Foreign Direct Investment Rose 44% in 2004 Integration In South America's Natural Gas Industry Opinion by José Luis Machinea: Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America: the Need to Sustain the Past Year's Recovery and Achieve Greater Benefits Highlights: Development Banks and Financing for Productive Development Indicators Poverty and Precarious Housing in Latin American Cities Recent Titles Calendar…
This issue of Gender Dialogue focuses on
Gender and HIV/AIDS. It highlights the main findings
of a gender assessment of policies and programmes
in selected Caribbean countries carried out
by the ECLAC subregional Headquarters for the
Caribbean in collaboration with UNIFEM. It also coincides
with the launch of the Regional Coalition on
Women and AIDS in November 2005.…
Reseña Este documento fue preparado por Adolfo Rodríguez Herrera, Consultor de la Unidad de Estudios Especiales de CEPAL, bajo el componente de Macroeconomía, equidad y seguridad social, del proyecto CEPAL/GTZ: Policy Strategies for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean: Promotion of a Socially Sustainable Economic Policy (GER/01/31) , que contó con el apoyo de la Deutsche Gesellschaft für Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). Preparado como apoyo al documento La protección social de cara al futuro: Acceso, financiamiento y solidaridad presentado en el XXXI Perío…
Reseña Este documento fue preparado por Adolfo Rodríguez Herrera, Consultor de la Unidad de Estudios Especiales de CEPAL, bajo el componente de Macroeconomía, equidad y seguridad social, del proyecto CEPAL/GTZ: Policy Strategies for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean: Promotion of a Socially Sustainable Economic Policy (GER/01/31) , que contó con el apoyo de la Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). Preparado como apoyo al documento La protección social de cara al futuro: Acceso, financiamiento y solidaridad presentado en el XXXI Perío…
Disponer de una buena base de datos del comercio exterior de los países constituye una herramienta fundamental para los tomadores de decisiones. La División de Comercio Internacional e Integración de la CEPAL, ahora presenta una base de datos de fácil manejo que entrega información del intercambio comercial de 33 países de América Latina y el Caribe, de 15 países miembros históricos de la Unión Europea, más otros países seleccionados principalmente miembros del Foro de Cooperación Económica Asia-Pacífico (APEC) denominado Sistema Interactivo Gráfico de Datos de Comercio Internacional (SIGCI).…
Region Will Meet Some Millennium Goals, But Antipoverty Fight Lagging Education Remains a Challenge Opinion by José Luis Machinea: There's Still Time to Meet the Millennium Goals by 2015 Highlights. Information and Communications Technologies: Tools for Development with Equity within Regional Integration Approaches Indicators Price of Copper Reflects Scarcity Recent Titles Calendar…
The 1980s and 1990s have been decades of instability and slow growth for most of the Latin American region. There are exceptions, however. Chile and the Dominican Republic grew rapidly in the last decade or so although in recent years both economies, for different reasons, have entered in cycles of more sluggish growth. The purpose of this paper is to advance our understanding of the growth patterns of the Latin American economy in the final decades of the 20th century. We focus on the analysis of medium-to-long run growth, as opposed to the standard discussion of the determinants of high freq…
The present level of intra-regional trade of Latin America and the Caribbean in relation to their total exports is still low when compared to the peak of 21.1% registered in 1997, despite its rebound in 2003 and continued recovery into 2004. While this trade holds a high potential for future growth, there are a series of problems to be addressed in order for regional integration to continue on the paths of recovery and deep integration. The countries in the region should keep working on the constraints that its regional integration process continues to suffer from the persistence of non-tariff…
CONTENTS I.Calexico joins fight against canal project.II. NAFTA and Canadian Water.III.Water Dependencies and Interstate Behaviour: The Basis for Cooperation or Conflict.IV. Water policy: European Commission takes legal action against Italy, Spain and Greece over key directive.V. Tribunal hands down jurisdictional ruling in Bechtel-Bolivia arbitration.VI. States which share Colorado River water agree to plan for drought. VII. U.S. Federal Judge rejects Oregon farmers' water claim.VIII.Meaning and scope of Water Code reform in Chile. IX. Mexico's Rio Grande water debt repaid. Thestate…
This document presents an overview of the regional progress made towards the targets and commitments derived from implementation plans and programmes for the main agreements of the Johannesburg Summit and Agenda 21 regarding human settlements thematic cluster in Latin America and the Caribbean. It has been submitted as part of the preparatory process for the twelfth session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, held in May 2004. A previous summary of this report was validated by the XII General Assembly of Ministers and Highest Authorities of Housing and Urban Developmen…
