(January 30, 2015) Costa Rica’s Government and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) agreed today to strengthen mutual cooperation to boost the Central American country’s development, during a bilateral meeting held in San José by the President of the Republic, Luis Guillermo Solís, and the Executive Secretary of the regional United Nations organization, Alicia Bárcena.
The officials shared their visions on the development of the country and of Latin America and the Caribbean in general while also discussing the recent Summit of the Community of Latin American and…
(15 January 2015) The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reaffirmed today the links between the studies of this United Nations regional commission -with the main focus on equality- and the work of Thomas Piketty, during the visit of the renowned French economist to its headquarters.
Piketty, who is Director of Studies of the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) and Professor of Economics at the Paris School of Economics, took part in a lunch meeting attended by ECLAC officials and special guests from academia and politics in Chile. On this ocassio…
As part of his trip to Chile, French economist Thomas Piketty will visit the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago on Thursday 15 January 2015 at 2.00 p.m. to take part in a lunch meeting with the Commission’s officials and discover first hand ECLAC’s proposals on equality in its trilogy of documents on the subject: Time for equality: closing gaps, opening trails (2010); Structural Change for Equality: An Integrated Approach to Development (2012); and Compacts for Equality: Towards a Sustainable Future (2014).
The meeting wi…
(13 January 2015) The post-2015 development agenda should not only include gender equality as a specific objective, but also as a cross-cutting perspective to increase women’s economic autonomy. This was agreed upon by representatives of the Governments of Chile and Norway and senior officials from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) at a high-level dialogue held on January 12.
The meeting, which was held at the headquarters of this United Nations Commission in Santiago, Chile, was attended by the Minister of Chile’s National Women’s Service (SERNAM), Claudia Pa…
Between now and 30 January at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), 25 public officials from Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Paraguay, Panama and Uruguay will take part in the training programme on environmental education, which will use case studies from Chile and Japan to provide them with the tools to manage and resolve critical sustainability problems in the region’s territories.
Today the Director of ECLAC’s Programme Planning and Operations Division, Raúl García-Buchaca, opened the second international c…
(October 30, 2014) The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, concluded on Tuesday, October 28 a two-day visit to Cuba, where she met with the President of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers, Raúl Castro, as well as other high-level authorities from that country. She also gave a keynote lecture at the University of Havana.
The senior ECLAC official was welcomed by the President, with whom she discussed the common will to deepen cooperation between the United Nations regional organization and Cuba’s Government. …
(2 September 2014) The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, today became the first Latin American woman to be awarded an honoris causa doctorate by the University of Oslo, Norway, along with another 16 men and women from various disciplines and nationalities.
The most senior representative of ECLAC, speaking to an audience made up of university officials, academics and students, stated "When I obtained my biology degree at the Science Faculty of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in the 1970s, I would not h…
(20 August 2014) According to experts speaking today at the opening of the 5th Regional seminar on agriculture and climate change organized by ECLAC and FAO, supported by French Cooperation and sponsored by IICA and Oxfam (United Kingdom), it is vital to acknowledge the traditional knowledge accumulated by family farmers and native peoples, as well as to learn from that knowledge in order to adapt to climate change.
The event, whose theme is "agrobiodiversity, family farming and climate change", is being attended by officials from the region's ministries of agriculture and planning, agricultur…
In Buenos Aires on 24 and 25 April, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) held a Seminar-workshop on production structure, institutions and economic dynamics, which was attended by Deputy Executive Secretary, Antonio Prado.
The meeting was also attended by the Director of the Buenos Aires Office, Martín Abeles, various other ECLAC officials and economists working in universities, research centres and public institutions in Argentina.
Antonio Prado stated that "macroeconomic policy must be linked with the development process".
According to the senior ECLAC of…
To provide a space for reflection on public policies related to climate change, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) will hold a seminar this Thursday and Friday, May 29-30, in Quito, Ecuador, called "Public Policies in the Face of Climate Change: Pro-development Measures, Environmental Tax Reforms and Progress on Universal Social Protection in Latin America."
