Mexico Will Host First Meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development

Mexico will host on April 26-28 the first meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development, where representatives of governments, international institutions, the private sector, academia and civil society will gather to review progress on and challenges to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the region.

The event, organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE), will be held at the SRE’s main building, as established in an agreement signed in the framework of a meeting between ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, and Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray on February 27.

This forum was created upon approval of the so-called Mexico resolution during the Thirty-sixth session of ECLAC – held in May 2016 in Mexico City – and was conceived as the regional mechanism for implementation and follow-up of the 2030 Agenda, which was adopted in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and which establishes 17 goals and 169 targets in diverse areas of development to be achieved by 2030.

According to that resolution, the Forum will be convened each year by the member State that serves as Chair of ECLAC’s Committee of the Whole, which is currently Mexico, and it will hold session under the Commission’s auspices.

Participation in this regional forum is open to all governments of Latin America and the Caribbean and representatives of national parliaments, other bodies in the United Nations System, organizations for regional and subregional integration, international financial institutions and development banks, the private sector, academia and civil society.

This mechanism seeks to provide peer learning opportunities through voluntary reviews, the exchange of good practices and the discussion of shared objectives. Its conclusions will be sent directly to the United Nations’ High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development, the global mechanism for follow-up to the 2030 Agenda, which will meet each July in New York.

At the gathering in Mexico, ECLAC will present the first annual report about regional progress and challenges regarding the 2030 Agenda, while the respective countries that preside ECLAC’s intergovernmental subsidiary bodies will report on each of their activities relating to the 2030 Agenda.

Funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations; international agencies and financial institutions; representatives of civil society, the private sector and other relevant stakeholders will also present other reports on initiatives linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In this space, participants will also share experiences regarding the preparation of voluntary reviews on implementation of the 2030 Agenda. In this segment, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela will play a leading role, since these countries already presented their reviews to the HLPF in 2016, along with the 11 States from the region that will do so this year: Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Peru and Uruguay.

In addition, a special session will be held on the means of implementation of the 2030 Agenda and talks will take place on the promotion of prosperity, with special emphasis on SDGs number 1 (poverty), 2 (hunger), 3 (health), 5 (gender equality), 9 (infrastructure, industrialization and innovation), 14 (marine resources) and 17 (means of implementation and global alliances).

The complete program for the first meeting of the Forum, as well as general information on the meeting, is available at the gathering’s special website.

With the aim of facilitating coverage of this meeting, an international press center will be set up at the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs’ main building (Plaza Juárez 20, Cuauhtémoc, Centro, Mexico City).

Those journalists who want to cover the meeting must register online at ://foroalc2030.cepal.org/2017/en and seek accreditation at the international press center, which as of Tuesday, April 25 will be open each day starting at 9 a.m. local time.

More information at ://foroalc2030.cepal.org/2017/en.

Queries regarding media coverage of the meeting should be made to Guido Camú, Officer-in-Charge of ECLAC’s Public Information Unit in Santiago, Chile.

Email: prensa@cepal.org; Telephone: (56 2) 2210 2040.

In Mexico City, journalists may contact María Luisa Díaz de León, Public Information Officer at ECLAC’s Subregional Headquarters in Mexico.

Email: marialuisa.diaz@cepal.org; Telephone: (52 55) 41705665.