75 years of ECLAC and ECLAC thinking

Raúl Prebisch lays the foundation stone for the construction of the United Nations Building, ECLAC headquarters,in Santiago, Chile, May 13, 1961.

Credit: ECLAC, United Nations

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) was established in 1948, as one of the five regional commissions of the United Nations, with the objective of collaborating with the governments of the region to improve lives and strengthen trade relations between member States and the rest of the world.

To celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the establishment of ECLAC, the Hernán Santa Cruz Library has produced this research guide, which brings together a selection of texts that reflect ECLAC thinking and key messages over the course of its seven and a half decades of existence. It gives an overview of the iconic works produced since the Commission’s establishment in 1948, as well as those of the structuralist (1950s–1980s) and neo-structuralist (1990s–present) periods.

The guide also includes a selection of images from the ECLAC photo collection that tell the visual story of the history of the Commission, its work and its headquarters building. Photographs pertaining to different periods capture historic occasions, prominent personalities and important events in the Commission’s history.