The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Regional Gender Agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean: gender indicators up to 2024

Latin America and the Caribbean has made considerable efforts to achieve gender equality. Now the region must consolidate advances and fulfil commitments by accelerating progress towards substantive equality and the full exercise of rights for all women and girls. This document analyses the gender indicators for monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, in synchrony with the Regional Gender Agenda of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean. It focuses on Goals 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 17. Achieving more productive, inclusive and sustainable de…

Bridges for gender equality between Latin America and the Caribbean and Germany: Criteria and priorities for a regional feminist development cooperation policy

Bridges for gender equality between Latin America and the Caribbean and Germany: Criteria and priorities for a regional feminist development cooperation policy presents the outcomes of the project “Success criteria for a feminist development cooperation policy specific to Latin America and the Caribbean” developed under the Strategic Alliance between the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ) and carried out by the ECLAC Division for Gender  Affairs and the  Deutsche Gesellschaft für Int…

The role of trade and transport infrastructure in food security in Latin America and the Caribbean

This FAL Bulletin analyses the role of trade and transport infrastructure in food security in Latin America and the Caribbean. It identifies the main challenges and opportunities for ensuring equitable and sustainable access to food in the region. It also includes strategic recommendations to strengthen the contribution of trade, especially intraregional trade, to regional food security.…

Second report on the implementation of the Biennial programme of regional and international cooperation activities, 2024–2025, of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

Effects of countercyclical policies on women’s and men’s incomes during the COVID-19 pandemic: a gender analysis of personal taxes and transfers in Colombia, Ecuador and the Plurinational State of Bolivia

At the fourteenth session of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, just weeks before the onset of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the region’s governments undertook to “implement gender-sensitive countercyclical policies, in order to mitigate the impact of economic crises”. Against this backdrop, this document analyses the impact that taxes and transfers targeted to households and their members had on the disposable income of women and men between 2019 and 2020 in Colombia, Ecuador and the Plurinational State of Bolivia —countries for which harmonize…

Scaling up and improving productive development policies: 113 recommendations for Latin America and the Caribbean

In September 2024, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) presented the first edition of its new flagship publication Panorama of Productive Development Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2024.1 This document fills a gap in the Commission’s catalogue of publications, which until now has not featured a regular publication addressing one of its flagship themes over the years: productive development. This report is even more important in the context of the recent ECLAC statement that Latin America and the Caribbean faces three development traps: weak capacit…

Economic Survey of the Caribbean 2023

This survey examines the economic performance of economies of the Caribbean in 2022 and the first few months of 2023 and comprises five chapters. The first chapter gives an overview of global, regional and subregional economic performance in the Caribbean. The second provides an analysis of the subregion’s fiscal performance and debt burden. The third looks at monetary policy and their impacts. The fourth is focused on the external sector, while the fifth concludes.…

Report of the Sixth meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean

Latin America and the Caribbean in the Final Five Years of the 2030 Agenda: Steering Transformations to Accelerate Progress

Five years from the deadline for achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals  (SDGs) in Latin America and the Caribbean, progress has fallen short of expectations a decade ago when the journey began. Many factors have impeded better progress: weak institutional capacities, limited financing and fiscal space, low growth for major trading partners, the shock of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and subsequent cascading crises. In 2025, these factors have been compounded by geopolitical tensions and disruptions that may pose new obstacles for achievement of the SDGs, as well as new…

People of African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean: An exploration of social and territorial realities in the rural world

The content of this document provides an analytical framework on the socioeconomic, political, legal situation of hundreds of Afro-descendant populations in rural areas in Latin America and the Caribbean, focused on the analysis of three key areas: territories, natural resources, and productivity. Contemporary demographic studies generally describe Afro-descendants as an urban phenomenon, a product of the rural-urban migrations that took place from the second half of the 19th century onwards, when the abolition of slavery began. However, there is a lack of discourse on Afro-descendant life in…

Report on the Ninth Ministerial Conference on the Information Society in Latin America and the Caribbean

The road to the 2025 Second World Summit for Social Development: towards a pact for inclusive social development

Since the establishment of the United Nations, various intergovernmental agreements and international human rights instruments have expressed the ambition of achieving social development, which is central to the multilateral system. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, 1948) stressed the importance of well-being and, implicitly, of improved quality of life, both of which are linked to the rights to social security, work, an adequate standard of living, education and health. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (United Nations, 1966) broadened…

Latin America and the Caribbean looking ahead to the Second World Summit for Social Development: proposals for inclusive social development

The overarching objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development —ending poverty and hunger and reducing inequality— are long-held priorities of the region and particularly salient in the work of the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The region’s countries have cooperated to achieve these objectives since the establishment of the Regional Conference as a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in 2014. The Regional Agenda for Inclusive Social Development, adopted by the Regional Confe…

Annotated provisional agenda. Twenty-fourth meeting of the Executive Committee of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

Provisional agenda. Twenty-fourth meeting of the Executive Committee of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

Latin America and the Caribbean in the Final Five Years of the 2030 Agenda: Steering Transformations to Accelerate Progress. Summary

Five years from the deadline for achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Latin America and the Caribbean, progress has fallen short of expectations a decade ago when the journey began. Many factors have impeded better progress: weak institutional capacities, limited financing and fiscal space, low growth for major trading partners, the shock of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and subsequent cascading crises. In 2025, these factors have been compounded by geopolitical tensions and disruptions that may pose new obstacles for achievement of the SDGs, as well as new…

Main results of the 2021 cycle of the International Comparison Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean

This study presents the main results of the 2021 cycle of the International Comparison Programme (ICP) for Latin America and the Caribbean. It also includes an overview of the concepts and methods underlying the estimation of purchasing power parities (PPPs) and real expenditure.…

Latin America and the Caribbean looking ahead to the Second World Summit for Social Development: Proposals for Inclusive Social Development. Draft document prepared by the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin...

Territorialization of the Sustainable Development Goals in Latin America and the Caribbean: a manual for implementation of voluntary local reviews at the subnational level

Just six years away from the date set for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals established in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, an unprecedented level of concerted action is called for. All stakeholders will have to strengthen their resolve to find and put in place lasting solutions. Although the Sustainable Development Goals are global in scope, their achievement will hinge on the ability to make their attainment a reality at the subnational, local and territorial levels, including individual towns, cities and regions. The purpose of this manual is to share lessons…

Overcoming Development Traps in Latin America and the Caribbean in the Digital Age: The Transformative Potential of Digital Technologies and Artificial Intelligence

Latin America and the Caribbean is affected by three major structural traps or challenges that are holding back its development: low capacity for growth, high inequality and low social mobility, and low institutional capacity and ineffective governance. These challenges are deeply interconnected and feed back into each other, and the result is a vicious circle of productive stagnation, social exclusion and institutional fragility. However, digital transformation and the use of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) offer a unique opportunity to break this cycle. This document ex…