75 years of ECLAC and ECLAC thinking

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragilities and vulnerabilities of our world. The Latin American and Caribbean region has been the hardest hit, in terms of infection and death rates, but also in terms of the extent to which economic and social conditions have worsened.

With only 10 years to go to the deadline for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the structural challenges that must be overcome to implement the Agenda have increased, with multiple crises even before the war in Ukraine, a conflict that has added an inflationary shock, a food security crisis and rises in interest rates that have driven up debt service and narrowed fiscal space.

Despite signs of progress in some areas, the cascading crises have had spillover effects on food and nutrition, health, education, the environment, fiscal space, peace and security.

Nevertheless, the countries have maintained their commitment and efforts to fulfil the 2030 Agenda. The countries of the region have taken ownership of the SDGs as a State commitment, in wide-ranging cooperation with multiple stakeholders, including civil society, youth, the private sector, academia, and local, legislative and parliamentary authorities.

Since the launch of the 2030 Agenda, 31 of the 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have reported on their progress on ownership, monitoring and implementation of the 2030 Agenda by presenting at least one voluntary national review to the United Nations high-level political forum on sustainable development in New York. 

The 2020s are the decade of action and delivery for sustainable development, in order to achieve the SDGs by 2030. In addition, as set out in the report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations entitled “Our Common Agenda”, the decade has begun with a push for more effective multilateralism and more integrated, inclusive and coherent coordination.

Following these precepts, upon arrival of Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs from Costa Rica in October 2022, ECLAC championed actions in 10 priority areas  to transform the development model in the countries of the region:

In addition, as a cross-cutting theme, the Executive Secretary has proposed placing greater emphasis on the issues of governance, management, coordination, planning, institutional quality and social dialogue and participation as a fundamental challenge relating to how the development model can be transformed.