First of all congratulations all of you for being here in this important event.
I hope that our conversation will contribute to the current debate on the acceleration of the SDGs and the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.
I would like to highlight the engagement of the representatives of the Civil Society Participation Mechanisms of Africa, Asia Pacific and Europe, as well as that of the representatives of the governments of Norway and Nepal (TBC), together with my colleagues from ESCAP and ECE. Our presence here is an example of the importance of the multi-actor and multi-level implementation o…
20 Feb 2025, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:30
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Latin America and the Caribbean is mired in a decades-long growth trap, and further hampered by global and regional conditions that limit the space for macroeconomic policies to spur economic growth in the region. The results of the Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2024 reveal weaker job creation, especially in the formal sector, with young people, women, older persons, migrants and rural dwellers among the most likely to be informal workers. In addition, an intensification of climate change effects will drastically reduce the number of jobs created in the medium term if mit…
In Caribbean small island developing States (SIDS), electrical power outages are frequent in the aftermath of major weather events. While local service disruptions often last a few days after these events, nationwide power grid failures lasting several weeks, or months have resulted in enormous social and economic impacts. In 2017, Hurricane Maria left 90 per cent of the population of Dominica without access to electricity for over four months (Commonwealth of Dominica, 2020) and caused a systemwide collapse of Puerto Rico's power grid that took 11 months to be entirely restored (Campbell…
4 Nov 2020, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:30
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Over the past 50 years, the global annual production of plastics has increased dramatically, from 15 million tons in 1964 to roughly 311 million tons by 2014. This spectacular growth has occurred due to its unrivalled physical properties, which allow it to be widely applied in diverse economic production processes, at low cost. One of its main appplications has been in the packaging industry where roughly 26% of the global volume of plastics is used. More importantly, as much as 95% of plastic packaging – estimated at USD 80 – 120 billion annually - is for single-use, either as packaging or as…
1 Nov 2011, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:28
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Publicación
Between 2008 and 2011, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) worked on a project to assess the economic impact of climate change in the Caribbean. The overall aim is to prepare the Caribbean region to better respond to climate change, while fostering a regional approach to reducing carbon emissions by 2050. This study updates the report on the impact of climate change on the macroeconomy at the regional level and will focus on 9 countries: Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Curacao, the Dominican Republic, Montserrat, Jamaica, Saint Lucia and Trinidad an…
This publication considers the fact that despite the important role of the business community in the creation and promotion of green technology and related services in Canada and in the United States, the experiences in both countries illustrate the limitations of the market in the promotion of sustainable urban growth. The two cases reviewed in this report, the most advanced and comprehensive systems of urban sustainability highlight the key role of the public sector in the design, integration, promotion and enforcement of sustainable policies for urban growth.…
1 Mar 1998, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:30
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Abstract One year and a half after the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) held in Istanbul, the present document aims to assess the progress made on the implementation of the Regional Plan of Action on Human Settlements for Latin America and the Caribbean. The region faces a disturbing upsurge in urban poverty and widening income inequality, notwithstanding the slower rate of population growth. A worsening of environmental problems such as air and water pollution, waste disposal and vehicle congestion is being experienced in urban centres, and the region still has both…
This side event is being organized jointly by the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN- ESCAP) to support Track 1 of the ‘Thematic Sessions of the Asia-Pacific Climate Week 2021’ with focus on National actions and economy wide approaches and fostering an assessment of the best practice in society-wide and economy-wide approaches to cutting greenhouse gases and building resilience and how broad economic packages to enable recovery from the COVID19 pandemic can support the achievement of the Paris goal. Th…
The eighth meeting of the Caribbean Development Roundtable and the thirtieth session of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) are being held at a time when the subregion is animated by the recently concluded Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, which set a decisive agenda for SIDS in pursuit of resilient growth and sustainable development with the support of the international community. Indeed, in the very year that the United Nations convenes a Summit of the Future to inspire global dynamic action to safeguard the well-being of future generat…
2 Ene 2023, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:20
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The economies of the subregion were hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly those dependent on tourism. As a result, the Caribbean has seen a reversal of the hard-won gains achieved in growing their economies and reducing unemployment and inequality. The inflation stemming from pandemic supply chain disruption, which has been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, has made the sustained uptick in economic performance beyond pre-pandemic levels unlikely, notwithstanding strong growth estimates for 2021 and 2022. The last two years have taught the region that continued ‘business as usual’ is…
