The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) will present next Wednesday, April 21, its report entitled Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2021, an annual publication that analyzes and describes the main results of fiscal dynamics in the region’s countries during the last year.
The document will be unveiled virtually at 12 p.m. local time in Chile (GMT -4) by the United Nations regional organization’s Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, in the framework of the XXXIII Regional Seminar on Fiscal Policy, which will take place on April 21-23.
In its 2021 edition, the Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean examines the behavior of fiscal policy in the region’s countries over the last year and the role it played in mitigating the economic and social effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The publication offers a strategic view of public spending and presents the main fiscal challenges for achieving a transformative recovery in the wake of COVID-19.
The document addresses the need to design tax policies aimed at increasing fiscal space, improving income distribution, and advancing along a fiscal pathway in order to give sustainability to public spending, as well as the actions needed in the area of financing for development to support the recovery of middle-income countries. In addition to analyzing the wealth tax as a redistributive instrument for tax collection in the region, it includes for the first time an analysis of the extent to which a gender approach has been incorporated into fiscal policy in Latin America.
The report will be released on the first day of the Regional Seminar on Fiscal Policy, the main place of reference for discussing issues related to the public finances of Latin American and Caribbean countries, which has served for 33 years as a high-level, multilateral regional space for exchanging opinions about the region’s macroeconomic and fiscal policies and challenges.
The event – organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), with support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and with the sponsorship of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) – will bring together by virtual means Finance Ministry officials from 19 countries in the region and prominent experts from international organizations, academia, civil society organizations and non-governmental organizations.
At the seminar, participants will address fiscal policy trends and challenges in the region vis-à-vis the post-pandemic recovery, along with the perspectives of international organizations regarding the fiscal challenges observed in Latin America and the Caribbean. They will also analyze fiscal policy for a transformative recovery with gender equality; financing needs and challenges to sustain an expansionary fiscal policy and expand fiscal space for a transformative recovery in middle-income countries; how to put a stop to tax evasion and illicit financial flows; and climate financing in the region.
It will include a meeting of international organizations with the participation of ECLAC, the World Bank, the OECD, the IDB, the IMF and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), while also featuring the launch of Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean (2021 version), a report prepared jointly by ECLAC, the OECD, the IDB and the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT).
Members of the media are invited to attend the virtual presentation of the Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2021 via ECLAC’s website and https://live.cepal.org/.
The various sessions of the XXXIII Regional Seminar on Fiscal Policy will also be transmitted live.
More information, including the full programme of the XXXIII Regional Seminar on Fiscal Policy, will be available soon at this link.
What: Presentation of the Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2021 and XXXIII Regional Seminar on Fiscal Policy.
Who:
Presentation of the Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2021 (Wednesday, April 21, 12 p.m. local time in Chile, GMT -4):
When: Wednesday, April 21, 2021, 12 p.m. local time in Chile (GMT -4).
Where: Virtual connection via ECLAC’s website and https://live.cepal.org/.
For queries, contact ECLAC’s Public Information Unit.
Email: prensa@cepal.org; Telephone: (56) 22210 2040.
