Mercado Libre is recognized with The Trust for the Americas/OAS 2021 Corporate Citizen of the Americas Award

Washington, D.C. December 3, 2021.- Every year, The Trust for the Americas and the Organization of American States (OAS) presents the Corporate Citizen of the Americas (CCA) award to organizations that have initiated programs to benefit the communities in which they operate.

The CCA Award reflects The Trust of the Americas' mission to promote social and economic inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean through public-private partnerships. In previous years we have recognized the corporate social responsibility efforts of Migraflix (Brazil), Sierra Nevada (Colombia), Tent Partnership for Refugees (USA), BBVA Microfinance Foundation (Colombia), GSMA (Argentina); Coca-Cola (Mexico); Cisco (USA); Alpina (Germany); Indra Corporation (Spain); Cemex (Mexico); Diageo (Latin America); Daimler Chrysler (Brazil); Conoco Philips (Venezuela); Pfizer (Latin America), among others.

This year, The Trust for the Americas recognized corporations that supported people who sought to provide for themselves and their families during the COVID 19 and especially Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) who found in Mercado Libre a means to continue operating and growing despite lockdowns. The Executive Committee Board of The Trust for the Americas has selected Mercado Libre as the winner of the 2021 Corporate Citizen of the Americas.

Linda Eddleman, CEO of The Trust for the Americas commented: "Mercado Libre helped almost a million people produce income in spite of the challenges posed by the COVID19 pandemic. It was a truly impressive effort. We hope that recognizing the efforts of Mercado Libre will inspire other companies to undertake similar efforts which will be crucial to achieving better social progress in our hemisphere."

For the last 22 years, based on technology and constant innovation, Mercado Libre has pursued the democratization of electronic commerce and digital financial services to transform the lives of millions of people in Latin America. They have created an ecosystem of integrated and innovative solutions that empower and help Latin American entrepreneurs grow, providing them with answers on electronic commerce, online payments, credits, and logistics, efficiently and safely. In this way, they seek to break the geographic and economic gap between big companies and small entrepreneurs. Today, more than 900K families make an income through their platform.

"During the pandemic we scaled up our cooperation with strategic partners, customers, and different stakeholders, unleashing a multiplier effect in value creation, which is something we are very proud of. We managed to support hundreds of thousands of SMEs in Latin America so they could recover from hardship, by providing technology and solutions that enabled them to adapt to the new scenario", said Pedro Arnt, CFO of Mercado Libre. "The positive impact of our ecosystem is channeled through digital transformation, job creation, financial inclusion, and economic growth. Today, our platform constitutes the main source of income for around 900,000 families of the region, while creating an average of 6 jobs per hour", he added.

Furthermore, The Trust for the Americas selected Fundación Manpower and Instituto Natura for Honorable Mentions.

Fundación Manpower provides and supports programs to promote employment, self-employment, or training of young people and people facing employment discrimination, such as seniors, people with disabilities, victims of human trafficking, refugees, and migrants. During COVID19, Fundación Manpower helped provide opportunities to people who suffered during the pandemic and were laid-off or needed support in finding new jobs.

Instituto Natura is a social organization (business foundation) created by Natura corporation to execute their private social investment strategy in education. During the onset of the pandemic, Fundación Natura developed a specific program for hundreds of thousands of women who are part of their sales team network. They focused on providing courses, training, online platforms, and soft skills capacities to secure their access to more and better economic opportunities.

The Corporate Citizen of the Americas 2021 Award and the Honorable Mentions will be presented in person by the Secretary-General of the Organization of American States, H.E Luis Almagro Lemes, in a ceremony in May 2022 in Washington DC, USA.

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About The Trust for the Americas:

The Trust for the Americas is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization affiliated with the Organization of American States (OAS). It was established in 1997 to promote public and private sector participation in social and economic development projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our initiatives, implemented through local partner organizations, seek to improve access to economic opportunities as well as to foster innovation in vulnerable communities in the hemisphere. To this end, The Trust also promotes social inclusion and good governance. The Trust has offices in Washington, D.C., and a legal presence in Colombia, and Canada.

More information: www.trustfortheamericas.org

Facebook: The Trust for the Americas  - Twitter: @Trust4Americas

About Mercado Libre

Mercado Libre hosts the largest online commerce and payments ecosystem in Latin America. Our efforts are centered on enabling e-commerce and digital and mobile payments on behalf of our customers by delivering a suite of technology solutions across the complete value chain of commerce. We are present in 18 countries including Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Peru. Based on unique visitors and page views we are market leaders in each of the major countries where we are present.

Through our online commerce platform and related services, we provide our users with robust online commerce and payments tools that not only contribute to the development of a large and growing ecommerce community in Latin America, but also foster entrepreneurship and social mobility. Our main focus is to deliver compelling technological and commercial solutions that address the distinctive cultural and geographic challenges of operating an online commerce and payments platform in Latin America.