ECLAC and Norway Strengthen Cooperation Ties During a Visit to the Organization’s Headquarters in Chile

On Tuesday, September 13 in Santiago, Chile, the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, received a delegation of parliamentarians belonging to the Norwegian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense, with whom she shared the United Nations organization’s work regarding implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the region.

The delegation was headed by Anniken Huitfeldt, Chair of the Committee, and was made up of 10 members of Parliament from various political parties. They were accompanied by Beate Stirø, the Norwegian Ambassador to Chile, and other members of the diplomatic delegation in Santiago. On behalf of ECLAC, other attendees included Antonio Prado, the Deputy Executive Secretary, and Raúl García-Buchaca, Deputy Executive Secretary for Management and Program Analysis, along with numerous other directors and officials.

ECLAC and Norway have had a close cooperation relationship dating back to the 1980s. In 2013 both parties began a joint program to advance on the “equality agenda” and a political dialogue in three areas: gender equality, social protection, labor markets and the governance of natural resources. In October 2015, the Nordic country officially became a full member of the regional United Nations organization and currently they are carrying out a program focused on strengthening vocational and technical education for greater equality, with emphasis on employment compacts, particularly for women.

At the meeting, Alicia Bárcena gave a presentation about the main work that ECLAC is doing, especially with regard to its current mission to rethink development patterns in light of the 2030 Agenda.

“The current development model is unsustainable because it is associated with falling growth in production and trade, and decoupling from the financial system. In addition it maintains heightened inequality, with serious political, social and economic consequences, and causes irreversible global climate change,” Bárcena indicated.

ECLAC’s Executive Secretary recalled that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the response that the world has agreed upon to confront this reality, but its implementation presents numerous challenges, especially in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean. “We need a structural change with a big environmental push and new coalitions between the State, the private sector and society,” she emphasized.

The senior United Nations official explained that ECLAC’s proposal includes the creation of global public goods, consolidating regional integration, and implementing new institutions and public-private alliances at a national level, with a big environmental push. In this sense, she highlighted the initiative carried out by Norway to incorporate the 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the specific plans of each of that country’s ministries.

“We believe that this big environmental push is an opportunity to make progressive structural change. With the support of countries like Norway, we must reinforce regional action and our region’s architecture for cooperation. The new Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development, created recently under ECLAC’s leadership, will serve as a bridge between the global and national levels to provide follow-up to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and discuss regional priorities,” Bárcena said.

On behalf of the Norwegian delegation, the Parliamentarian Anniken Huitfeldt and Ambassador Beate Stirø thanked ECLAC and its Executive Secretary for the presentation and reaffirmed their willingness to continue close collaboration between the two sides. “Without a doubt we agree with ECLAC about the need to promote innovation, an environmental push and the equality agenda to achieve greater well-being for our peoples,” Huitfeldt said.

In addition to the Chair of the Norwegian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense, Anniken Huitfeldt, and the Norwegian Ambassador to Chile, Beate Stirø, the delegation from the European country that visited ECLAC’s headquarters was made up of the following members of Parliament: Øyvind Halleraker, Sylvi Graham, Elin R. Agdestein, Kristian Støback Wilhelmsen, of the Conservative Party; Liv Signe Navarsete, of the Norwegian Center Party; Jørund Rytman, of the Progress Party; Kåre Simensen, of the Labor Party; Dag Stangnes, Secretary of the Committee; Kristin Sommer Bjørnson, Senior Advisor to the Committee Secretariat; Idar Instefjord, First Secretary at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Chile; and Mari Bangstad, Political Secretary from the same Embassy.