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Care Is the Future: Latin America and the Caribbean Launch the Decade of the Care Society

30 Sep 2025 | Op-ed

(Photo: An adult woman is assisted by a nurse. Credit: FG Trade Latin Getty Images). Imagine every neighborhood in the Andean highlands or the Caribbean islands offering affordable childcare, day centers for older adults, safe transportation, and equal leisure time for every family member. That horizon—where care is a shared right rather than an unrecognized burden—drew closer in August when the Tlatelolco Commitment was adopted at the 16th Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Mexico City. The agreement affirms that giving care, receiving care, and self-care…

Latin America Should Take the Long View on Tariffs

23 Apr 2025 | Op-ed

America’s tariff onslaught is less a passing whim than an attempt to reconfigure global economic and political forces. In such a volatile environment, Latin America and the Caribbean must mitigate immediate risks while also implementing far-sighted measures that reinforce the region’s commitment to structural change. SANTIAGO – On April 2, the United States announced a raft of “reciprocal” tariffs, ranging from an additional 10% to 50%, on imported goods. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff blitz, which left no country unscathed, was the biggest shock to hit the global trading syst…

Accelerating Progress Toward Substantive Equality and the Care Society

8 Mar 2025 | Op-ed

In 1975, the United Nations commemorated International Women’s Day for the first time, recognizing centuries of women’s struggles for equality, development, and peace. Latin America and the Caribbean have made significant progress in achieving legal equality. Today, women have on average, more years of education than men and are increasingly occupying decision-making positions. However, gaps persist in all countries. In the region, female labour force participation remains low: only 50% of women participate in the labour market, compared to 75% of men. Moreover, their participation is marked b…

Road safety is everyone’s business: Joint Op-Ed

17 Feb 2025 | Op-ed

If you had to guess the leading cause of death for children and young people globally, what would you say? Malaria? Pneumonia? Suicide? They’re all up there, but no, it’s road crashes. Cars have been around for over 120 years, and we know how to prevent these tragedies. Yet road crashes still claim more than two lives every minute, and nearly 1.2 million lives every year. If these deaths were caused by a virus, it would be called a pandemic and the world would scramble to develop vaccines to prevent them. And yet reducing road deaths has long been overlooked, misunderstood …

Regional Poverty: Good News, Pending Tasks and the Role of Social Protection

14 Nov 2024

In the recent Social Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2024, which ECLAC just published, we confirmed that poverty declined very significantly between 1990 and 2014, dropping from 51.2% to 27.7%. But this decline then came to a halt, coinciding with the start of the second “lost decade,” and poverty rose with the pandemic to 32.8% in 2020. It fell in 2022 to 28.8% and again in 2023 to 27.3%, which is the lowest level seen since comparable records exist. Nonetheless, there are still 172 million people in the region who do not have enough income to cover their basic needs. Meanwhile, e…

The Care Society: Acting Today for a Better Future

29 Oct 2024

On October 29, International Day of Care and Support, we are called to reflect and take action towards building a society that prioritizes care for people and the planet. Latin America and the Caribbean currently faces a development crisis, trapped in three major challenges: low growth capacity, high inequality, and limited institutional capacity. In this context, ECLAC has documented a persistent care crisis, exacerbated by population aging and the effects of climate change. In our region, women and girls bear a disproportionate burden of care work, both paid and unpaid. Additionally, we face…

Improved Learning: The Educational Transformation that the Region Needs

23 Jul 2024

Although initial theories regarding growth in the 1950s saw it as a process of accumulation of physical and tangible capital, experience showed that much more was needed to grow. The theories’ focus shifted to concentrate on the role of the world of work, and not just on the tangible number of workers, but instead on their skills and competencies, on what they could do and how good they were at doing it – in conjunction, of course, with physical capital and technology. Since the 19th century, in many countries there was broad consensus regarding the fundamental role of education for prosperity…

Securing Greater and Sustained Access to Long-term, Low-cost Finance for Small Island Developing States (SIDS)

11 Jun 2024 | Op-ed

The leadership of the United Nations and the wider international community, including over fifty Heads of Government and Heads of State, are focusing on the smallest and most vulnerable member countries this week with the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS4) in Antigua and Barbuda. This meeting reviews the sustainable development progress of SIDS over the past decade and adopts a new action platform for the next ten years. Of the 57 countries identified as SIDS by the UN, 29 are in the Caribbean, comprising 16 member States and 13 territories. The Economic …

Investing in Women and Gender Equality for a Better World

8 Mar 2024

On International Women’s Day, investing in gender equality and in the care society is both an economic and ethical imperative for speeding progress towards sustainable development. In a context of interlocking crises that threaten to intensify historical inequalities, it is crucial to implement policies that would enable breaking the vicious circle of poverty and exclusion. In recent decades, we have achieved significant progress on regulatory frameworks for gender equality in the law, such as the promulgation of laws against gender-based violence, the prohibition of child marriage, wage discr…

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People 2023

29 Nov 2023

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL -- MESSAGE ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE 29 November 2023 This International Day of Solidarity comes during one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Palestinian people. I am horrified by the death and destruction that have engulfed the region, which is overwhelmed with pain, anguish and heartache. Palestinians in Gaza are suffering a humanitarian catastrophe. Almost 1.7 million people have been forced from their homes – but nowhere is safe. Meanwhile, the situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, risks bo…

