At UNAM, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs calls to address the development crisis with productive transformation policies

Given the development crisis that the world and Latin America are experiencing, this is not a time for gradual and timid changes, but for bold and transformative policies that really move the needles of development, said José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), during the conference he presented to academics and officials of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

“We cannot transform development models by doing the same thing or doing what works on a small scale; transformational actions are required with all development actors: government, private sector, civil society and academia”, urged the United Nations official.

To overcome crises, Salazar-Xirinachs proposed working for a productive transformation without neglecting the search for equality and environmental sustainability, and addressing productivity, productive development, employment, and inclusive growth as priority areas; contain inequality in the region and the causes of migration; promote social policies and social protection to move towards welfare states; strengthen education and professional training; work for gender equality and promote the care society; take care of sustainability and combat the origin and effects of climate change; promote digital transformation, economic integration, and macroeconomics for development.

He explained that as the new head of ECLAC, he will favor that, through governance and the technical, operational and political capacities of the institutions, the “hows” to work in the driving sectors for growth that the Commission has proposed to the countries are found. of the region: energy transition: (green hydrogen and lithium), electromobility, circular economy as a cross-sector strategy; bioeconomy: sustainable agriculture, genetic resources and bio-industrialization. Health manufacturing industry; digitization, care economy and sustainable tourism.

The Secretary General of the UNAM, Leonardo Lomelí, thanked the ECLAC Executive Secretary for presenting the position paper of the 39th Period of Sessions during his conference “Towards the transformation of the development model in Latin America and the Caribbean: production, inclusion and sustainability”.

“UNAM is interested in insisting on the importance for a country like Mexico of promoting greater technological sophistication, and for that, higher education is essential; With this, we can have a strategic alliance with ECLAC and insist on productive transformation without neglecting the search for equality and sustainability,” said Lomelí.

Commenting on the presentation of the document, Eduardo Vega, director of the Faculty of Economics at UNAM, stressed that ECLAC proposes long-term growth and productive transformation policies. For his part, the director of the Institute for Economic Research, Armando Sánchez, acknowledged that the document is thinking of making a radical change for the future of Latin America, without forgetting ECLAC’s structuralism.

The researcher of the University Program for Development Studies (PUED), Karina Videgain, stressed that an employment policy with a gender perspective is required and to be careful that public policies on the care economy do not transform households into companies; that is, transferring to the home economy the issue of paying for care and domestic work.

Juan Carlos Moreno Brid, an academic from the University’s Faculty of Economics, said that ECLAC is much more than a think tank, as it has the resources and tools to help strengthen the technical capacity of governments in the region. To conclude, Enrique Provencio, director of PUED, proposed that in the studies carried out in the region, the violence experienced in the continent be considered as a structural aspect that affects governability and development.