The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has encouraged countries in the region to strengthen the incorporation of ethnic-racial equality in the implementation and follow-up of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, underscoring the importance of timely, high-quality, and disaggregated data to make structural inequalities visible and guide more effective public policy responses.

This was one of the central messages of the side event "Ethnic-Racial Equality in the 2030 Agenda and SDG 18: Data and Monitoring to Leave No One Behind," held on 13 April 2026 at ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Chile, during the Ninth Meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development. The event was jointly organized by Brazil's Ministry of Racial Equality and ECLAC, in hybrid format with simultaneous interpretation in Spanish, English, and Portuguese.

The meeting aimed to share strategies and experiences for expanding the availability and quality of disaggregated data on Afro-descendant populations, and to discuss institutional initiatives and monitoring platforms that can contribute to strengthening the ethnic-racial dimension in the implementation and follow-up of the 2030 Agenda across Latin America and the Caribbean.

The opening session featured remarks from Cledisson Geraldo dos Santos Junior, Secretary of Brazil's Ministry of Racial Equality; Thiago Gehre Galvão, Adviser to Brazil's National SDG Commission; Lennon Ferreira Corezomaé, Director at the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples; and Camila Gramkow, Director of ECLAC's office in Brazil.

The roundtable was moderated by Mayra Juruá, Programme Management Officer at ECLAC's Brazil office, and included presentations by Tatiana Dias Silva of the Ministry of Racial Equality; Kenia Muniz, representative of the Department of Chiapas, Mexico; Fabiana Del Popolo, Head of the Demography Area at CELADE–ECLAC Population Division; and Rolando Ocampo, Director of ECLAC's Statistics Division, alongside representatives from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), academia, and civil society.

Participants highlighted Brazil's experience with SDG 18 on Ethnic-Racial Equality — a goal voluntarily adopted by the country to promote ethnic-racial equality, with particular attention to the inequalities affecting Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendant populations. The role of new monitoring tools was also featured, including the Racial SDG Platform, designed to support the tracking and evaluation of indicators aligned with the 2030 Agenda and to guide evidence-based policymaking.

ECLAC emphasized that this discussion directly engages with the commitments made by Latin American and Caribbean countries under the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development, particularly Chapters H and I, which address Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendants respectively. In this regard, the event stressed that advancing a regional agenda on ethnic-racial equality requires a more decisive articulation of statistical production, monitoring, social participation, and public policy design.

The event also underscored the need to make better use of available information sources — including population and housing censuses, surveys, and administrative records — to make visible the persistent gaps affecting Afro-descendant, Indigenous, and other historically discriminated populations. This direction converges with SDG target 17.18, which calls for expanding the availability of high-quality, timely, and disaggregated data.

Through initiatives of this kind, ECLAC reaffirms its commitment to strengthening countries' statistical capacities and to promoting evidence-based public policies that advance sustainable development with equality and ensure that no one is left behind.