Osvaldo Sunkel’s trajectory is deeply linked to the history of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Born in Frutillar, a small lakeside town in southern Chile, far removed from the academic and cultural life of the capital, he grew up in a family where education was considered fundamental.

Thanks to the interest of his parents and the experiences of his older brothers, Sunkel was able to study at the Instituto Nacional Barros Arana in Santiago, an opportunity that marked a turning point in his life. Surrounded by distinguished teachers and classmates from different regions of the country, Sunkel would later recall that period as “something like discovering the world.”

After graduating from secondary school, he entered the University of Chile to study economics at a time marked by debates about industrialization and development. During the 1950s, the country was experiencing the momentum of institutions such as CORFO and the emergence of new ideas about the role of the state in economic transformation.

His first direct connection with ECLAC came through the economist Jorge Ahumada, who was looking for students interested in participating in a training initiative linked to the institution. Ahumada invited him to take part in a course on Latin American development. The seminar brought together a small group of young economists and was based mainly on intensive reading and discussion of texts. As Sunkel later recalled, at the time “there were practically no books on economic development,” so the group studied the experiences of countries such as Japan and the Scandinavian nations to better understand development processes.

These discussions coincided with the period when ECLAC, under the intellectual leadership of Raúl Prebisch, was beginning to take shape and formulate new interpretations of development, industrialization, and the structural inequalities affecting Latin America.

Throughout his career, Sunkel became one of the most influential figures in neo-structuralist thought and in debates on development. His contributions helped enrich discussions on dependency, development strategies, and the relationship between national policies and the international economic system.