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Latin America and the Caribbean

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the Open Society Foundations seek to bolster democratic change by transforming growing public concern about inequality, corruption, violence, and the climate crisis into powerful initiatives and alliances to build an open and safe society.


Offices

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The Bogotá, Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro offices work closely together on efforts to defend democracy, increase governmental transparency, protect minority rights, reduce homicides, and reform drug policy in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Bogota, Colombia

The Bogotá, Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro offices work closely together on efforts to defend democracy, increase governmental transparency, protect minority rights, reduce homicides, and reform drug policy in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mexico City, Mexico

The Bogotá, Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro offices work closely together on efforts to defend democracy, increase governmental transparency, protect minority rights, reduce homicides, and reform drug policy in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

By the Numbers

$104.3M 2023 EXPENDITURES FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
6.0% PERCENTAGE OF GLOBAL EXPENDITURES
14.1% Average annual change in expenditures since 2016

Expenditures by Year

Explore our full expenditures by region

Our Work

A woman wearing a hardhat on a roof covered in solar panels
A solar panel installer for Open Society Foundations grantee Revolusolar checks solar panels on a roof in the Babilonia favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 11, 2021. © Pilar Olivares/Reuters/Newscom

We work to advance Open Society’s values in Latin America and the Caribbean through grant making, advocacy, network building, and collaboration with partners and stakeholders. Our strategy includes a focus on three priority countries: Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.

Supporting Democratic Governance

A woman holds aloft a sign with a picture of the slain activist and elected official Marielle Franco in São Paulo, Brazil.
A woman holds a sign with a portrait of slain activist and elected official Marielle Franco in São Paulo, Brazil on April 14, 2018. © Cris Faga/NUR/Newscom

Countries across Central and South America face enormous political pressure from deep-rooted financial, economic, and social challenges that have fueled the rise of authoritarian leaders willing to subvert democratic freedoms and rights to maintain power. Open Society is working with a range of local partners to develop policies and strategies that help democracies overcome these often-overlapping issues, which now include the intensifying impact of the climate crisis. This work seeks to connect democracies to people’s everyday needs. Our work includes funding groups that support political engagement by women, by communities of African descent, and by indigenous people that have been often left out of the democratic process.

Media Independence and Disinformation

Protestors with signs in the street
People call for the government to protect journalists from violent attacks in Guadalajara, Mexico, on January 25, 2022. © Ulises Ruiz/AFP/Getty

In Latin America, the Open Society Foundations support efforts to protect journalists from threats and violence that they can face while doing their job. We also seek to sustain independent investigative reporting on issues that may be overlooked by the mainstream media for political or business reasons. Our efforts to combat disinformation include supporting fact-checking sites and efforts identify the sources.

Reducing Violence

A boy holding a paintbrush against a wall
A boy paints a wall with PAZOS, an organization that supports youth susceptible to gang violence, in Palmira, Colombia, on February 15, 2023. © Jair Coll for the Open Society Foundations

Latin America’s cities have some of the world’s highest rates of violent crime, much of it linked to gang violence. We support groups that seek to improve public safety through a community-based approach that involves local youth groups and businesses, and goes beyond a reliance on punitive policing.

Climate Justice

Two people speaking at a microphone
Indigenous rights and environmental activists from Brazil and Ecuador participate in a panel on at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on November 14, 2022. © Nariman El-Mofty/AP/Shutterstock

From drought in Central America to the extreme weather threats in the Caribbean, the climate crisis is wreaking havoc in the region and intensifying displacement of people who do not have resources to adapt to, prepare for, and recover from climate change.

Open Society is working to achieve transformational climate and economic policies centering the social dimensions of the transition and adapting to climate impacts that help bolster trust in democratic institutions and reduce inequality.

Drug Policy Reform

In Colombia, we have funded efforts to develop beneficial commercial uses for coca leaf that can benefit small-scale growers, as an alternative to crop eradication campaigns. In Bolivia, we advocate for a coca control model that allows farmers to legally grow a limited and regulated quantity of coca leaves—a mainstay of Andean life for 4,000 years. The model has reduced coca cultivation, decreased violence, and helped stabilize rural economies.

Person pulling leaves out of a bag
A chef pulls coca leaves from a bag to use in a recipe during the making of a coca leaf cookbook in Lerma, Colombia, on August 17, 2019. © Miguel Varona

Our History

Open Society started supporting civil society groups in Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s. We have offices in Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, and Bogotá. In 2022, our Haiti foundation, FOKAL, founded in 1995, became a fully independent entity.

Highlights of Our Work in Latin America and the Caribbean


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