ECLAC’s Committee on South-South Cooperation Will Contribute to the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda

The member countries of the Committee on South-South Cooperation, a subsidiary body of ECLAC, approved today—as lines of action for the 2016-2018 period—the exchange of experiences on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the promotion of associations of multiple actors, and the exchange of experiences and good practices regarding methodologies and measurement of South-South cooperation.

Meeting in the framework of the thirty-sixth session of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), being held in Mexico, the representatives also agreed to inform the Sustainable Development Forum of Latin American and Caribbean Countries about its contribution to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. This Forum, which will provide the regional and subregional framework for follow-up to that agenda, will be approved at the end of the biennial gathering in the Mexican capital.

“It is a privilege to lead the Committee on South-South Cooperation at a crucial moment for international development,” said Gina Casar, Executive Director of the Mexican Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AMEXCID). This kind of cooperation, she said, has been increasing in importance in recent years, representing about $20 billion dollars per year, equivalent to 15.2% of all Official Development Assistance, according to United Nations’ figures.

“We believe that the Committee can be a channel for confronting the challenges in a collective way and forging an alliance between the different organizations of South-South cooperation,” Casar said.

Meanwhile, Alicia Bárcena, ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, said that “we need a change in the development pattern, and also in the cooperation pattern,” mentioning five priority areas identified by the organization on this matter.

These areas are: the integration of the 2030 Agenda into national development plans and budgets; the need to align the means of implementation with the difficult economic context, with a focus on science and technology and intraregional trade; the strengthening of the regional architecture for follow-up to the 2030 Agenda; the improvement of countries’ statistical capacities in the context of the data revolution; and the full participation of society.

“South-South cooperation must be part of the new architecture for the implementation and follow-up of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” Bárcena stated.

After the remarks by Casar and Bárcena, a discussion panel began with the participation of Jesús Manuel Gracia, Spanish Secretary of State for International Cooperation and for Ibero-America; Norma Vidal, Deputy Minister for Social Benefits at Peru’s Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion; and Ricardo Herrera Saldías, Director of the Chilean Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AGCID).

Other participants included Rolando Ocampo, President of the Regional Committee of United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management for the Americas and Vice President of Mexico’s INEGI; Salvador Arriola, Secretary for Ibero-American Cooperation of the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB); and Christiane Bögemann-Hagedorn, Deputy Director General for Latin America at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

During the session, the Committee asked ECLAC to continue its efforts to design methodologies for measuring South-South cooperation in the region through a system of satellite accounts and follow-up and evaluation of programs and projects. The agreement also included a call for countries to participate in the process of calculating structural gaps in order to facilitate measurement and visualization of each country’s development levels, beyond per capita income.

The Committee’s Presiding Officers is now made up of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Jamaica, with Mexico holding the presidency.

The complete program of ECLAC’s thirty-sixth session, as well as general information on the meeting, is available on the gathering’s special Web site: ://periododesesiones.cepal.org/36/en.

You can follow all the details of the meeting on social media using the hashtags #Horizontes2030 and #Horizons2030.

More information:

Web site. Thirty-sixth session of ECLAC.

For questions related to press coverage, contact:
 

In Mexico City: María Luisa Díaz de León, Public Information Official, ECLAC’s Subregional Headquarters in Mexico. E-mail: marialuisa.diaz@cepal.org; Telephone: (52 55) 41705665. Cell Phone: (5255) 5416 9297.

Félix Ibáñez, Officer-in-Charge of ECLAC’s Public Information Unit. E-mail: prensa@cepal.org; Telephone: (56) 22210 2040. Cell Phone: (569) 7 967 8306.

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