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Humanitarian Assistance in Review: Latin America and the Caribbean | Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 – 2017

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Countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region are highly vulnerable to a range of natural hazards, including droughts, earthquakes, forest fires, floods, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions. Between FY 2008 and FY 2017, USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/ OFDA) and USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (USAID/ FFP) provided humanitarian assistance in response to a diverse range of emergencies in the region. Recent examples include an earthquake in Mexico, floods in Peru, hurricanes in the Eastern Caribbean, a landslide in Colombia, and El Niño-related droughts in Haiti and Central America.

USAID provided more than $1 billion to assist disasteraffected populations in the LAC region in the last decade. USAID/OFDA contributed approximately $553 million to support the provision of emergency relief items, logistical activities, and humanitarian coordination, as well as agriculture and food security, health, livelihoods, nutrition, protection, shelter, and water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions. USAID/FFP provided nearly $376 million in market and livelihood recovery; logistical activities; and emergency food and nutrition assistance—including U.S. in-kind food aid, local and regional food procurement, cash transfers for food, food vouchers, and specialized nutrition products—to support disaster-affected populations, including internally displaced persons and refugees.

Between FY 2008 and FY 2017, USAID responded to 106 disasters in LAC and deployed humanitarian teams to the region as needed, including seven Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DARTs). USAID deployed DARTs to islands in the Eastern Caribbean following recent hurricanes in FY 2017, Haiti following Hurricane Matthew in FY 2017, a cholera outbreak in FY 2011, a severe earthquake in FY 2010, a building collapse in FY 2009, and a hurricane in FY 2008, as well as to Chile after an earthquake in 2010. USAID also activated multiple Washington, D.C.-based Response Management Teams to support coordination and response efforts for humanitarian responses throughout the LAC region.