the rebound effect in the 2021 recovery and, on the other, the impact and effects of restrictive monetary policies, greater limitations on fiscal spending, lower levels of consumption and investment, and the deterioration of the context. external.

Along with the slowdown in growth, inflationary pressures continued in 2022. The variation in the Consumer Price Index in Latin America reached 15.4% in 2022, higher than the 12.4% registered in 2021. Price dynamics of food, which has played an important role in the evolution of the general consumer price index, reached a variation of 13.2% in 2022, compared to 8.3% in 2021. The behavior of regional inflation is also correlated with the evolution of the prices of basic products, which between January and October 2022 have increased by 16.6% compared to the previous year, where the growth of 45.9% in the prices of energy products stands out, 36.8% in fertilizers and 19.5% for food and beverages.

Added to the complex internal scenario of the region is an unfavorable situation in the external sector. By 2021, Latin America and the Caribbean registered a current account deficit of the balance of payments of 1.5% of GDP, with a deterioration in the trade balance of the region as a whole, influenced by growth in imports of goods of 34.7%, higher than the 27.7% expansion of exports of goods. However, in 2021 foreign direct investment showed a recovery, with a growth in net flows of 14.0% compared to the fall evidenced in 2020 of 20.4%.

The third chapter offers statistics and environmental indicators of the region. Metrics on physical conditions, land cover, ecosystems, biodiversity, environmental quality, land, energy, water and biological resources, air emissions, disasters, human settlements, regulation and environmental governance stand out.

Historically, Latin America and the Caribbean has had a smaller contribution to climate change compared to other regions. However, the countries of this region are very vulnerable to its negative consequences: floods, storms, droughts and landslides, among others. In the year 2022 alone, 74 dangerous events and disasters occurred, causing more than 7 million people directly affected and more than a thousand people dead. The value of all damages and economic losses directly or indirectly related to disasters for the year 2022 in our region amounted to 1,789 million dollars.

Additionally, it can be seen that since 1990 the region increased its accumulated aquaculture production by more than 1,547%, going from 229,611 tons in 1990 to 3,781,004 tons in 2020. Likewise, it can be observed how fishing extraction has decreased by 22% . All this shows less pressure on these natural resources, which causes a less unfavorable impact on the environment.

Finally, this edition of the Statistical Yearbook includes information on environmental quality in the region through air quality (air pollution), which represents a significant environmental risk to human health. The results show that only 30% of the countries (10 out of 33) comply with the guidelines of the World Health Organization for particulate matter (PM2.5) and, unfortunately, 5 countries double the maximum allowed value.

He Statistic yearbook It is published in print and in web format and includes a selection of tables and graphs aimed at providing a summary of statistical information from a regional perspective. The interactive web version facilitates navigation and access to the information presented in its printed version, linking the graphs and statistical tables with the data series available in the ECLAC databases, which allows access to more detailed information and on a much longer historical period. It also includes an additional chapter where methodological aspects and references to the data sources used are explained.

The information that supports the Yearbook is part of the set of statistics available in CEPALSTATthe platform that gives access to all the updated statistical information of the countries of the region collected, systematized and published by ECLAC, allowing the region’s statistics to be viewed in the territory through its Geoportal.

Since most of the information comes from national statistical offices, central banks, international organizations and other official institutions, ECLAC invites users to pay attention to the sources and technical notes presented in this work. The data is obtained from international methodologies and standards in order to ensure the greatest possible comparability between countries, so these figures may not necessarily coincide with national data.