The recovery of the economies of MERCOSUR, and the disturbances that the recent crises generated in the region have motivated reconsideration of the medium term prospects of the integration project. This paper tries to contribute to this activity with a brief analysis of regional macroeconomic interactions, and a discussion in broad terms of incentives and restrictions for macroeconomic cooperation in the specific conditions of the region. The themes that play through the discussion are that (i) the lack of a shared concrete perspective about the role of MERCOSUR for the growth of the nationa…
Latin American markets entered 2005 with impetus, as the favorable environment for capital inflows at the end of 2004 persisted in the beginning of the year. However, investors' sentiment deteriorated as the first quarter progressed, and concerns about economic conditions (including rising interest rates in the United States and lower liquidity in global markets) increased. In February, Fitch, the credit rating agency, released a report warning that a combination of slowing global growth and higher-than-anticipated U.S. interest rates would lead to a less favorable environment for emergin…
First World priorities and the need for nations to coexist in harmony have given rise in each period to a set of rules constituting the international economic order. This is a shifting order, in which national goals move alternatively towards and away from those of an international nature. The objective of the gold standard was to uphold monetary convertibility, if necessary at the expense of national objectives. By contrast, the Bretton Woods system inverted the terms of the equation by making governments responsible for employment and growth. The
monetary pendulum is now swinging back again,…
For most developing countries, open regionalism has emerged as quite a sensible response to the undergoing turbulent and asymmetric process of economic globalization. Moreover, the successful experience of the countries which are now part of the European Union, has made regional integration an increasingly attractive option for the developing world. Whenever regional integration is intended to go beyond merely a free trade agreement, macroeconomic coordination becomes a key issue. Theoretically, the underlying idea of the macroeconomic coordination is the interdependency between econo…
It has now been five years since the landmark United Nations Millennium Declaration
and related Development Goals (MDGs), wad adopted by Member States. The
Declaration is a blueprint for action and has created a political momentum which
holds great potential not only for improving the rights and empowerment of
women, but more fundamentally for achieving the MDGs. The targets and indicators
represent concrete benchmarks to measure progress on the eight development
goals.
The 2000 Millennium Declaration commits States to promote gender equality and
the empowerment of women as effective ways to c…
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean in collaboration with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) Caribbean Office is reviewing gender issues in Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) programmes and projects being developed or implemented in the Caribbean subregion. The main objective of this review, of which this report is one component, is to assist in developing a programme for combating HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean within the context of their mandate to provide technic…
Concerted action by political, social and private actors at the local
level can be very useful for promoting economic competitiveness, but in order for it to become a reality it would be essential for the local communities to have greater autonomy and resources, as well as equal opportunities. This article begins by investigating the conditions required in order to ensure that the deeper political decentralization needed for local development will promote efficiency and equity, as well as the ways in which transfer systems can become decisive means for increasing equity and generating greater …
Are there lessons to be learned from the recent disasters at the global scale? Are the numbers of disasters increasing and is their impact more severe? Is there a difference to be established among hazard exposure and the resilience, fragility and brittleness of humanmade vulnerabilities? How do countries and societies manage risk, transfer it or disperse it. This document will not answer all of these questions, but they have come to the forefront after the tsunami in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean hurricane season, both in terms of the outcome of the 2004 and the perspective for 2005. …