The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reaffirmed its commitment to the productive, inclusive and sustainable development of Brazil, and the entire region, through a series of concrete cooperation and technical assistance initiatives aimed at strengthening productive, technological and institutional capacities of the South American country.
During an official visit to Brasilia on November 20 and 21, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, highlighted Brazil’s role in the current global economic and geopolitical scenario and reiterated the need to overcome the three traps that hold back development. sustainability of the country and the region as a whole: the low capacity to grow; high inequality, low social mobility and weak social cohesion, and low institutional and governance capacities.
Both Brazil and other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have vast natural resources and technical competencies that can not only generate low-carbon solutions in different areas, but also trigger a great push towards a more productive, inclusive and sustainable future in the region, remarked José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs.
On Thursday the 21st, the highest representative of ECLAC and the Vice President of Brazil and Minister of State for Development, Industry, Commerce and Services, Geraldo Alckmin, inaugurated the event Promoting the Electric Bus Chain in Brazil: a proposal for a national plan for the sector, organized by both institutions with the support of German Cooperation, within the framework of the Inclusive, Sustainable and Intelligent Cities Program (CISI).
Electrification and vehicular connectivity are emerging as strong trends in urban mobility, said José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs. The electrification of bus fleets is a strategic area for sustainable investments due to its potential benefits in terms of energy efficiency, reduction of local air pollutants and greenhouse gases and positive impacts on health, quality of life , productivity and competitiveness, as well as in the effective exercise of citizen rights, he added.
The electric bus industry constitutes one of the so-called “driving or energizing sectors” identified by ECLAC for the great productive transformation, indicated the senior official. “The advancement of electromobility in Latin America will depend largely on what Brazil is able to offer. The promotion of investments in the production chains of electric buses, in infrastructure, technology and services, is essential to take advantage of the opportunities of demand not only from Brazilian cities, but also from other countries,” he said.
Vice President Geraldo Alckmin thanked ECLAC for its support and stressed that “Electricity is a very important technology and we have to promote it. MOVER is a government green mobility program that promotes technological decarbonization pathways, including electromobility. However, it is important to understand that the world is globalized, but the market is intraregionalized. In this sense, we must pay attention to the issue of competitiveness, costs, fiscal pressure, interest rates, the cost of capital, human resources, innovation and logistics. The alliance between the Ministry of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services (MDIC) and ECLAC is extremely important so that we can stimulate the group, generating decarbonized mobility, being at the forefront of innovation and preserving the quality of life of the population,” he pointed out.
During the event, ECLAC presented the report Guidelines and proposals for a national plan for the electric bus chain in Brazil (in Portuguese), which includes more than 100 recommendations. Over the course of a year, nearly 100 key actors from more than 70 institutions in the electromobility sector were mobilized, including authorities, companies, banks and financing institutions, and representatives of academia and civil society.
That same day, the IPEA-ECLAC Seminar was held: 50 years of cooperation for development, inaugurated by the Deputy Secretary of Institutional Articulation of the Ministry of Planning and Budget of Brazil, João Villaverde, representing Minister Simone Tebet; the President of the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA), Luciana Mendes Santos Servo, and the Executive Secretary of ECLAC, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs.
The conference, which included the participation of government representatives, ECLAC officials and high-level specialists, addressed topics such as opportunities and challenges related to inclusive and sustainable growth, digital and sustainable productive development, democracy and social cohesion and the silver economy in the region.
During his speech, Secretary João Villaverde emphasized that we must continue working and think about what new bases we need to plan and develop Brazil, which includes society. “To do this, we have to understand what today’s society is like. We have to look at the weather. “We have to consider how to be more resilient and create new opportunities,” he said.
The President of IPEA, Luciana Mendes Santos Servo, highlighted the rich history of collaboration between both institutions and addressed some of the main challenges of Brazil and the region. “We no longer have a climate crisis, we have a climate emergency. Latin America needs to join in this discussion to solve the problem in a structured way and think about policies in an integrated and coordinated way,” he said. The current strategic focus of IPEA, he noted, has to do precisely with the analysis of “the economic bases and opportunities of Brazil and the Latin American region so that we can really give a Great Push towards sustainable and inclusive development.”
José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs also reviewed the fruitful history of cooperation between IPEA and ECLAC, describing it as the Commission’s “most durable alliance,” and underlined the importance of reflecting on the challenges, complexities and opportunities that the 21st century reserves for the future. productive, inclusive and sustainable in Brazil and the region.
ECLAC, he explained, has identified at least 14 dynamic sectors for transformative policies and investments in the development style: 1) Energy transition, which includes renewable energies, green hydrogen and lithium; 2) Electromobility; 3) Circular economy; 4) Bioeconomy, which includes sustainable agriculture, genetic resources and bioindustrialization; 5) Agriculture for food security; 6) Sustainable water management; 7) Sustainable tourism; 8) Pharmaceutical and life sciences industry; 9) Medical device industry; 10) Advanced manufacturing; 11) Export of modern or ICT-enabled services; 12) Society of care; 13) Work-intensive services; and 14) Digital government.
“For each topic we insist that it is not enough to stop at an analysis and discussion of ‘what to do’ but rather we must analyze ‘how to do it’, that is, how to manage major transformations. To do this, we insist on four basic themes: governance schemes, TOPP (technical, operational, political and prospective) capacities of the institutions, spaces for social dialogue, and the political economy of the reforms,” summarized the Executive Secretary of the ECLAC.
The mission in Brasilia also included, on Wednesday the 20th, the signing of a cooperation agreement with the National Bank for Economic and Social Development of Brazil (BNDES) and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), aimed at strengthening the capabilities of the State through the exchange of knowledge and the training of key actors for the region’s development agenda. José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, the President of the BNDES, Aloizio Mercadante, and the Director of ABC, Ambassador Ruy Pereira, participated.
On Thursday the 21st, meanwhile, ECLAC and the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services sealed another cooperation agreement that includes a Work Plan with a view to building a modern, efficient State oriented towards a more productive, inclusive and sustainable development. . The two pillars of the Plan are the development of a National Sustainable Public Procurement Strategy, which will be linked to priority policies such as the “New Brazil Industry” and the country’s Ecological Transformation Plan, and the strengthening of the Rural Environmental Cadastre (CAR), a crucial tool for environmental management and the fight against deforestation. The agreement was signed by the Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs and the Minister of Management and Innovation in Public Services, Esther Dweck.
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