My first trip to Salvador, Bahia was in 1996 during one of the many renovation waves of historic Pelorinho. I was traveling with my mother and as we walked around the historic center, we could feel that things were changing. There was a sense of uncertainty about who would be the future occupants of this community. One of our tour guides even told us if you come back, “we” may … [Read more...] about Centering Race in Salvador Bahia: Development and Sustainable Tourism
Judith Morrison
Senior Advisor for Social Development in the Gender and Diversity Division. She has over 20 years of international development experience and previously served as a Regional Director at the Inter-American Foundation, Program Director at the Inter-American Dialogue, and Executive Director at the Inter-Agency Consultation on Race in Latin America (IAC). Her work focuses on the best approaches to reach poor and vulnerable communities in Latin America, with an emphasis on the economic development of indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples. She has extensive experience brokering investments with the private sector and communities throughout Latin America and developed the first private-sector eco-development fund in Brazil. She holds a master’s degree in poverty alleviation and income distribution from MIT where she received the Carroll Wilson Award for international research and received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship.
Closing Racial Gaps in Employment in Latin America
The COVID-19 pandemic has had dramatic consequences for labor markets across Latin America. While data is not available for all countries ethnically diverse populations have been hard-hit. This has been especially true for African descendants when even before the pandemic faced barriers to accessing the labor market. In Brazil at least 7.6 million African descendants were … [Read more...] about Closing Racial Gaps in Employment in Latin America
The Vaccine and me – Responses for African descendants
The Promise of Community Collaboration The pandemic has exposed racial and ethnic disparities, but has also demonstrated how community level partnership, access to quality information and good communication can quickly bolster vaccine rates. African descendants in Latin America have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, due to factors such as limited … [Read more...] about The Vaccine and me – Responses for African descendants
Resilience and inclusive equitable recovery
Afro-descendants in Latin America COVID-19 has been a blow to Latin-America and the Caribbean. But, for the 100-150 million African descendants in the region, that represent 20-30% of the population, the impact has been particularly grave. African descendants have been disproportionately impacted due to inequalities in labor market access, education, and health services. The … [Read more...] about Resilience and inclusive equitable recovery
Exposure and Inequalities: African Descendants During COVID-19
Initial evidence that COVID-19 is reaching Afro descendant communities in Latin America is growing. Statistics in Brazil show that Afro-Brazilians are more likely to have severe respiratory symptoms that are lethal (more than 20%), while the Colombian Pacific coast, with a large Afro-Colombian and indigenous population, registered the first cases of coronavirus weeks ago, and … [Read more...] about Exposure and Inequalities: African Descendants During COVID-19