This paper investigates Latin America and Caribbean (LAC)’s nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and their potential implications for the region’s balance of payments. The first section summarizes prevailing trade dynamics, finding that in LAC, exports of raw materials help to cover the cost of importing capital goods. The second section turns to the region’s NDCs to identify policies affecting import expenditure. The third section employs a similar methodology on the export side, tallying policies affecting output and global cost competitiveness in key sectors (crops, livestock, timber,…
11 Oct 2019, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:30
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Publicación
Flooding as an extreme event has become progressively evident in the Caribbean sub-region, as a result of an increased number of intense rainfall events, and storm surges from hurricanes. Such events in turn, have been linked to the impacts of global climate change, which has been shown to be the cause for several specific events including sea-level rise; global temperature rise, ocean warming and acidification, and the melting of glaciers. In the specific instance of the Caribbean subregion, flooding events often result in significant disruptions of economic and social life. This study uses a…
27 Ago 2018, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:29
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Publicación
This book compiles and adapts different chapters written by the author during the last decades on the topic of Caribbean development. On the one hand, the document provides the reader with the opportunity to travel in time acknowledging the evolution of academia, paradigms, and frameworks regarding the Caribbean. On the other hand, it shows the reader how many of the action plans and strategies suggested through the years are still relevant and how many of the challenges and structures of Caribbean nations have not changed radically over the years, once again stressing the urgent need for acti…
The Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Indicator Framework is endorsed by the United Nations Statistical Commission as the monitoring mechanism for the 169 targets and more than 230 indicators of the SDGs. Reporting of these indicators will pose a formidable challenge to the Caribbean given the statistical capacity of countries of the subregion. The results of an ECLAC survey show that only three of the eleven countries that participated reported having the capacity to produce at least 50 per cent of the indicators. The capacities of National Statistical Offices will need to be signif…
5 Mayo 2016, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:30
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This paper was prepared to guide the first session of the training workshop Introduction to Financial Feasibility Assessment of EE and RE Projects in the Caribbean. It explores two potential reasons that might be hindering the adoption of energy efficiency policies in the Caribbean. The first reason is related to the availability of primary infrastructure. Countries with deficits on their primary infrastructure might not consider energy efficiency policies as a priority for a national discussion. The second reason is debt overhang. In this type of scenario, countries might be dissuaded to cond…
5 Mayo 2015, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:28
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Discurso
Welcome remarks by Antonio Prado, Deputy Executive Secretary of the
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
FORUM ON THE FUTURE OF THE CARIBBEAN
Port of Spain, 5-7 May 2015
Excellencies, academic staff, ladies and gentlemen,
This is my first time in the Caribbean and it is a pleasure to be in Port of Spain and especially at the celebrated University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus.
Today, the Caribbean, like Latin America, is facing a future fraught with challenges and uncertainty. It is unclear whether the models and strategies that have d…
1 Oct 2014, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:30
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Publicación
Much analysis and proposals on sustainable transport policies have been developed around the world, both at government and research institutions. It is clear that no action will provide the single solution and it is imperative to act simultaneously on: i) improvement of technology in vehicles, leading to increased energy efficiency; ii) the change in driver behavior, to use less fuel per kilometer; iii) reducing the distances traveled per vehicle; and iv) a change in the type of travels towards more sustainable modes of transport.In general, the recommendations for energy efficiency in transpo…
1 Feb 2014, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:30
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Guyana, like many CARICOM countries continues to depend on imported oil that fuels the electricity and transport sectors. Simultaneously, the high level of expenditure on oil reduces the financial resources available to invest in social development, environmental protection, adaptation to climate change and improving food security. The electricity sector in Guyana, in particular, offers significant opportunities for achieving reductions in fossil imports. However, fiscal and regulatory barriers to energy efficiency and renewable energy use are apparent in Guyana.
This document seeks to identif…
1 Feb 2014, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:30
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Twelve years into the 21st Century, Caribbean countries continue to face considerable challenges on their path towards sustainable development and the creation of a post-2015 agenda. These include redefining their niche in the global market place in line with significant shifts in global production systems and trade, recovering from burdensome fiscal deficits and coping with climate change and the negative effects of more frequent natural disasters. In some countries poverty levels are increasing after years of decline. Most have defined a vision for development into the next 20 years, but in …
1 Nov 2013, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 17:30
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Publicación
Belize is currently faced with several critical challenges associated with the production, distribution and use of energy. Despite an abundance of renewable energy resources, the country remains disproportionately dependent on imported fossil fuels, which exposes it to volatile and rising oil prices, limits economic development, and retards its ability to make the investments that are necessary for adapting to climate change, which pose a particularly acute threat to the small island states and low-lying coastal nations of the Caribbean.
This transition from energy consumption and supply patte…