Ministers, deputy ministers and other senior authorities from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Uruguay-among other countries-will participate on June 9-10, 2014, in the First Meeting of the Conference on Science, Innovation and Information and Communications Technologies of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
The meeting, which will also be attended by international officials and representatives of cooperation agencies, is organized by ECLAC and Chile's Foreign Relations Ministry, with the support of the German Agency For International Cooperation (GIZ), the Brazilian Center for Strategic Studies and Management (CGEE) and the Chilean National Council on Innovation for Competitiveness.
The Conference on Science, Innovation and Information and Communications Technologies is a subsidiary body of ECLAC, which was created by the region's countries during the Commission's Thirty-fourth session, held in August 2012 in San Salvador, El Salvador. One of its goals is to promote the development and improvement of national policies in these areas.
At the first meeting of the Conference, which will take place at ECLAC's headquarters in the Chilean capital, participants will examine strategies in the field of innovation and cooperation to advance towards inclusive development.
On different panels, authorities will analyze matters such as the challenges of training human resources in science and technology, postgraduate scholarship programs to boost intraregional mobility, state incentives for innovation, and venture and risk capital funds.
They will also identify the main areas for regional cooperation and the mechanisms for funding regional projects. At the end of the meeting delegates are expected to adopt the Santiago de Chile Agreement.
Prior to this event, a ministerial meeting was held on June 17-18, 2013, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where officials discussed innovation and structural change in Latin America and the Caribbean. At that time, the countries signed the Rio de Janeiro Declaration.
