The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, concluded today a three-day official visit to Brazil, which included activities in Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, where he met with high-level national authorities and participated in a seminar on Financing for the Big Push for Sustainability.
During his visit to Brasilia, Salazar-Xirinachs was received at the Palácio do Planalto by Geraldo Alckmin, the country’s Vice President and Minister of Development, Industry, Trade and Services. At this meeting held on Wednesday, June 7, the two authorities discussed various areas of cooperation on topics related to sustainable development, neo-industrialization policies, electromobility, green technologies and innovation.
On Tuesday, June 6, ECLAC’s Executive Secretary met with Ambassador Celso Amorim, Special Advisor to the Presidency of the Republic, with whom he addressed the challenges of economic integration in Latin America and the Caribbean and the challenges of the Presidency of the Group of Twenty (G20), which Brazil will assume as of December. Both authorities agreed on the importance of the region coordinating positions and messages before the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Summit, which will take place in September 2023 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, and before the Summit of the Future, to be held in September 2024.
ECLAC’s highest authority was also received in Brasilia by the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, with whom he discussed tax systems, the challenges of the international financial system, regional integration and the ecological transition.
At the Itamaraty Palace, the seat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Salazar-Xirinachs met with the interim Foreign Minister, Maria Laura da Rocha, with whom he discussed ECLAC’s role in promoting development and integration in Latin America and the Caribbean. They also addressed topics such as South-South cooperation and Brazil's presidency of the G20 in 2024. He was also received by the Secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean, Ambassador Gisela Maria Figueiredo Padovan, and by Ambassador André Correa do Lago, Secretary of Environment, Climate and Energy.
The Executive Secretary of ECLAC’s intense schedule included meetings with the Minister of Planning and Budget, Simone Tebet, and the Minister of Development, Social Assistance, Family and the Fight Against Hunger, Wellington Dias, with whom he signed a cooperation agreement to provide technical support to the country in the area of care policies.
He also held discussions with Luciana Mendes Servo, President of the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA), and Rafael Lucchesi, Director of Education and Technology at the National Confederation of Industry of Brazil (CNI), Director-General of the National Service for Industrial Training (SENAI) and Superintendent-Director of the Social Service of Industry (SESI).
In addition, he met with Ambassador Carlos Marcio Cozendey, Secretary of Multilateral Affairs at the Itamaraty Palace, at a gathering attended by Silvia Rucks, United Nations Resident Coordinator in Brazil, and representatives of UN agencies, funds and programs in the country.
At the beginning of his official mission to Brazil, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs visited Rio de Janeiro, where he participated in the inauguration of the seminar Financing for the Big Push for Sustainability, which was held on Monday, June 5 as part of World Environment Day at the headquarters of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), and was organized by ECLAC, BNDES and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung foundation (FES-Brasil).
On that occasion, he urged the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to pivot in the transformation of their development model in order to move towards a more productive, inclusive and sustainable future. "We need a reactivation with transformation," ECLAC’s leading representative emphasized.
In the framework of the seminar, ECLAC and FES-Brasil presented the document Financing the Big Push: Paths for Unlocking the Social and Ecological Transition in Brazil.
The visit by ECLAC’s Executive Secretary to Rio de Janeiro included a bilateral meeting with Aloizio Mercadante, President of BNDES, in which they agreed to deepen the partnership between ECLAC and BNDES and establish a new phase of strengthened collaboration. More specifically, they agreed on the creation of a BNDES-ECLAC +70 Work Group, in reference to the work group that both organizations maintained in the past, with the aim of promoting research and training on matters related to sustainable development in Brazil and the region.
After that, the senior UN official visited the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation - Fiocruz, where he signed an extension on a joint strategic cooperation agreement on research and development.
