International Seminar: The Sustainable Development Goals and Building Futures for Latin America and the Caribbean

Context

The world and Latin America and the Caribbean are going through a period of slow growth, high uncertainty and expectations that largely align with the continuation of this trend for several years. Governments in the region are looking for ways to maintain reasonable growth rates of output, investment and employment, so as to shield and sustain social achievements and care for the environment. But government priorities generated by this adverse situation should not conspire against long-term policies that call the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the more ambitious the world has agreed in decades and that brings us to strategically plan the construction of the future.

The long-term dimension is usually absent in the policies and strategies of governments, so ECLAC seeks to place state policies and planning for sustainable development high on the region´s agenda. This means to address the urgency and the challenges posed by the situation, but without losing sight of the long-term horizon.

The challenge necessarily involves the identification and analysis of the trade-offs arising from this dual purpose of combining management of the urgent with the strategic governance of the transcendent; it is also about finding -or perhaps provoke-positive externalities, complementarities (trade-ins) and virtuous combinations between the policies of short, medium and long term.

Articulate the short, medium and long term dimensions is a considerable challenge that the region has not wanted or has not known how to face. Today, the occasion is especially conducive to face with a higher probability of success than in the past thanks to the Agenda 2030 that precisely targets medium and long term goals and objectives with a focus on the integrity of development.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides an opportunity to link development priorities of each nation with those derived from the global agenda. There is a unique opportunity in the region to dare to till the shared future we all want, using the orientation guide and mandate of 2030 Agenda.

The Seminar

This background frames the International Seminar The Sustainable Development Goals and Building Futures for Latin America and the Caribbean, organized by ECLAC to be held on 18 and 19 May 2016 at its headquarters in Santiago, Chile. The seminar proposes the creation of a space for reflection on the challenges of the future construction raised by the Sustainable Development Goals. It addresses the conditions of institutional capacity building for future exploration and the translation of this knowledge into public policy and planning with appropriate coordination in handling the challenges of short, medium and long term. It also seeks to encourage a dialogue between specialists from the region and other continents and regions, such as Asia, Europe and North America.

The International Seminar will be held during the mornings of 18 and 19 May and will be structured in a keynote presentation by the Deputy Executive Secretary of ECLAC and four working sessions, as described below (for information on the schedules consult the attached program).