The event-which will take place in the framework of the EUROCLIMA Program, funded by the European Union-will be attended by government officials and international experts from Europe and Latin America. The …
The First Secretary of Economic, Technological-Scientific and Cooperation Matters at Germany's Embassy in Chile, Annette Weerth, visited the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, on Friday, December 20. That day she delivered an official note to the director of the United Nations organization's Programme Planning and Operations Division, Raúl García-Buchaca, in which Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) requested ECLAC's support to implement a regional cooperation project for the sustainable managem…
A few months before the thirty-fifth session of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) is to be held in Lima, Peru, representatives of the Peruvian government and officials from the United Nations organization agreed to launch the project "Political Dialogue for the Economic Empowerment and Autonomy of Women."
The project -which will get technical assistance from ECLAC, specifically from the Economic Development and Gender Affairs divisions- aims to bring to light the situation of Peruvian women in the productive, labor and economic arenas and identify public poli…
On average, 9% of those aged 15 and over are completely illiterate in Latin American and Caribbean countries (about 38 million people), according to estimates based on official data from UNESCO Institute for Statistics, says a study prepared by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), which examines the main relevant strategies currently developed in the region.
If we consider functional illiteracy (which means the lack of skills and abilities that people need to function in various life situations), the figure is significantly higher - according to the documen…
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(15 August 2013) Today, official representatives from 38 member countries and associate members of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) adopted the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development, which contains a series of agreements to strengthen implementation of population and development issues beyond 2014, at the end of the First session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, which was held from 12 to 15 August 2013 in the…
On Thursday 12 September, India's Minister of New and Renewable Energy, Farooq Abdullah, visited the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in Santiago, Chile, where he met with Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, and other experts from the United Nations regional commission.
During the meeting, Minister Abdullah and his delegation joined ECLAC officials in analysing recent trends in the use of renewable energies worldwide and especially in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The ECLAC Executive Secretary thanked the Minister for his visit, and highl…
(8 July 2013) Speaking today in New York, United States, the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, stated "In Latin America and the Caribbean, we have a historic opportunity to rethink development using equality and environmental sustainability as our compass".
Ms. Bárcena and government officials and representatives from international agencies took part in the high-level session to open the debate on inequality organized by the United Nations General Assembly.
The debate was inaugurated by UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon,…
(July 12, 2013) Government representatives and officials attending the Sixteenth Meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), on Thursday July 11 adopted a set of recommendations on priority issues identified by delegates who attended the Caribbean Forum on Population, Migration and Development, held in Guyana, July 9-10.
The range of proposals included actions to reduce poverty and inequality, promote and protect the rights of vulnerable groups, including older persons, adoles…
(12 June 2013) Investment in education, science, technology and infrastructure, along with improvements to the budgetary framework and better tax evasion controls, are key to raising the level of tax revenues in the region's countries, according to Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), speaking today in Mexico City.
The senior United Nations official was one of the main speakers at the International Seminar on Tax Policy: Challenges and Trends, organized by the Centre of Public Finance Studies (CEFP) of the Mexican Chamber o…
(17 April 2013) On Tuesday 16 April, the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, met with the President of Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, as part of her tour of the Central American country.
The most senior official of this United Nations regional commission was accompanied by Hugo Beteta, Director of the ECLAC Subregional headquarters in Mexico, Osvaldo Rosales, Director of the Division of International Trade and Integration and Luis F. Yañez, Officer in Charge of the Secretariat of the Commission.
The delegation held meetings…
(15 February 2013) The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, met on Wednesday 13th February with the President of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers of Cuba, Raúl Castro, as part of an official visit to the island that began on Monday 11 February and ends today.
The Cuban President, who was accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez, and the Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca, thanked the willingness of ECLAC to support the work of the Community of Latin A…