The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) will hold its most important biennial meeting in Mexico City from May 23 to May 27, 2016, where officials will present to its 45 member and 13 associate countries a report on recent activities and will offer governments a reflection upon development strategies in the context of the commitments contained in the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Mexico’s Foreign Minister, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, and ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, signed the agreement on 12 February through which Mexico becomes the venue for the Thirty-sixth session of this United Nations organization.
“For our country it is very important to host ECLAC’s session and receive representatives from throughout the region to discuss issues of development and equality, especially of gender,” Ruiz Massieu affirmed.
Bárcena indicated that in this session participants will debate the region’s economic, social and environmental development based on a position document written by ECLAC, in light of the agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approved by the UN General Assembly in September 2015. This document continues along the same path as the “trilogy of equality” presented by the Commission in its three previous meetings (2010, 2012 and 2014).
“We keep equality at the center of our proposals and with a gender approach in which the role of Latin American and Caribbean women is made more visible in the agenda of the SDGs,” said the United Nations official. “As a Mexican woman, it is an honor that this meeting be held in my country.”
The Executive Secretary also met with President Enrique Peña Nieto, whom she thanked for the invitation that Mexico’s government made to ECLAC to host the session. She also expressed her appreciation to him, since he will be the person to kick off the work of this regional UN commission’s highest governing body.
The complete program of ECLAC’s thirty-sixth session, along with general information on the meeting, is available on the gathering’s special Web site: ://periododesesiones.cepal.org/36/en. Journalists who want to get accredited to cover the meeting can also do so through this site.
