Santiago, May 14-15, 1956
Credit: ECLAC, United Nations.
First headquarters of ECLAC located on the street San Pio X, Providencia, Santiago. (ca. 1948)
Credit: ECLAC, United Nations.
The Executive Secretaries of the Economic Commissions for Europe (ECE), for Latin America (ECLA), and for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) giving a joint press conference on the economic situation in their respective regions, at the United Nations Headquarters on 4 June 1952.
From left to right: Dr. Raúl Prebisch, of ECLA; Mr. David Owen, Assistant Secretary-General of the UN for Economic Affairs; Mr. Benjamin Cohen, Assistant Secretary-General for Public Information; Dr. P.S. Lokanathan, of ECAFE; and Dr. Gunnar Myrdal, ECE.
New York, June 4, 1952
Credit: UN Photo/MB
Raúl Prebisch, ECLAC Executive Secretary, at the Fourth Committee of the Whole of ECLAC.
ECLAC Library meeting room.
Santiago of Chile, May 9-10, 1955.
Credit: ECLAC, United Nations.
Raúl Prebisch, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, sitting on the front panel (second from the left to the right), at the Fourth Committee of the Whole of ECLAC.
ECLAC meeting room, Santiago de Chile, May 9-10, 1955.
Credit: ECLAC, United Nations.
Raúl Prebisch, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, sitting on the front panel (second from the left to the right), at the Fourth Committee of the Whole of ECLAC.
ECLAC meeting room, Santiago de Chile, May 9-10 1955.
Credit: ECLAC, United Nations.
A group photograph showing members of delegations. L. to r. are:
(seated) Margaret Wolfzon, World Bank; Rafael Hueso Arias, El Salvador; Victor L. Urquidi, ECLA; Mario Asturias, Guatemala, President of the Conference; Salvador Vilaseca, ECLA; Livio Costa, International Labour Organisation (ILO); Angelo de Tuddo, Food & Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO); (standing): one unidentified; Alfonso Sobalvarro and Alberto Fuentes, both Guatemala; Roberto Quinonez Meza, El Salvador; Cristobal Lara, ECLA; Adriano Garcia, Technical Assistance Board (TAB); Edward J. Wygard, UN Technical Assistance Administration (TAA); Rigoberto Navarro, Costa Rica; Eduardo Montiel Arguello, Nicaragua; Mauricio Castadena, Honduras; one unidentified; Gustavo Guerrero, Nicaragua; one unidentified; Antonio Collart Valle, Honduras; Luis Melgar, Guatemala; and the last three unidentified.
Guatemala City, July 17, 1956
Credit: UN Photo
Among a large number of people, Raúl Prebisch in profile, Executive Secretary of ECLAC talking with Hernán Siles Zuazo, President of the Republic of Bolivia (wearing glasses and smoking). To the left of Prebisch is Mr. Ariosto González from Uruguay. Seventh session of ECLAC.
La Paz, Bolivia, May 15-29, 1957.
Credit: ECLAC, United Nations.
The Commission worked to achieve development in the region by promoting State-led industrialization policies to reduce the gaps between developed and developing countries.
The publication The Economic Development of Latin America and its Principal Problems, written by Raúl Prebisch, laid the groundwork for the Commission’s approach to analysis of and policy implications for the context of the region.
It described the global economy as a bipolar system comprising the centre and the periphery. The countries in the centre were developed, industrialized economies that propagated technical progress; the countries in the periphery, the group into which Latin American economies fell, were underdeveloped, specialized in the production and export of commodities, and had little technological content in their productive structure. Prebisch argued that overcoming underdevelopment (or peripheral status) required the industrialization of Latin America.
This would require, in an initial phase, the deliberate support of the State, followed by a second phase focused on the production of capital goods and the promotion of regional economic and trade integration. (Mercado Común Latinoamericano: conferencia del Dr. Prebisch, celebrada en el Banco Nacional de México. Prebisch, Raúl, 1959)
In 1954, ECLAC presented the document International Cooperation in Latin American Development Policy, with six institutional objectives: tax and agrarian reform, technical cooperation, rapid industrialization, development planning, trade revitalization through the promotion of regional integration, and new approaches to foreign investment.
During this period, ECLAC was at the forefront of Latin American economic thinking and shaped a new vision of development. The Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre (CELADE), now Population Division of ECLAC, was founded in the mid-1950s, when the region was becoming aware of the need to collect systematized and periodic population data.
In 1951, the ECLAC subregional headquarters in Mexico was established to act as a coordinating and consultative body for Central American and Caribbean countries.
The “Raúl Prebisch and the challenges of the 21st century” project, an initiative developed in 2012 by ECLAC and IDRC, constitutes the main source of information from which this new Prebisch Portal has been updated.
“Since the 1950s, the debate on the State and the economy has been influenced by the development ideas promoted by ECLAC. Raúl Prebisch, Celso Furtado, Medina Echeverría and Aníbal Pinto are among the intellectuals who pointed out the need for State action in promoting industrial policies aimed at overcoming the dependence and asymmetry of the terms of trade that characterized the economic insertion of Latin America in the world". [Free translation] (Desarrollo e integración en América Latina, CEPAL, 2016, pág. 290)