22-26 Apr 2019 Santiago, Chile | Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development
The third meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development will be officially inaugurated tomorrow Wednesday, April 24, at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile.
More than a thousand people – including representatives of government, international institutions, the private sector, academia and civil society – are already confirmed to attend the gathering, which will be held on April 22-26. The meeting will feature more than 50 side events. Participants will meet to review the progress and challenges regarding implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the region.
The official opening ceremony, which will take place tomorrow Wednesday, April 24 at 9 a.m., will be presided over by Alicia Bárcena, ECLAC’s Executive Secretary. The Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, will send a special greeting, to be read by Alicia Bárcena.
In addition, the ECLAC Executive Secretary will offer a press conference about the Forum that same Wednesday, April 24, at 11:30 a.m., at ECLAC’s offices.
The Forum is convened annually by the member State that holds the presidency of ECLAC’s Committee of the Whole, and it will be carried out under ECLAC’s auspices. On this occasion, Cuba will preside over the third meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development, since that country has held the organization’s presidency since 2018.
At the meeting, ECLAC will present the Quadrennial report on regional progress and challenges in relation to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, prepared by the organization in conjunction with the United Nations agencies, funds and programs that have a presence in the region.
“This indispensable meeting confirms the importance of multilateralism, the vocation for integration and the enthusiasm for regional cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean, provided also by ECLAC,” Alicia Bárcena, the organization’s Executive Secretary, said in a video message in which she invites people to participate in this important event.
The meeting’s official activities include peer learning sessions that will address the challenges of implementing the 2030 Agenda in the Caribbean and analyze aspects such as the institutional framework, planning and budget for the Agenda along with its subnational implementation, statistical capacities, measurement and georeferencing.
An interregional dialogue between Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean regarding implementation of the 2030 Agenda will also take place.
“This Forum will also allow the region to speak with one voice, its own voice, in the global debate on implementation of the Agenda 2030, which is a civilizing and transformative agenda that the world has set for 2030. That voice, your voice, expresses shared motivations and concerns, without denying regional diversity, and it is capable of incorporating distinct views. For all these reasons, we invite you to take an active part in this regional gathering,” Alicia Bárcena emphasized.
The Forum was created via the approval of resolution 700(XXXVI), known as the Mexico Resolution, at ECLAC’s thirty-sixth session, held in May 2016 in Mexico City.
It was conceived as a regional mechanism for implementation and follow-up of the 2030 Agenda, adopted in 2015 by the 193 countries represented in the United Nations General Assembly and which establishes 17 goals and 169 targets in diverse areas of development with a view to 2030.
The full program of the third meeting of the Forum, along with general information on the meeting and registration forms for participants and journalists, is available on the gathering’s special website: https://foroalc2030.cepal.org/2019/en.
You will be able to follow all the meeting’s details live on the Internet and via ECLAC’s social media accounts, using the hashtags #ForoALC2030 and #LACForum2030.
