Report of the Ninth meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Committee on South-South Cooperation

Report of the Eighth Meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Committee on South-South Cooperation

Provisional agenda. Fourth meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Committee on South-South Cooperation

It is Urgent that the International Community Support the End of Middle-Income Countries’ Graduation from Official Development Assistance

The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, urged the international community to support the end of middle-income countries’ graduation from Official Development Assistance (ODA), during today’s opening segment of a month-long series entitled Development in Transition: Dialogues to chart new paths for Latin America and the Caribbean, organized by ECLAC, the European Commission and the Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The senior United Nations official stressed that it is …

Latin American and Caribbean Government Officials and Experts Call for Rethinking the Architecture of Financing for Development

(March 12, 2015) Authorities and ministers from several countries in the region, as well as senior representatives from the United Nations, said that it is necessary to rethink the international financial architecture and put inclusion at the center of the new post-2015 development agenda, in the context of a meeting on financing for development held at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile. In the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Consultation on Financing for Development, organized by ECLAC and Chile’s government, …

ECLAC supports training Uruguayan government officials on Computable General Equilibrium Models

With support from the Uruguay office of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the first of two workshops aimed at training government officials in the theory and practice of Computable General Equilibrium Models (CGEM) took place at the Spanish Cooperation Training Center in Montevideo from Thursday, June 6 to Tuesday, June 11. This tool allows for building equation systems that link merchandise markets, economic activities, production factors, institutions and foreign relations, in an integrated framework. They are based on Social Accounting Matrixes, and their …

Tax Reforms Must Pursue Equality of Rights in the Region, Officials Say at ECLAC

Latin America and the Caribbean’s taxation systems must be part of a model oriented towards equality of rights and sustainable development, officials contended today at the inauguration of the XXVII Regional Seminar on Fiscal Policy, which is taking place through Wednesday at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile. The event, inaugurated by Chilean Finance Minister Alberto Arenas and ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, is organized by the Commission with the sponsorship of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Wo…

Official Launch Fiscal panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean -- March 2013

Fiscal panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean (05 March, 2013) Over the past decade (in particular since 2002), most countries in the region witnessed a substantial increase in their tax burden as a percentage of GDP, together with far-reaching structural changes, including consolidation of the value added tax (VAT), a significant improvement in the share of direct taxes in total tax receipts and a decline in tariffs on international trade. A number of factors contributed to this increase in the tax burden (albeit conditions varied significantly from one country to the other): strong…

Senior Government Officials Address Sustainable Development Priorities of the Caribbean

“The challenge facing the Caribbean is to identify paths to development that emphasize macroeconomic stability with growth, equity, and environmental sustainability. This will provide a bulwark against external shocks and the protection necessary for those that are most vulnerable”, Mr. Antonio Prado, Deputy Executive Secretary of ECLAC, said during the opening of the 26th session of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC), held in Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis on 22 April 2016. Addressing senior policy makers from across the subregion, Diane Quarless, Director of ECLAC …

Official development assistance, social capital and growth in Latin America

This study focuses on the relationship among official development assistance (ODA), social capital and economic growth in Latin American countries, attempting to determine whether the impact of such assistance on growth is conditional on the receiving country’s stock of social capital. To this end, we use “trust” to measure social capital in an unbalanced panel of 18 Latin American countries over the period 2001-2010. After accounting for country and time effects in a dynamic panel data model, our results show that the impact of ODA on growth is indeed conditional on the level of trust that ex…

ECLAC’s Executive Secretary Made Official Visit to Cuba

(April 30, 2015) The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, ended today a four-day official visit to Cuba, where she met with senior authorities from that country and participated in a seminar on the economic development of Latin America and the Caribbean island. Bárcena held a conversation with Cuban President Raúl Castro, in which she reaffirmed ECLAC’s full willingness to continue accompanying the country’s process to bring its economic model up to date. During the talk, she also acknowledged the achievements made in Cuba.…

ECLAC Trains Officials of the Region in Assessment of Disasters

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), through its Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean, is strengthening the capacity of specialists and officials of Latin American and Caribbean countries to assess the damages and losses caused by disasters, with activities in Peru, Costa Rica and Saint Vicent and The Granadines. In the case of Peru, the training session in Damage and Loss Assessment (DaLA) was conducted in Cusco from 16 to 19 June at the request of the National Center for Estimation, Prevention and Disaster Risk Reduction. This course served as the first …

Timely Disaster Training for Tobago Officials

With the “rainy” season in Trinidad and Tobago already beginning, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) subregional headquarters for the Caribbean took its Damage and Loss Assessment (DaLA) methodology training to Tobago from 23-25 May 2018. Some of the areas that were covered over the three days included an introduction and basic concepts of the Disaster Assessment Methodology, the role of planning in disaster risk management and its impact on the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), how the population can be affected, and how areas such …

ECLAC Officials Assist Government of Belize in a Social, Environmental and Macroeconomic Assessment of the Damage Caused by Hurricane Keith

ECLAC provides senior public officials with cutting-edge trade analysis tools

Thirty-two public officials, senior officers and decision makers from several Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) countries gathered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines this week, to gain a better understanding of the tools needed to provide deeper trade analysis that would support future Economic Union trade negotiations among members of the OECS. Hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the workshop introduced participants to a suite of cutting-edge digital tools that will bolster their ability to analyse national trade compe…