Impact by Regions, Countries & Territories

UNDP’s Global Programme supports crisis-affected contexts across all regions to strengthen the rule of law and human rights. In this section, we present five regional overviews, detailing our priorities and approach depending on the context, as well as feature select country and territory results from 2021.

Five contexts from the list (Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Mali and Yemen) illustrate the achievements of the Global Focal Point for the Rule of Law (GFP). In peacekeeping missions and transition settings, UNDP’s Global Programme works through the GFP to deliver integrated assistance with our UN partners.

GFP Global Focal Point Highlights

Overview

Latin America and the Caribbean is the region hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects of the pandemic and structural challenges deepened many of the region’s pre-existing inequalities, as the most vulnerable were disproportionately affected. This materialized in rising domestic violence (calls to helplines spiked in the wake of lockdowns); growing gaps in educational access across digital divides as in-person schools closed (66 percent of the richest quintile have an Internet connection at home, compared to 23 percent of the poorest quintile); widening gaps in employment and labour force participation between men and women (women are overrepresented in sectors negatively affected by the pandemic); and a divide between formal and informal workers in access to social protection schemes (between 35 and 82 percent of the labour force are excluded from contributory social insurance).1

Despite these challenges, the regional governance and peacebuilding team in LAC, with its network of regional projects SIGOB, CARISECURE, INFOSEGURA, supported more than 25 Country Offices in the region through integrated initiatives.

UNDP in LAC continued to support the governments in their efforts to ensure access to justice for all, including the most vulnerable, one of the main pillars for an effective governance, beyond recovery. For example, UNDP contributed to the development of national strategies on access to justice in Paraguay and Peru, helped implement strategies to enhance access to justice for women in Brazil and Honduras, and co-led transitional justice processes in Peru, Guatemala, Colombia and Mexico through an inclusion and sustainable development lens. Colombia, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru and Paraguay benefited from UNDP’s efforts to improve capacities of judiciary systems to advance inclusive and people centred services.

Regional efforts to fight criminality and increase safety and security brought certain positive results. By the end of 2021, the combined homicide rate of the Central American and Dominican Republic sub-region fell by almost ten points, from 30.7 to 21.0. This rate is now 1.4 points below than the rest of Latin America while in 2015 it was twice as high. Yet, violence, including gender-based violence (GBV), persisted throughout the region.3

In Central America, UNDP supported the development and launch of analytical tools to measure and promote further progress on SDG 16 to improve citizen security. In the Caribbean, a regional Citizen Security Conference offered a unique virtual experience. Over 400 security practitioners shared their knowledge with police and correctional officers on current considerations for the next frontier of digital transformation and the future of citizen security. The establishment of the first Caribbean Crime Observatory and Regional Crime and Violence Data Warehouse were also formalized during the conference. The development of the Police Records Management Information System (PRMIS) was nearly fully completed in the Caribbean region during 2021 and a pilot successfully commenced in Grenada, CariSECURE's flagship country with three police stations.

In line with the Secretary-General’s Call to Action for Human Rights, in Latin America and the Caribbean, UNDP scaled up its partnerships with the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR), Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GNHRI) and UN Environment Programme.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, UNDP will invest further efforts to strengthen the rule of law and promote peaceful and inclusive dialogue to place human rights, people-centred justice and security at the centre of its programme and policy support for sustainable development.