In general terms, the main objective of the training courses offered by ECLAC is to strengthen the capacities, skills and applied knowledge (competencies) of civil servants and stakeholders from academia and civil society with a view to achieving national and regional objectives in respect of economic and social development.
All divisions of ECLAC offer courses and training in their specific areas of work, on topics linked to their research and technical assistance agenda, such the challenges associated with multidimensional equality, structural heterogeneity and productivity gaps, employment dynamics and labour institutions, the State and fiscal and social compacts, structural change for development, production structures, specialization and economic growth, climate change and sustainable development, population and migratory dynamics, gender affairs, statistical systems and national accounts.
The Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Economic and Social Planning (ILPES) is the ECLAC body responsible for coordinating training for civil servants in the region, on topics relating to development planning, strategic State management and territorial development. ILPES offers training in the following areas:
- Results-based management tools
- Analytical and methodological frameworks of national planning and public investment systems
- Open government
- Systems and methods for monitoring and evaluating outcomes and impacts of public policies and programmes
- Techniques and analysis of forecasting methods and building a shared national vision
- Strategic management of local development
- Territorial planning and organization
Each year ILPES organizes 25 national and international courses —both classroom-based and distance-learning— for some 2,000 students from throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
Some of the courses are organized directly by ECLAC and others in cooperation with academic institutions, universities, research centres, civil society organizations or governments in the region. They take various forms, with open or targeted calls for participants, classroom-based or distance-learning, and can be financed via grants or paid for by the participants themselves.
Training is one of the Commission’s primary forms of cooperation in terms of the demand for its services, its influence on individuals and institutions and the predicted rise in training requirements in the future.
In the current context, and in view of the challenges of the next two decades, training programmes must incorporate both new content and new ways of teaching and learning, particularly in disciplines that are not formally taught in the region’s universities or technical colleges.