COVID-19 Spread in Latin America... KOICA Collaborates to Support Crisis Overcoming

Short- and Long-Term Support Measures to Overcome Health and Economic Crises in Latin American Countries Planned

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] KOICA (Korea International Cooperation Agency) announced on the 3rd that it will cooperate with the Latin American region to overcome the health care crisis caused by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) and the subsequent crises in food security, livelihoods, and education.

In Latin America, there are Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partner countries such as Chile, Korea's first FTA partner, Colombia, Peru, and five Central American countries. Companies in various sectors including garment manufacturing and automobiles have entered the market. The region actively exchanges with Korea, and KOICA allocates about 13.3% of its total budget (as of 2018) to development cooperation projects in Latin America.

However, COVID-19 is rapidly spreading in Latin America. The number of confirmed cases has exceeded one million, and in the past week, one-third of the world's new confirmed cases occurred in Latin America. In particular, Peru and Ecuador, KOICA partner countries, have recorded the highest number of COVID-19 deaths.

Each country responded to COVID-19 with lockdowns, but this caused job losses and a decrease in household income. Especially since 53% of workers in the region are informal workers and the poverty rate is relatively high, the economic shock is becoming uncontrollable. As a result, despite the severe spread of COVID-19, countries are reluctantly lifting lockdowns.

In this crisis situation, Latin American countries have shown great interest in Korea's quarantine model and have requested support. Accordingly, KOICA has established short- and mid-to-long-term plans to assist the Latin American region in responding to COVID-19 and is supporting the countries in various ways to overcome the health and economic crises.

KOICA has provided emergency supplies, medical supplies, and COVID-19 diagnostic kits to Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, and others.

Specifically, in Peru, medical staff in the capital Lima protested due to a shortage of personal protective equipment. KOICA supported more than 13,000 medical supplies including masks, protective suits, and face shields to medical staff at seven hospitals responding to COVID-19, including the Peruvian Ministry of Health. To share Korea's K-quarantine model, KOICA translated the Korean government's major COVID-19 response policy booklet, originally published in English, into Spanish and provided it to the host country's Ministry of Health and related agencies. The content was practically helpful and received favorable reviews from local media.

In Ecuador, as COVID-19 deaths surged, the medical and funeral systems were overloaded, and corpses were left on the streets. In response, KOICA urgently provided about $30,000 worth of medical supplies including N95 masks, face shields, and body bags to Quito Sur General Hospital, the metropolitan COVID-19 dedicated hospital, at the end of May.

In this regard, Ecuadorian President Len?n Moreno expressed gratitude to Korea on Twitter on May 30, saying, “We received 5,000 N95 masks, 1,000 face shields, 100 body bags, and 10,000 disposable medical masks from KOICA. We thank KOICA for its humanitarian support!”

Furthermore, KOICA is conducting untact (non-face-to-face) development cooperation for specific and prompt support. On the morning of the 3rd, a video conference was held at KOICA headquarters in Seongnam City with local officials in Colombia to share customized support plans. The meeting was attended by the Colombian Minister of Health, presidential advisors, and directors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. KOICA announced that it will cooperate to overcome the COVID-19 situation by strengthening integrated capabilities such as infectious disease diagnosis and prevention through a $5 million support package to Colombia, Korea's key quarantine support country in Latin America.

KOICA Director Lee Mi-kyung said, “When the international community's daily life returns to normal, our health security and economic situation will also improve,” and added, “Along with development cooperation projects, we will actively share Korea's excellent COVID-19 response cases with the Latin American region to overcome the crisis together.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.