Equality is an Essential Value of
the Development Agenda

The issue of equality will be at the center of debate during ECLAC's Thirty-third Session, to be held 30 May to 1 June in Brazil.

At the end of May, government representatives from all of Latin America and the Caribbean and North American, European and Asian countries belonging to ECLAC, as well as directors of multilateral organizations and civil society, will gather in Brasilia for the most important bi-annual meeting of this United Nations regional commission: its Session.

During the Thirty-third session, about 300 delegates will discuss the region’s economic, social and environmental development, examine the activities carried out by ECLAC in the preceding biennium and set the priorities of its programme of work for the following two years.

This will be the first Session with Alicia Bárcena as Executive Secretary of the Commission and it takes place in a context of social, economic and political changes.

“I would love to see a realization that we are at a point of inflection and an approach towards rethinking development,” she said. “I invite governments to participate in this debate over how to grow with equality, with environmental sustainability and a far-reaching perspective of approach to development that goes beyond economic growth.”

- Shortly after becoming Executive Secretary, you were faced with the global financial crisis, forced ECLAC to reorient its work and perspectives. How will this shift be reflected in the Session?

- This was a very important change, a historical inflection in the entire world. For many years the world had been living under a self-regulated market and that model was suddenly questioned by the enormous financial crisis that ensued. This has provided a great opportunity to reconsider development models and understand that there is not one sole model or a single recipe, but that there are common social objectives.

At ECLAC, we decided to reinforce the issue of equality and assign it the value it deserves in development goals. We believe that equality in itself is one of the most important values in contemporary society.

We don’t refer to equality only in terms of access to opportunities, but also as the entitlement of rights. In other words, merely being born in the region should already mean that a person has rights: to education, health, a fair pension and a job.

- What are the main issues of ECLAC’s post-crisis perspective that will be addressed at the Session?

- First, the future will be different. We will not have the same levels of growth as in the preceding period. There will be recovery, but it will be slow.

We have called the upcoming situation the “new reality”. Countries in the region must prepare themselves for a new cycle, to address, for example, the paradigm of a non-carbon economy.

To confront this new reality, the document Time for Equality: Closing Gaps, Opening Trails, which we will present during our next Session, sets forth an approach based on six strategic areas.

The first is designing a macroeconomy more conducive to equality and industrial development. The second is productive convergence, because production in the region is very heterogeneous: there are sectors with very high production and others in which it is very low.

The third area we consider vital is the spatial dimension, because territory does matter. The fourth proposal in the document refers to labour – how to have employment policies and a labour market with solid institutions to protect the rights of workers, the social fabric.

The fifth area are social policies. As the State advances towards more convergent productive development, it is very important to keep protecting the vulnerable population, the poorest, those with less access to opportunities, so gaps may be bridged.

The sixth and last strategic area outlined in the document refers to striking a balance between the State, market and society. It is essential to have better and more of the three in order to build lasting agreements for policies to become State policies, and not just of the government in office.

- We continue to be the region with the greatest income inequality in the world, and on top of that, we suffer natural catastrophes that aggravate it. What can be done to overcome such profound inequality?

- In effect, Latin America is the most unequal region in the world, with the worst income distribution.

One way of closing the gap is through fiscal policies, emphasizing direct taxation more than indirect taxation (indirect taxes are applied on consumption; direct taxes are on income and are more progressive). We believe that all policies, including fiscal policies, must aim at equality.

More information on the ECLAC’s Thirty-third Session is available on the webpage.