It is time to raise the level of ambition and promote transformative actions for development in Latin America and the Caribbean

The thirty-ninth session of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) was inaugurated today in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a call to the countries of the region to raise the level of ambition and promote transformative actions to advance towards sustainable and equal development.

The most important biennial meeting of the regional Commission, which is being held at the Kirchner Cultural Center, was opened by Alberto Fernández, President of Argentina, a country that will hold the presidency of the organization from today and for the next two years, and José Manuel Salazar- Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of ECLAC.

Also participating in the opening ceremony were the Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship of Argentina, Santiago Cafiero; the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship of Costa Rica, Arnoldo André Tinoco; the Secretary of Strategic Affairs of Argentina, Mercedes Marcó del Pont; the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Argentina, Claudia Mojica, and the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, who delivered a video message.

During his speech, President Alberto Fernández warned that, even before the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the countries of the region revealed the existence of problems to grow, to insert themselves internationally and to distribute income in a more equitable way.

“The current situation requires us to take a critical look and innovative responses to design policies and solutions made in and for Latin America and the Caribbean,” he said.

The Argentine President stressed that the world crisis has highlighted the value of solidarity and stressed that such an experience demands the countries of the region to strengthen cooperation actions and regional alliances to implement joint and solidarity actions.

“Cooperating is an imperative of fraternity and at the same time a necessary condition to achieve equitable development that does not plunge the men and women who inhabit these lands into poverty. ECLAC offers us a privileged space for a collective and pluralist construction that encourages a sensitive look at the needs of the countries of the region. A look capable of using the technological revolution to offer new solutions to the development challenges that our region demands”, she asserted.

President Fernández stressed that Argentina, in its capacity as chair of ECLAC, invites everyone to work on a structured agenda based on dialogue, strengthen ties between the countries of the region and achieve a new position with the rest of the world.

“Our peoples need solutions now,” he said.

Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero, meanwhile, welcomed the fact that the thirty-ninth session of ECLAC is being held in Argentina.

“We know that the goal is to reduce the gaps that characterize the situation in our countries. The inequality within each of our nations challenges us, ”he stressed.

The Foreign Minister of Costa Rica, Arnoldo André Tinoco, in his capacity as outgoing chairman of ECLAC, warned that the priorities for the region must continue to be economic recovery and production, the fight against climate change and the loss of biodiversity, realizing gender equality and human rights and building more inclusive and sustainable societies.

“We are pending the sustainable energy transition and the digitization required to insert ourselves into the new engines of development. Let’s continue advancing in our unified agenda as a region, this is our challenge and commitment”, said the Minister.

Mercedes Marcó del Pont, Secretary of Strategic Affairs of the Nation, for her part, stressed that, for those who are committed to the challenge of development in the region, “ECLAC has always been a refuge.”

He added that the position paper that the Commission presented today to the countries “again challenges the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, since it suggests that the energy transition, which appears today as a central issue on the international agenda, can be a enormous opportunity for many of our countries, but also a new frustration if we do not promote policies to advance in processes of productive transformation, of incorporation of technology”.

Through a video message, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, thanked ECLAC for seeking innovative solutions based on multilateral cooperation and whose objective is to invigorate productive systems and promote social inclusion, a green transition, and a just digital revolution.

“We come to this session in a critical situation. Added to the impacts of the pandemic are those derived from the war in Ukraine. ECLAC estimates that 16 countries have not recovered the GDP levels prior to the pandemic,” said the highest authority of the United Nations, who urged the launch of a stimulus plan for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that offers a massive boost for the sustainable development of countries, including middle-income ones.

During his opening speech, the Executive Secretary of ECLAC, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, thanked Costa Rica, his country, for holding the presidency of ECLAC for the past two years, as well as Argentina, which will assume it for the next biennium.

He warned that Latin America and the Caribbean is in need and desire of transformative and audacious policies that offer realistic and pragmatic solutions to its acute economic, social and environmental shortcomings and gaps and that resolve many of the most basic needs, especially of the poor and vulnerable, but also from middle classes that are also vulnerable and suffer from the impact of economic cycles.

“The goal in this post-pandemic era and for 2023 cannot only be to mitigate the damage of the pandemic and reactivate the economy, as if we could be satisfied with returning to the situation before the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Of course we must mitigate the damage, such as the increase in poverty, informality and inequality, and face the educational blackout, but it is also about promoting transformative actions for development, it is about the countries of the region advancing, manage to get out of the middle income trap and fulfill the legitimate dream of being socially inclusive countries based on dynamic, sustained, sustainable and inclusive growth”, he stressed.

After the opening ceremony, the Executive Secretary of ECLAC presented the document entitled Towards the transformation of the development model in Latin America and the Caribbean: production, inclusion and sustainabilityin which the regional Commission urges to redouble efforts to transform development models and place productive transformation and diversification policies at the center.

“The main message of the document is that the agenda around which we must build is one that we could call reactivation with transformation, that is, one that in the short term combines the delicate macroeconomic management that the situation demands, with its complex balances between the need to face inflation, reactivate the economy, create employment and help vulnerable groups, in a context of limited fiscal and financial monetary space. And that promotes without postponing the reforms and investments whose fruits will be seen more in the medium and long term, but whose implementation cannot wait because its cycle to see results has a longer time horizon, ”he explained.

The document was commented on by a high-level panel moderated by the Foreign Minister of Argentina, Santiago Cafiero, in which the Nobel Prize in Economics, Joseph Stiglitz, the Professor of Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, Mariana Mazzucato, the Minister of Finance and Public Credit of Colombia, José Antonio Ocampo, and the Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Rebeca Grynspan.