Inequality is inefficient, it perpetuates itself and permeates the productive system. In contrast, equality is not only an ineluctable ethical principle but also a variable that explains the efficiency of the economic system in the long run, Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), said during the World Economic Forum 2019, which concluded today in Davos, Switzerland. The issue of inequality was present in the majority of debates.
The senior United Nations official participated during the week in various sessions of the global …
For over three decades, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has performed measurements of poverty in the Latin American countries in order to estimate its prevalence in the region using a common methodology. Economic and social changes have prompted an update of the thresholds used to quantify poverty and a review of certain aspects of the methodology.
Now that all the countries of the region have progressed towards having official poverty measurements calculated by their own public agencies, the figures produced by ECLAC aim to provide a regional overview that …
The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, called today for redoubling efforts to formulate evidence-based proposals that allow for lifting the burden of inequality that harms the peoples of the region and threatens the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
In a message to ECLAC officials, in the framework of the commemoration of the 74th anniversary of the United Nations’ founding, the regional commission’s most senior representative recalled that while Latin America and the Caribbean is not the world’s…
The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, was bestowed the title of Doctor Honoris Causa by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) for “her broad and relevant professional and academic trajectory, and her contribution to strengthening the construction of Mexico and other countries.”
In the investiture ceremony – led by Rector Enrique Graue and the Secretary-General of this institution of higher learning, Leonardo Lomelí – the senior United Nations official indicated that the honorary degree “challenges us and en…
Ambassador Peter Thomson, UN Special Envoy for the Ocean, will visit the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean on Wednesday, August 7, 2019, where he will meet with the organization’s Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, followed by a press conference.
Thomson, originally from Fiji, is scheduled to make an official visit to Chile August 6-9, during which he will meet with country authorities and participate in an array of activities related to his role as advocate for the conservation and sustainable use of the world’s oceans.
The press conference, which …
The Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, presented the El Salvador-Guatemala-Honduras-Mexico Comprehensive Development Plan to President Juan Orlando Hernández and the Government of Honduras and participated in the inauguration of the National Commission on the 2030 Agenda for the Sustainable Development Goals (NC-SDG) and the Technical Committee for Sustainable Development, in the context of an official visit to Tegucigalpa on July 24-25.
“The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Central America-Mexico Compre…
The role of the private sector is key to the challenge of mobilizing financing sources and mechanisms for implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the region, business representatives, delegates and international officials agreed during the Business Forum for the Sustainable Development Goals in Latin America and the Caribbean 2019: Public-Private Strategies for the Financing and Monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals, held on Monday, April 22, in Chile.
The event, organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Uni…
The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, called today on the international community, and the agencies of the United Nations system in particular, to address the roots and fundamental causes of migration in order to confront the problem posed by people’s displacement in diverse parts of the world.
The senior UN official moderated a high-level panel on migration and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the framework of an expert symposium on international migration and development, held this Tuesday, February 26, a…
The countries participating in the tenth meeting of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reaffirmed today their commitment to statistical development through cooperation with the regional and international statistics community, at the closing session of the gathering held on November 19-21 in Santiago, Chile.
At the meeting, the countries agreed on the need to seek a collaborative regional response to the demand for official statistics that support the formulation of policies with an empirical basis that contributes t…
Representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from various countries in the region, government authorities and officials from international organizations agreed today on the importance of civil society participation in the processes that contribute to the adoption of decisions, planning, and application of policies and programs that foster sustainable development in the region.
At a civil society consultation prior to the third meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development, which is being held April 22-26 at ECLAC’s headquarters …
The future availability of a new Household Spending and Income Survey for Uruguay will enable the assessment of a new official measurement of income poverty in the country. In light of this process, ECLAC’s office in Montevideo edited a new publication that explores the different options for its construction.
The document, Measurement of Monetary Poverty in Uruguay: Concepts, Methodologies, Evaluation and Alternatives (No. 37 in the Studies and Perspectives Series by ECLAC’s Office in Montevideo, in Spanish only), reviews the available methodological options and the influence that some of thes…
This report was prepared by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Office for the High Representative for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and the Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS) in preparation for the midterm review meeting of the Vienna Programme of Action (VPoA) for Landlocked Developing Countries for the Decade 2014-2024 in the Latin American and Caribbean region.
The report is structured as follows: the first section assesses the alignment between the objectives and priorities set forward in the 2030 Agenda for Sust…
Countries are increasingly interested in having an official multidimensional poverty index (MPI). This is the expression of a growing consensus regarding the limitations of income poverty measures as standalone indicator. This paper analyses the challenges in designing such indices. Specifically, it addresses the selection of the unit of identification, the selection of dimensions and indicators, including the issue of missing values and the debate on whether to include an indicator of monetary deprivation or not, the weighting structure and the poverty cutoff. In general, for all the reviewed…
57th Session of the Commission for Social Development
Panel Discussion: Interactive Dialogue with senior officials of the UN System on the priority theme “Addressing inequalities and challenges to social inclusion through fiscal, wage and social protection policies”
United Nations Headquarters, New York, 13 February 2019
Highlights of the presentation of Ms Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
The world is currently facing a series of global disruptions which pose enormous challenges to sustainable development and people’s welfar…
The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, concluded this Friday, June 21, a two-day visit to Spain, where she participated in two high-level events and held bilateral meetings with government authorities and officials from international cooperation bodies.
During these activities, the senior United Nations official insisted on the necessity of carrying out a new, inclusive cooperation model in which middle income countries can fully participate.
On Thursday, June 20, Bárcena led the presentation of the report Latin American …
United States Trade Developments 2018, provides an overview of the most relevant developments in United States trade relations with Latin America and the Caribbean and of the measures that inhibit the free flow of goods among countries in the Western Hemisphere. This is an annual report elaborated by the ECLAC Washington Office.…
On 31 May, fourteen experts, including noted Chilean architects and officials of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, participated in an edit-a-thon .…
Women’s autonomy in changing economic scenarios will be the main theme of the XIV Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will be held on November 4-8 at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile, authorities and senior officials from the United Nations (UN) announced this Friday, September 6.
The Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean is the main intergovernmental forum on women’s rights and gender equality in the region, the officials holding a press conference today indi…
This document, prepared by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Washington Office, presents and analyzes the most recent developments (first quarter of 2019) concerning capital flows to Latin America and the Caribbean.…
Statisticians from the statistical offices of over twenty Caribbean countries and overseas territories will soon be equipped with increased capacity in census planning, management and implementation. A four-day workshop organised by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in collaboration with the Secretariat for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), will take place in Kingston, Jamaica, from 8 to 11 April 2019.
Caribbean statistical offices will be carrying out population and housing censuses between 2020 and 2022…