The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, expressed today his intention to deepen relations with the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) and continue making the intellectual production of the regional organization available of the Ibero-American community, during the Consultative Observer Work Meeting made within the framework of the XXVIII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government (Santo Domingo, March 22-25).
The objective of the meeting was to define work plans between SEGIB and the different international organizations that make up the group of Advisory Observers, including ECLAC.
“I want to express my desire to deepen relations and links with SEGIB and I come with the firm intention of revalidating ECLAC’s commitment to make available to you the Commission’s analyses, which were traditionally presented at this Ibero-American Summit under the title ‘Ibero-American Spaces’”, pointed out José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs at the meeting led by the Ibero-American Secretary General, Andrés Allamand.
In the past, in the series Ibero-American spaces Topics such as foreign direct investment, trade and investment, and the knowledge economy were addressed, which are still current, highlighted the senior official, who offered ECLAC’s technical capabilities to identify topics and content of mutual interest and to be able to contribute to these biennial publications to SEGIB meetings.
A first step in that direction, he said, is the launch, in the Dominican Republic, of the publication Latin America: space of opportunities for growth, collaboration and sustainable developmentprepared by ECLAC specifically for the Summit.
“The world and the region are in a cascading crisis scenario,” the ECLAC chief representative contextualized, adding that “in this framework of tensions and challenges, we want to contribute to the dialogue, not only based on a diagnosis of gaps and trends, but also the identification of a series of areas of opportunity with great potential to boost growth, generate employment and improve the well-being of the population of Ibero-America, through ambitious and transformative public policies, including investments and public-public alliances. private”.
In view of the decisions that are expected to be made at the Summit, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs proposed taking advantage of synergies on issues such as productive development policies and the digital agenda, strengthening South-South cooperation, and aging and the rights of the elderly, among others.
“In the field of productive development we see important opportunities for collaboration with SEGIB,” he said.
ECLAC promotes the exchange of experiences and best practices at the regional, national and local levels among senior authorities responsible for innovation, information and communication technologies (ICT), digital policies, industrial development, investment and promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), among other areas, to place innovation and structural diversification at the center of the development agenda, he explained.
For example, he indicated, the member countries of ECLAC approved the Digital Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean (eLAC2024) in the Eighth Ministerial Conference on the Information Society in Latin America and the Caribbean held last November in Montevideo.
“We also offer our experience and technical capacity to SEGIB to move together towards an inclusive and sustainable digital transformation,” he stressed.
On the other hand, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs announced that the first meeting of the Regional Conference on South-South Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean will be held in Santiago on May 30 and 31.
“This subsidiary body of ECLAC was established by the countries in 2021 and is a space that, without a doubt, allows us to explore future collaborations between both parties,” said the senior official, expressing his interest in SEGIB being an active part of the meeting. to share their experience and heritage. “We hope that the Regional Conference will serve as a platform to promote the strengthening of national South-South and triangular cooperation mechanisms, and their possible interactions with North-South and multilateral cooperation, as well as to promote joint cooperation activities”, he advanced.
The Executive Secretary of ECLAC also urged strengthening the exchange between the Ibero-American Program and the Regional Intergovernmental Conference on Aging and the Rights of Older Persons in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, considering that ECLAC exercises the Technical Secretariat of both.
ECLAC -he pointed out- has extensive analytical production on these issues and has just launched a tracking platform Montevideo Consensus on Population and Developmentwhich includes a chapter on aging and social protection.
Finally, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs informed those present of the realization of the Sixth Meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development (April 26-28), the regional mechanism for follow-up and review of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and extended invitations to have the participation of SEGIB and other organizations at the meeting.
