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…
31 Ene 2018, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:29
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This paper examines the genesis and evolution of debt and debt overhang in the Caribbean with individual case studies, to extract lessons and make broad recommendations with regard to appropriate mechanisms and policy measures that can be implemented to reduce the debt burden of the subregion. The econometric model utilized in the paper has shown that a one percent increase on debt to GDP ratio causes a 0.015decline in real GDP growth for the countries in the Caribbean panel, suggesting that debt has a pernicious effect on growth on Caribbean economies. What is even more worrisome was that Car…
1 Ago 2013, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:38
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In the face of weak global growth in major export markets the Caribbean economies have underperformed. The situation is much more severe among service producers1 which have suffered the decline in tourist arrivals and offshore banking services. The goods producers have benefited from the commodity boom and have tended to show more robust growth. The expectations for 2013 are that growth will be positive in the region with the service producers growing at 1.5per cent and the goods producers at 3.6per cent. This performance will depend heavily on improved performances in the major export markets…
9 Abr 2008, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:38
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At the thirteenth meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the CDCC held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago on 23-24 August 2007, delegates agreed to the establishment of a working group to explore ways of improving the effectiveness, visibility and relevance of the CDCC.
The need for the establishment of the working group arose out of the recognition that the CDCC has been handicapped by the following: (a) a loss of its original vision and mission as a result of its changing operational context; (b) institutional overload in the regional institutional architecture as a result of the deepenin…
1 Oct 2006, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:38
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This paper reviews the advantages and disadvantages of free and open source software (FOSS) in the public sector. It is based on a survey conducted in late 2004 with the informatics community of the government of Chile, which represents the key IT decision-makers in the Chilean public sector. The survey identified criteria that affect successful deployment and usage of FOSS. The balanced scorecard was used as a basic approach for identifying the strategic IT priorities and objectives of Chilean public institutions. In addition to the survey, respondents were interviewed to make out possible po…
1 Oct 2005, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:38
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Benchmarking and monitoring any multi-country, multi-thematic Plan of Action is a necessary but extremely difficult task. Quantifying goals set forth in a regional Action Plan related to a new and innovative subject such as information society development is even more challenging. Goals may not be objectively measured, subjects may be very recent, indicators may not have been developed and/or information may simply not exist regarding the status of, and advancements in, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is for this reason that paragraph 28…
30 Nov 2001, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:34
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Caribbean governments have been reacting to the phenomenon that is the Information Age with a variety of policy initiatives. Initially governments trained most of their efforts at facilitating the development of an informatics industry, drawn there by the promise of jobs and foreign exchange earnings. However, the motives for these policy interventions have evolved over time and as a consequence, policy has matured. This paper, which is descriptive rather than analytical, draws heavily on statements made by government decision makers. It attempts to provide an overview of some of the maj…
2 Ene 2023, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:23
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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…
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…
The ICMS represents the most important source of revenue for the Brazilian states and one of the most important taxes in Brazil. Unlike other VATs in the world, the ICMS is not collected by the central government. The ICMS is collected by the states (the intermediate level of government), which are able to fix the internal rates; a situation that reflects the fiscal autonomy of the different levels of government in Brazil. Similarly, the direct and unconditional transfers of 25% of the ICMS collection to the municipalities (the local level) show the high degree of autonomy at the sub–national …
1 Feb 2010, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:23
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The countries of English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean have made significant progress in its economic and human development. Most governments have implemented programs and policies of social protection for vulnerable groups of the population, but its sustainability could be jeopardized because of the global financial crisis. In this cyclical factor is compounded by large external debts of these countries, high exposure to natural disasters, limited natural resources, limited economic diversification and some challenges to their institutional capacities. Although short-term policies are needed …
1 Ene 2003, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:26
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Abstract New technological options that permit the use of digital systems to create and disseminate information around the world are paving the way for new means of organizing society and economic production and are gradually giving rise to a meta-paradigm that has come to be referred to as the Information Society. Viewed from the perspective of developing countries, the question of how to employ this emerging paradigm to achieve broader development goals and to integrate them more fully into the global Information Society is an issue of the utmost importance on the development agenda…
1 Nov 2000, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:45
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Abstract The region ended the 1990s with mixed results in the area of economic and social planning. The outcomes of planning exercises have varied depending on what is understood by the planning process or system in each country (agents, agencies, subjects, knowledge, political agenda, procedures, resource-allocation, target-image, institutional framework and others). On point that does emerge, however, is the need for the State to have an agency or representative through which it can perform basic, irreplaceable planning duties, whatever the style of development or reform adopted. These inclu…
2 Ene 2023, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:36
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In this digitally transforming world, digital inclusion is becoming increasingly important to social inclusion and sustainable development. Affordable access to broadband is an essential precondition to digital inclusion. Internet quality, as measured by speed and other indicators, is also important, as digital inclusion is ultimately about ensuring equal access to the benefits and opportunities offered by digital technologies and the Internet. This policy brief provides insight into Internet speed and affordability across the Caribbean, and offers some recommendations for policymakers working…
19 Mayo 2021, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:22
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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused widespread closure of schools and disruption of education systems worldwide, requiring unprecedented adaptation to ensure learning continuity for students. In place of classroom learning, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been adopted to support online distance learning – with mixed results. While Caribbean governments have piloted a range of online learning modalities, many children in the subregion, especially those from poor and rural households, were not able to leverage those facilities. As a result of a lack of access to the Internet …
Statement by Alicia Bárcena
Executive Secretary, ECLAC, United Nations
High Level Launch of the
Global Partnership on Sustainable Development Data
Hosted by the Governments of the United States, Kenya, Mexico, and Colombia
New York, 28 September 2015
Jose Angel Gurria, Secretary General of OECD
Mahmoud Mohieldin, Corporate Secretary and President’s Special Envoy on Millennium Development Goals, World Bank Group
Amina J.Mohammed, Special Advisor to the Secretary General on Post-2015 Development Planning
Justine Greening, UK Secretary of State for International Dev…
1 Feb 2012, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:32
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When studying tax issues in Latin America, along with any regional perspective, individual country differences must be taken into account. Despite this regional diversity, the tax systems of the vast majority of Latin America's countries share certain key characteristics: the composition of their tax structures; the technical, economic, political and administrative constraints they face; current trends in tax policy and administration; and a high estimated level of tax evasion.
Today's globalized world calls for the need to align tax policies and administrations with those used in ot…
This paper presents a discussion of the major methodological issues relating to some key studies assessing the employment effects of a particular PTA using different methodologies (General and Partial Equilibrium, Gravitational models, Micro simulations, Econometrics using panel data, etc.). In this line, the paper discusses an accounting model for decomposing the ex - post employment performance as related to Latin America Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs), proposing this method to evaluate the Chile - Mexico PTA as an illustration. The paper defines a research agenda using an Employment e…
26 Abr 2005, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:20
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In its work in assisting member countries in meeting international commitments to the application of thorough gender analysis in formulating macroeconomic policy, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); has undertaken a needs assessment of economic planning units in four countries of the Caribbean: Belize, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. This paper considers to what extent these countries under study have sought to integrate gender into macroeconomic planning, and what are the institutional, human resource capacity and attitudinal …
This paper has been written within the context of the activities of the ECLAC/Division for the Advancement of Women/United Nations Development Account Project on Democratic Governance and Equality in Gender Issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its purpose is to present an overview of the social and institutional changes unfolding in the region and the relationships that exist between democratic governance and the reform of societal gender-based practices. The paper postulates that the new modes of democratic governance take the form of institutional changes, that is to say, they manifest…