The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, was received on Friday, January 15, by Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, who took office this week and with whom she spoke about the challenges facing the Central American country in terms of maintaining current growth, of about 4%, and achieving greater levels of equality and social inclusion.
On Thursday, January 14, the most senior official from this United Nations regional organization—accompanied by the Director of ECLAC’s Subregional Headquarters in Mexico, Hugo Beteta—was pr…
The structural gaps that persist in the region have hampered dynamic and sustained economic growth and greater social development in Latin America and the Caribbean, Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), said during a keynote lecture in Mexico City on Thursday, 12 November.
The senior United Nations official gave a lecture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) entitled “Circumstances and Structures. Decolonizing the development agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean.” In it, she presented the foundations …
Public policies geared toward equality in the labor market, education and social protection, among other areas, will be examined by government officials and academics during a seminar to be held on Monday, March 30 and Tuesday 31, 2015 at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile.
The high-level seminar “Paths Toward Equality and Development: Latin America-Norway Dialogue” is organized by ECLAC and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It will be opened on March 30, at 0900 a.m. by Hege Araldsen, Norwegian Ambassador to Chil…
(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…
(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…
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…
(28 October 2013) On Monday, the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, stated that the challenge of insecurity made it essential to promote social covenants for equality, with initiatives that recognize citizens as autonomous but also vulnerable subjects, as they depend on others to realize their life plans.
The senior United Nations official delivered this message as she took part in the commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of the Declaration on Security in the Americas, which was held at the Headquarters of the Organizat…
The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, urged the countries of the region today to implement a post-pandemic economic recovery based environmental sustainability and equality, through new internal and international political coalitions and unprecedented forms of cooperation to sustain the change in development style.
The United Nations high official made remarks today at the XXII Forum of Ministers of Environment of Latin America and the Caribbean, organized by the Government of Barbados in its capacity as president of th…
The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, emphasized today in Davos, Switzerland the key role of public, private and foreign direct investment for bolstering productive diversification, infrastructure, and the integration of countries in the region.
In the context of her participation in the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the senior United Nations official spoke at a session entitled Strategic Outlook: Emerging Markets on the outlook for emerging markets in 2020, where she presented an economic and social …
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…
Promoting greater equality not only helps guarantee people’s social and cultural rights, it is also a necessary condition for accelerating the growth of productivity, internalizing and spreading the digital revolution, moving toward environmental sustainability and providing an institutional framework that allows for taking action in a world in which great imbalances with enormous possibilities coexist, Alicia Bárcena, the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), affirmed today.
The senior United Nations official inaugurated the Inter-regional…
Latin America and the Caribbean must expand women’s participation in science, technology and innovation to make progress on gender equality and achieve inclusive and sustainable development, authorities, specialists and international officials agreed today at the inauguration of the Gender Summit 12 being held at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile.
“It is truly an honor that this first Summit for Latin America and the Caribbean is taking place in Chile, and I say this as the president and as a woman who has worked for the …
The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, called today for rethinking the economic model and implementing a new paradigm that contributes to putting an end to economic, social and environmental inequalities and moving toward sustainable development.
The senior United Nations official participated in the high-level event entitled “Fractures in globalization and their implications for emerging economies,” held in Mexico City in the framework of the eighteenth World Congress of the International Economic Association (IEA), orga…
The Vice President of the Dominican Republic along with Latin American and Caribbean ministers and senior officials who work on social matters will gather in the Dominican Republic on November 1 to participate in the first meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Social Development, organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
At the meeting, ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, will present a document entitled The social inequality matrix in Latin America, which addresses some of the core structural aspects of the inequality …
A delegation of Norway’s ambassadors to Latin American countries met today with senior officials from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) to exchange information on the region’s current situation and to analyze present and future activities of mutual cooperation, in the first meeting of its kind to be held since the Nordic country joined the United Nations regional organization as a Member State in 2015.
On behalf of ECLAC, the meeting was attended by the Deputy Executive Secretary, Antonio Prado; the Deputy Executive Secretary for Administration and Program Ana…
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) calls for redoubling efforts to defeat poverty and reduce inequality in the current context of economic deceleration in the region, in its latest study entitled Inclusive social development: The next generation of policies for overcoming poverty and reducing inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean.
This new document by the United Nations regional organization will be presented officially, and analyzed by authorities and specialists of the region, during the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and t…