Experts from international and multilateral organizations, along with government officials from various Latin American and Caribbean countries, participated in a high-level seminar on the new challenges of international cooperation and their importance for furthering the region’s development in a complex context such as the current one.
The event, entitled New challenges and new perspectives on international cooperation: Development approaches from Latin America and the Caribbean, took place on September 13-14 at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile. It was organized by ECLAC in collaboration with the Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Chilean Agency for International Development Cooperation (AGCID) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Participating in the meeting were representatives of Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru and Uruguay, along with senior officials from organizations such as ECLAC, the IDB, the OECD, UN Women, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Development Bank of Latin America – CAF, the European Commission, the EU-LAC Foundation, the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), among other entities.
The seminar was inaugurated by Raúl García Buchaca, Deputy Executive Secretary for Management and Programme Analysis of ECLAC; Federico Bonaglia, Deputy Director of the OECD Development Centre; Sebastián Miller, Lead Economist at the IDB; and Enrique O’Farrill, Acting Executive Director of AGCID.
The work sessions took place at four thematic roundtables that addressed the following issues: 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, global public goods and multidimensional measures of development and well-being; Financing for development: New global alliances, public-private alliances and international financial institutions; Regional partnerships for tackling pressing priorities; and Renewal of the partnerships between the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean.
In their discussions, the participants highlighted the importance of international cooperation in historic times such as these, permeated by unprecedented tensions like the health and socioeconomic crises resulting from the global COVID-19 pandemic, the recent economic evolution marked by waning growth and widespread inflationary pressures, and compounded by the impact of the war in Ukraine, which has added uncertainty on a global level.
Furthermore, they concurred that the region’s countries are demanding a paradigm shift in development cooperation, in consonance with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Classifications based solely on per-capita income criteria do not reflect the gamut of multidimensional vulnerabilities, structural gaps and financing needs of the region’s countries. Thus, they stressed that the classification and graduation mechanisms that exclude middle-income countries from international cooperation are no longer viable, either for addressing the current crises or those associated with climate change, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss.
Likewise, they highlighted Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean’s joint efforts in this area to move towards sustainable development models, understanding that the fight against climate change and the transition to sustainable production and consumption models must be a priority in terms of development, along with the promotion of a stronger and more inclusive multilateral system.