(12 November 2013) Today in Bonn, the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, signed a protocol with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) aimed at boosting structural change based on equality and sustainability.
On behalf of Germany, the agreement was signed by Ingolf Dietrich, Deputy Director for Latin America and Global and Sectoral Affairs of BMZ, and has three main axes: innovation for sustainable structural change; social and climate protection; and sustainable energy policies and fiscal environmental policy.
The Structural change for equality and sustainability programme lists actions and objectives that are expected to be achieved in each area.
The protocol, which covers the period 2014-2016, provides continuity to the cooperation between ECLAC and BMZ, which since 2006 has led to the implementation of four biennial programmes.
This new agreement strengthens the strategic partnership forged by ECLAC and BMZ over the past 30 years on the basis of shared values aimed at supporting integration efforts, boosting technical and policy dialogue between Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean, and promoting sustainability in the region.
Following the signing of the protocol, the Executive Secretary travelled to Berlin to deliver an address on "Structural change for equality: challenges and opportunities for Latin American and Caribbean development in the 21st century" in the BMZ offices to an audience of German Government authorities, accredited diplomats and civil-society representatives.
In her speech, Alicia Bárcena emphasized that ECLAC proposes growth for equality and equality for growth. In other words, economic growth, environmental sustainability and equality must go hand in hand.
According to Ms. Bárcena "Equality involves spreading capacity building, technical progress, full labour opportunities and universal access to social safety nets and benefits throughout the production structure and the social fabric".
The Executive Secretary underlined the fact that macroeconomic policy and industrial policy cannot continue along separate paths, but rather they must link to build synergies as part of humankind's greatest technological revolution (involving new information and communications technologies).
Alicia Bárcena stated that this was the only way for our civilization to tackle the climate insecurity hanging over the planet that will have a particularly strong effect on island nations such as those in the Caribbean. She affirmed the need for States to be more active and decisive when it comes to policies with a universalist focus.
In Berlin, the senior United Nations official held meetings with Gudrun Kopp, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, and Thomas Karl Neisinger, Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Federal Foreign Office.
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E-mail: prensa@cepal.org; Telephone: (56 2) 2210 2040.
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