2023 has been a standout year for the Americas. Each country faces a collection of political, cultural, and economic realities that, while unique, remain in conversation with the rest of the region.
Based on our regional analysis, these are some of the top themes we’ve seen emerge and will continue to follow into the new year.
1. A Shifting Lefist Landscape in Latin America: Elections in Ecuador & Argentina
Last year, emotionally charged elections across Brazil, Chile, and Colombia brought new (and old) leftist governments into power, and the year ended with 6 of the region’s largest economies leaning left. However, in 2023, this same anti-incumbent streak has now swung some key Latin American elections in the other direction.
In October, Ecuador elected center-right President Daniel Noboa – the youngest president in the country’s history. A 35-year-old business heir to a banana empire, Noboa won on a platform of being a relatively “new” politician, his tough take on organized crime, which has risen sharply in the last year, and promises of increasing job opportunities in a stagnant economy.
Meanwhile, in late November, Argentina elected right-wing libertarian Javier Milei as its next leader. In a country battered by triple-digit inflation, a looming recession, and rising poverty, Milei’s radical views to fix the economy connected with weary voters, and he won with 56% of votes. Since his inauguration, Milei has acted quickly to implement a controversial “shock therapy” to the economy, which includes slashing public spending and devaluing the peso by over 50%.
Over the next year, the governance of these two countries will greatly impact the future of regional diplomacy, giving a new shade to last year’s “pink tide”. ”
2. Amazonian Solidarity: Symbolism progresses, but plans remain vague
The Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest and most biodiverse landscape shares its borders with 9 Latin American countries. However, current regulations for deforestation, mining, and extraction of the Amazon vary greatly across the region, leading to difficulties when discussing and implementing a collective approach to its conservation.
This August, President Luis Ignácio Lula da Silva of Brazil led the Belém Summit, in which 8 of the Latin American countries who share responsibility of the Amazon came together in a symbolic attempt to create a climate-conscious coalition towards safeguarding the rainforest. After a 14-year hiatus, the Amazon Cooperation treaty was revived, calling on developed nations to assist Latin American countries in their conservation with funding. Lula left the summit reaffirming, “Nature is in need of money”.
The culmination of the summit was the Belém Declaration, an agreement which sets the groundwork for law enforcement coordination between the 8 countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela), seeking to address issues such as widespread illegal mining and logging.
Despite the goodwill and symbolic cheer of unity, critics agree that the declaration left much to be desired. Its vague language and no measurable goals or concrete plans for how to implement these practical solutions, dissipate the summit’s initial mission. Although individual countries are still left to pursue their own conservation paths at year’s end, 2024 can build on the momentum started at the summit and turn the seeds of intent from a regional alliance into one shared, specific, and deliberate deforestation goal.
3. Climate Change: How Brazil coped & where clean energy can take the region
2023 will go down as the hottest year in human history. By the year’s mid-point, the Northern Hemisphere’s scorching summer months had already greatly shaped this statistic. It was no surprise when countries across Latin America began to report crushing heat indexes months before formally welcoming summer.
The early onset of El Niño, an irregular climate phenomenon occurring every two to seven years, pushed much of South America to experience record-breaking heat while still deep in its “winter season”. The red alert heat wave that swept across Brazil in October and November, pointed to a greater electricity crisis in the country. The surging use of fans strained an already vulnerable electric grid, leading to frequent outages across the metropolitan area over the course of weeks, calling into question the way individual governments care for a city’s infrastructure in times of environmental duress.
As the world continues to warm, the need to transition into greener forms of energy has become more pressing, and Latin America may be destined to play an important role in achieving the next phase of cleaner energy. But at what cost?
Home to 60% of the global lithium supply and 38% of copper reserves (key materials in producing renewable energy sources), the region faces a serious opportunity for growth in this sector in the coming years. Although these metals are key to the renewable transition, in countries like Panama and Ecuador, mining projects have been met with unpopular support for the industry’s environmental and social impacts.
While the president of the Inter-American Bank formally marked the region’s green energy opportunity by confirming a plan to boost lending by an additional $20bn, the region will have to confront how to it choose to sustainably and ethically lead this expansion.
4. Women in Mexico: Abortion access & an upcoming election
In September of 2023, Mexico’s Supreme Court voted to remove abortion from the federal penal code. This huge victory for abortion advocates builds on a 2021 ruling, when Mexico’s top court first decriminalized abortion in the state of Coahuila.
Since this year’s historic precedent, free abortions are now available at federal public health clinics and employees may no longer be penalized. Mexico’s decision is part of a greater regional trend expanding bodily autonomy – since the early 2000s more than 30 nations in Latin America have expanded abortion access. Shortly after Mexico’s ruling, Brazil’s Supreme Court opened a vote on whether abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy would be decriminalized nationwide.
As 2024 begins to take shape, Mexico will continue to assess the role of women with the chance to vote for its first-ever women president in June. Former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and senator Xóchitl Gálvez were selected as the candidates for the two major electoral groups. However, will the election of one of these female candidates further advance Mexico’s fight for women’s rights?
Despite abortion advances, Mexico still holds extremely high rates of femicide, and 70% of Mexican females over the age of 15, report experiencing some form of violence. This means that whoever is formally elected into Mexico’s highest leadership will need to consider serious reforms to the current laws protecting women across the country.
5. Is art the new industry to watch?: Expanding audience and pieces
The Americas are having a moment within the art industry. Two key art events from this year, helped to elevate both emerging and established artists, affirming the region’s presence within the global market.
São Paulo, the great economic center of South America, hosted the 35th Bienal, titled “Coreographies of the Impossible”. In its most diverse edition to date, this year’s Bienal focused primarily on artists from the “Global South”, 80% of which identify as non-white. With no chief curator claiming the event’s direction, the goal was to create an art event that encouraged transcending categories and structures with a focus on pieces that contributed to a contemporary artistic landscape of the region.
And most recently in Miami, the 2023 Art Basel expanded its reach to its largest audience to date– over 79,000 visitors attended the five-day fair. Of the nearly 300 galleries present, two-thirds of them were Latin American. Notable presentations of Latin America included a couple key Brazilian galleries, such as Galatea, which presented a demonstration of Rio de Janeiro-based artist Allan Weber’s photographs, offering intimate insights into daily life within the city’s favelas.
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