A Care Society for a Better World

31 Oct 2023 | Op-ed

October 29th marks the International Day of Care and Support, an occasion for stressing the importance of mobilizing efforts and pooling resources on a fundamental issue of justice and inclusion. This is about building a better society today that prioritizes care for people and the planet to have a better world tomorrow. Latin America and the Caribbean today faces multiple crises that threaten to deepen historical inequalities. In addition to a low-growth trend that affects the possibility of creating better jobs, there is an environmental crisis and structural inequality that disproportionate…

How Latin American and Caribbean Countries Can Mitigate Slow Growth in 2023

29 Mar 2023

(originally published in the World Economic Forum-WEF website, on 19 January, 2023) Average growth for Latin American and Caribbean countries is expected to slow down to 1.3% in 2023. Governments in the region will struggle to promote job creation, maintain social expenditures and transfers and invest in education. Key policy priorities should focus on reactivating job markets, curbing the rising cost of living, improving tax collection and sheltering vulnerable groups. 2023 is going to be a very challenging year for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean: it will mark the e…

Towards Transformation of the Development Model in Latin America and the Caribbean

31 Oct 2022

In 2022, Latin American and Caribbean countries are facing the effects of a series of shocks that have deteriorated their investment and production conditions, including the global financial crisis, economic tensions between major poles of the global economy, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the resurgence of inflation, in a context in which the environmental emergency is worsening and the technological revolution is accelerating. Numerous analysts and international organizations talk about a series of cascading crises, citing among them the crises related to the climate, health, …

Energy transition and climate resilience: catalysts for growth and inclusion

23 Sep 2022

The intensifying adverse impacts of climate change, the socioeconomic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and global food and energy security challenges are stalling decades of progress against poverty, hunger and income and gender inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean, and globally. ECLAC estimates that the region’s economy will grow 2.7% this year and 16 countries are yet to recover their pre-pandemic GDP levels. The region’s structural challenge of low investment is becoming entrenched, in 2021 standing at 19.7% of GDP, below the levels in much of the developed and emerging world. To…

Scale up carbon dioxide removal to achieve climate targets, urge United Nations regional leaders

24 Sep 2021

This week’s High-level Dialogue on Energy will be the first global gathering on energy mandated by the UN General Assembly since 1981. It gives all member states an opportunity to demonstrate their commitments and actions to achieve clean and affordable energy for all by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Time is running out to avert a climate emergency. Nations around the world are failing to live up to their objectives and commitments on sustainable energy. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report stated that climate change is “widespread, rapid, and…

Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean: a new partnership for the future

27 Jun 2021

Recovery from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis is a global challenge. No country, no region, no continent can face it alone. It is therefore right for the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean to strengthen our strategic partnership towards a more sustainable, inclusive and equal world. The human toll of the COVID-19 pandemic in our regions has been dramatic. As of 15 June 2021, a total of 732,000 people in the European Union and 1,210,000 people in Latin America and the Caribbean have lost their lives. COVID-19 has also thrown Latin America and the Caribbean into its w…

A development allocation of SDRs should benefit all developing countries irrespective of their income levels

26 Mar 2021

The recent call to action by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, Janet Yellen, to the G-20 for a new issue of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), which the G-20 recently approved, and the re-allocation of excess SDRs to low-income countries (LICs) is a much welcome and needed initiative. Concerted international action and solidarity are the only means to confront and overcome the COVID-19 crisis. A truly multilateral and global response to the Pandemic must extend the benefits of this initiative to all developing countries, irrespective of their level of income, including to mid…

Building Back Better Requires Transforming the Development Model of Latin America and the Caribbean

9 Jul 2020

As COVID-19 continues to spread throughout the world, Latin America and the Caribbean have become a hotspot of the pandemic. In a context of already gaping inequalities, high levels of informal labour and fragmented health services, the most vulnerable populations and individuals are once again being hit the hardest. Women, who make up the majority of the workforce in economic sectors being most affected, now must also bear the brunt of additional caregiving. Older persons and persons with disabilities are at much higher risk of death from the virus. Indigenous peoples and people of Afri…

Zero Hour: Our Region in the Face of the Pandemic

31 Mar 2020

Everything seems to be one gigantic mistake. We console ourselves by saying that everything has happened as it should not have happened. But it is we who are mistaken, not history. We must learn to look reality in the face; if necessary, we must invent new words and new ideas for these new realities that are challenging us. Thinking is the first obligation of the intelligentsia, and in certain cases it is the only one. Octavio Paz The Labyrinth of Solitude It is true that history recounts the devastating impact of past pandemics, but none of them broke out in such a populated world (wit…

International Women's Day 2020

8 Mar 2020

MESSAGE FOR WOMEN’S DAY: THE GENDER POWER GAP 8 March 2020 Women’s rights have made significant progress in recent decades, from the abolition of discriminatory laws to increased numbers of girls in school. But we now face a powerful pushback. Legal protections against rape and domestic abuse are being diluted in some countries; women’s sexual and reproductive rights are under threat. All this is because gender equality is fundamentally a question of power. Centuries of discrimination and deep-rooted patriarchy have created a yawning gender power gap in our economies, our political systems, o…

257 search results. Displaying 20 per page.