On that occasion, ECLAC presented its experience in the production, compilation, and dissemination of official statistics, highlighting the institutional efforts aimed at generating comparable statistical information across the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. These efforts support comparative analyses and the formulation of evidence-based public policies, enabling more informed decision-making.

One of ECLAC’s main assets is the knowledge it generates regarding the growth and development of the region, which is a key component of the value proposition the institution offers to its Member States, the United Nations system, and society as a whole.

This characteristic aligns with the Data Strategy proposed by the United Nations Secretary-General, which emphasizes the need to regard data as strategic assets for the organization’s work, including statistical data but extending beyond it.

The analytical reports, diagnostics, and policy recommendations for the region produced by ECLAC, together with its information dissemination platforms and thematic observatories, provide essential support for decision-making based on relevant information and data about Latin America and the Caribbean. In doing so, they strengthen ECLAC’s role as a trusted and reliable reference for countries over time.

Therefore, the challenge is to ensure the availability of harmonized and comparable statistics and indicators across countries under accessibility conditions that enable their free use, reuse, and redistribution; that support cross-country comparative analysis; that adhere to international standards; that enable territorial localization to facilitate more targeted decision-making; and that ensure the traceability of developments in order to promote continuous performance improvement and error minimization. All of this should facilitate their integration into the institution’s information systems, incorporating analytical tools based on machine learning and artificial intelligence under interoperability protocols that encompass all available data assets.

The availability of indicators under this approach is embodied in the CEPALSTAT data portal, which serves as a gateway to knowledge on key statistical information for the development of the region. However, it is not conceived as an isolated asset, but rather as part of an interoperable ecosystem integrated with the other information assets that make up ECLAC’s broader data ecosystem.