Inauguration of the First Meeting of the Regional Conference on South-South Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean

Remarks by José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, at the opening of the First Meeting of the Regional Conference on South-South Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean

Raúl Prebisch Room, ECLAC, May 30 and 31, 2023

Inauguration, May 30, 2023, 9:00 a.m. to 9:45 a.m.

Dear Adriana Bolaños, Director of International Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship of Costa Rica, in her capacity as Chair of the Committee on South-South Cooperation of ECLAC, which today will finally become a Regional Conference

Dear representatives of the Member States of ECLAC,

Representatives of cooperation agencies,

Members of the Diplomatic Corps,

Colleagues from the funds, agencies and programs of the United Nations system and ECLAC

Friends and friends,

It is a great honor for me to be here with you today, at this First Meeting of the Regional Conference on South-South Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean.

We are concerned, Latin America and the world are going through a very challenging time.

A few weeks ago, in this same room, we presented the report “Latin America and the Caribbean halfway to 2030: progress and acceleration proposals” to the Forum of Countries on Sustainable Development.

In that report on regional progress and challenges, we underlined that we are exactly halfway through the period of the 2030 Agenda, but not halfway there, as only a quarter of the targets have been met or are expected to be met in 2030. 48% of the goals are moving in the right direction but not at the speed required for their fulfillment, and 27% show setbacks. Therefore, 75% of the goals are at risk of not being met, unless decisive actions are taken to recover the correct path.

Therefore, it is urgently required that the countries of the region reinforce their commitment to the SDGs, through bold, innovative, inspiring and transformative actions to avoid facing a third lost decade, which follows the second lost decade. from 2014 to 2023, in which the region’s average growth will be only 0.8%, less than half the 2% average that grew in the lost decade of the 1980s.

And this mediocre growth was already a reality before the region was subjected to a series of cascading crises beginning in 2020. Still in the midst of recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to deal with a resurgence of inflation, tensions economic and geopolitical, the war in Ukraine and the rise in interest rates, in addition to the persistence of migration, among others. All this, in a context in which the environmental emergency is worsening and the technological revolution is accelerating.

Our region today faces a deterioration in its investment and production conditions and in the economic and social conditions of its population. The unfavorable nature of the global macrofinancial context has raised concerns about the sustainability of public debt in emerging markets and developing economies, including those of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The adversity of external conditions that have led to a high debt service burden and the cost of financing impose serious restrictions on economic growth[1].

The levels of public debt that had already been rising in the region in the decade prior to the pandemic rose sharply after it. Gross general government debt went from an average of 32.4% of GDP in 2011 to 49.7% in 2019 and 60.3% of GDP in 2020.

The measures that countries had to take to strengthen public health systems, support families and protect companies led to unprecedented fiscal deficits. These trends are not exclusive to Latin America and the Caribbean, and are repeated in all emerging markets and developing economies, which represents a systemic concern.[2].

Therefore, it is urgent that the public and private world of the region realign their policies and actions in order to get closer to the fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda.

For the Secretary General of the United Nations, the September SDG Summit must be a moment of unity to provide renewed momentum and accelerated action to achieve the SDGs. In this sense, it has indicated “that something is wrong with the rules and governance structures that produce unfavorable results” and has called for a series of stimulus measures for the SDGs, focused on increasing long-term financing for all countries. needy, by at least 500 billion dollars a year[3].”

Likewise, he has indicated that he is working on long-term proposals to correct the fundamental injustices and inequalities in the global financial architecture. The SDG Joint Fund is well below the Funding Compact target of $290 million per year. The Secretary-General has been clear in pointing out that unless Member States step forward, we are effectively depriving the United Nations development system of the support it needs to provide to Member States and has remarked that “new approaches Creative approaches have not worked” and that “the only sustainable, predictable and realistic option” is “a new funding model, with a higher proportion of assessed contributions from the regular budget.”

Middle-income countries have also been affected by cascading crises, and efforts to contain the crises have had economic and social effects. It is unquestionable that structural gaps persist, both in rich and poor countries, inside and outside the region, and that these gaps have a greater incidence in the most vulnerable communities.

In this context, development cooperation is a fundamental mechanism to promote international and regional solidarity and, at the same time, it is a solution to face global and regional crises.

At this point I want to highlight the importance of taking into account the vulnerabilities of the countries and subregions in Latin America and the Caribbean, in order to promote respectful and adequate cooperation and regional solidarity for sustainable and resilient development. By way of example, I highlight the specific needs, for example, of small island developing States in the Caribbean and their vulnerability to the effects of climate change.

friends and friends

Taking charge of the global and regional reality, this first meeting of the Conference invites us to discuss the challenges of international cooperation for development in the new world context; the assessment and evaluation of South-South and triangular cooperation; multi-stakeholder cooperation as an opportunity for new alliances; international cooperation in comprehensive risk and disaster management and; cooperation towards the Third Summit of Heads of State and Government of CELAC and the European Union.

Latin America and the Caribbean must strengthen its regional, political, and economic agreements, deepen its intraregional cooperation ties, and more vigorously promote a common voice before the world to address global asymmetries and promote partnerships for development among multiple actors and sectors, as well as as well as at its multiple levels (North-South, South-South, triangular, regional, among others).

Likewise, to face the specific challenges of the countries, it is time to reconsider the criteria for measuring and classifying development. Dimensions such as capacities, knowledge exchange, technology transfer, fiscal and inequality gaps, vulnerabilities must be measured, and the different stages of development in which the countries find themselves should be recognized, paying special attention to their ability or difficulty to mobilize financial resources, among other factors.

The region requires innovative, joint and coordinated work between actors such as international cooperation offices and agencies and regional, provincial and local governments, non-governmental actors, companies and development banks, regarding cross-cutting regional issues such as poverty, education, research and development (R&D), technological development, digitization, the environment, gender and migration, among others.

We must reflect on the role of international cooperation in comprehensive disaster risk management, in order to promote knowledge, prevention and better risk reduction, as well as better mitigation of the destructive and disturbing impact of disasters.

Finally, it is very relevant that the Conference provides a space for regional discussion towards the Third CELAC-European Union Summit of Heads of State and Government. This Conference can and should serve as a space for dialogue and the search for common positions in the region, in the face of the new challenges faced by both regions and on the way in which these should shape the new bi-regional association.

The task is very challenging and to carry it out it is necessary to reach work agreements that strengthen cooperation ties and promote a concerted voice from Latin America and the Caribbean.

The governments gathered at the sixth meeting of the Forum on the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development emphasized in their conclusions and recommendations the importance of international cooperation for development.

Recognizing that South-South and triangular cooperation must be carried out on the basis of the principles of solidarity, horizontality and respect for sovereignty, among others, ECLAC, with the 2030 Agenda as a roadmap, suggests that cooperation within the areas of work defined by the countries, lead to transformative initiatives that have a vision of the future, are based on data, have a synergistic capacity, transform reality and that convene and encourage multi-stakeholder participation.

Count on the technical capacities of ECLAC and on this space for multilateral dialogue to carry out these urgent tasks.

Thank you so much

[1] Cepal 2023, Public debt and restrictions for development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

[2] Cepal 2023, Public debt and restrictions for development in Latin America and the Caribbean.