Ministers and senior officials from Latin America and the Caribbean, along with Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, will participate in an event on the challenges faced by the region to finance its development, in the framework of the international conference on this matter that will take place on July 13-16 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The event, which will address the domestic mobilization of resources and the international financial governance from the perspective of middle-income countries and small island developing States, is co-organized by ECLAC and the Governments of Chile and Colombia, and will take place on Tuesday July 14 at a hotel in the Ethiopian capital. The gathering will be presented by Alicia Bárcena, the most senior representative of the regional United Nations organization.
Other participants include Peter Phillips, Minister of Finance of Jamaica; Darcy Boyce, Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister of Barbados; Andrés Escobar, Deputy Minister of Finance of Colombia; Eduardo Trejos, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship of Costa Rica; Jeannette Sánchez, Adviser to the Vice-President of Ecuador, and Eduardo Gálvez, Deputy Director of Multilateral Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, among others.
The debate will address the challenges faced by Latin America and the Caribbean, from its perspective as Middle-Income Countries (MICs - most of them belong to this group) and as Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the case of the Caribbean sub-region, to foster the mobilization of domestic resources that enable the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda, expected to be approved in September in New York.
Additionally, the need to promote a greater international cooperation in terms of tax, finance and trade will be outlined, to enable, among other goals, the reduction of tax evasion and avoidance, fight illicit capital flows, face Caribbean countries’ debt with solutions aimed at achieving a sustainable development in the long term and facilitate the access and integration of emerging economies to global markets and value chains.
The Third International Conference on Financing for Development will gather high level government representatives, as well as members from non-governmental organizations and the private sector. A plan to lay the foundation for the implementation of the post-2015 agenda and pave the way for achieving a global agreement on climate change in December in Paris is expected to be reached during the meeting.
