Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean 2023

The Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2023 shows that economic activity in Latin America and the Caribbean is still on a path of low growth. For 2023, growth in all subregions is expected to be lower than in 2022. In 2024, the growth rate is expected to be lower than in 2023, with GDP growth and job creation slowing further. Importantly, the low growth projected in 2023 and 2024 is not just a temporary problem, but reflects the fall in the trend growth rate of regional GDP. As noted in this report, the region faces multiple challenges in boosting growth …

Migrants’ contribution to sustainable development in Jamaica

The study focuses on migrants’ contributions to Jamaica’s development from the ECLAC perspective on the contributions of international migration to sustainable development. Improving understanding of these contributions will enhance capacity to formulate and implement public policies and development plans that take into account the opportunities and challenges of international migration in countries of origin or return, transit and destination, in compliance with the commitments set forth in international and multilateral agreements, such as the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Mig…

Contributions of international migration to development in Latin America and the Caribbean: good practices, challenges and recommendations

This document presents the results of five studies on the contribution of migration to sustainable development in a selection of Latin American and Caribbean countries (Chile, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico and Peru), within the framework of a project under the twelfth tranche United Nations Development Account entitled “Harnessing the contribution of international migration to sustainable development in Latin American and Caribbean countries”, implemented by ECLAC between 2020 and 2023. Evidence from economic, demographic and cultural studies is compared using quantitative and qualitative metho…

Child marriages and early unions: inequality and poverty among women, girls and adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean

Child, early and forced marriages and unions are defined as a union in which at least one of the parties is under the age of 18. The overwhelming majority of formal and informal child marriages and unions involve girls, although in some cases their male spouses are also under 18. As stated in the Joint general recommendation No. 31 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women/general comment No. 18 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on harmful practices, and Human Rights Council resolution 29/8 of 2 July 2015, on strengthening efforts to prevent and eliminate ch…

Natural Resources in Latin America and the Caribbean - No.5

On 19 December 2022, a potentially landmark agreement for multilateral environmental aspirations was reached with the adoption, under the aegis of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), of the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (Kunming-Montreal Framework or Global Biodiversity Framework) and other accords as a transformative road map for the current decade to curb biodiversity loss and environmental degradation. The new Kunming-Montreal Framework is of the utmost importance for Latin America and the Caribbean, one of the world’s most biologically and culturally rich reg…

Improving education is crucial for inclusive and sustainable economic and social development

Education is fundamental to the achievement of inclusive and sustainable economic and social development and more just and cohesive societies. Despite having made considerable strides in terms of education access, progression and completion, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean face a dual challenge: accelerating progress and reducing gaps in education coverage and completion rates while improving the quality and relevance of education. Gains in access to education and to technical and vocational training have failed to translate into the skills that students need to adapt to lifel…

Universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality and move towards inclusive social development

Social protection was extensively discussed at the 1995 World Summit for Social Development. Over 75 years, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has developed an agenda that prioritizes the construction of a rights-based society in order to move towards sustainable development. ECLAC argues that social protection is essential to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and successfully pursue a strategy of inclusive social development, and advocates universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection systems. These form the basis of welfare States…

The perpetual pursuit of integration in Latin America and the Caribbean

Latin America and the Caribbean set out to achieve regional integration. However, sixty years on from the launch of the first major regional project —the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA)— the modest results have fallen well short of the original aspirations. Latin America and the Caribbean is a fragmented region. Institutions for integration have achieved little, and integration has largely appeared in discourse, rather than among national policy priorities. Politicization of integration has hampered progress on the pragmatic and long-term vision offered by this regional project. …

Toward AI Policies for the Caribbean

Artificial Intelligence offers extraordinary opportunities for accelerating human progress across a range of fields from healthcare and education, to combating climate change and disasters. However, if left unregulated, AI could exacerbate inequalities, undermine human rights and threaten peace.…

Macroeconomic policies for investment and sustained and sustainable development

Climate crises will adversely impact the already weak and volatile growth of Latin American and Caribbean countries and significant public and private investment in adaptation and mitigation will be needed to address the effects of climate change. This is no easy proposition in a region that underinvests and has a complex macroeconomic scenario. Macroeconomic and financing policies have great potential to boost investment, but fiscal policy must safeguard public investment during fiscal consolidation processes and find ways to enhance it during recovery phases in order to crowd in private inve…

Director’s Desk: Artificial Intelligence for Caribbean sustainable development

2023 saw Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools becoming widely available to the general public, leading to the generation of new works of art, songs, text, and computer code. This explosion in new outputs has led to much excitement around AI’s potential, but also brought to the forefront concerns about countries and communities being left behind, and the technology’s potential to harm individuals and societies. This issue of FOCUS magazine discusses the potential impact of AI on the Caribbean, and avenues to develop tailored AI policies, governance systems, and to engage with AI issues at the int…

Inequalities, labour inclusion and the future of work in Latin America

The study of labour market inclusion serves to analyse the processes whereby people join the labour market and the characteristics of the jobs that they obtain. This publication analyses the labour market inclusion challenges that various groups in situations of vulnerability face in terms of the future of work, in particular women, young people, people of African descent and Indigenous Peoples. Labour markets in Latin America are undergoing significant interrelated and overlapping changes that threaten to exacerbate existing inequalities. These changes include those related to economic global…

Towards transformation of the growth and development strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean: the role of productive development policies

Latin America and the Caribbean have a structural low-growth problem, which is explained largely by the fact that productivity has not increased, and has even declined, in recent decades. Although productivity growth will require continuous development of a medium- and long-term agenda aimed at improving “fundamentals”, this article proposes a new complementary strategy for growth, transformation of the production structure and employment for the region, based on a deepening of its productive development policies and improving their implementation. To this end, six guidelines are proposed that…

Rethinking, reimagining and transforming: the “whats” and the “hows” for moving towards a more productive, inclusive and sustainable development model

The Latin America and Caribbean region is mired in three development traps: a long-term inability to grow, high inequality, and low institutional and governance capacity. This article offers an analysis of development challenges that centres on a 10-point catalogue of gaps constituting priority areas of action for public policy and collective transformation efforts. To this is added an eleventh area concerned with how to move from the present situation to the desired scenarios, something that requires a focus on challenges related to governance, institutional capacities and opportunities for s…

Demographic Outlook for Population Aging in the Region of the Americas

With the object of summarizing the available knowledge about the health and well-being of older persons in the Region of the Americas at the start of the Decade on Healthy Aging 2021-2030 and reporting on population aging, this publication provides current information on the demographic outlook in the Region. The data paint a detailed picture of the effects of the demographic transition, major trends, and population profiles, taking into account the results of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rapid population aging in Latin America and the Caribbean is shaping the capacity of countries and health system…

The Hummingbird Vol. 10 No. 12

The challenge of income inequality in Latin America

Seventy-five years after the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) was founded, reducing the concentration of income and wealth remains one of the key challenges in Latin America. This article firstly reviews the contributions made by ECLAC and Latin American structuralism to the analysis and measurement of the income distribution. It then describes the main trends of inequality in the region from 1990 to the present, and suggests items to be included on the agenda of inequality reduction in the coming years.…

Introduction: Special issue commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and reflecting on the present and the future of the region

AI Governance for the Caribbean

This year, 2023, has seen the advent of increasingly powerful Artificial Intelligence systems becoming available to the public, and greater global discourse around the safety and accuracy of these systems. Caribbean countries are actively engaging with the question of how AI systems should be governed to ensure that this powerful technology is used safely, responsibly and ethically, with a focus on accountability, minimizing risks and maximizing benefits.…

“It’s messy, but we have to do it now” – Craig Ramlal, UN advisor, on AI regulation

Few technological advances created more global buzz in 2023 than artificial intelligence: One tool captured global attention by generating text in different formats based on simple prompts; another created new covers of recent songs by singers who passed away decades ago; and others created full works of art in distinct styles based on user descriptions.…