By Xinhua | January 25, 2024 | 08:57
International authorities in Chile today highlighted the “significant” and “historic” contributions made by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) as part of its 75th anniversary to promote more productive, inclusive and sustainable development in the region from the organization.
At the ceremony at the United Nations headquarters in the city of Santiago, ECLAC Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs looked back on the main principles and the changes over more than seven decades.
“Our current diagnosis is that the region is in a real development crisis, expressed in three main traps or syndromes,” Salazar-Xirinachs said in his speech.
He mentioned the “low growth trap”, the “high inequality trap” and the “low institutional and governance capacity trap (…) to address the scale of the development challenges we face.”
He added that ECLAC has identified a list of driving sectors for sustainable growth and for accelerating progress and transition towards the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as transformations of the development model.
For her part, the President of the United Nations (UN) Economic and Social Council, Paula Narváez, stated in her speech that the “significant innovation” led by ECLAC is “the result of significant challenges.”
Narváez, who is also the southern country's representative to the United Nations, emphasized that ECLAC “has been a fundamental pillar in supporting the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean in the development of public policies, operational support, advice, training and technical cooperation.” Coordination and regional and international cooperation”.
Meanwhile, the Vice Chancellor of Costa Rica, Alejandro Solano Ortiz, who represents the member countries of ECLAC, emphasized that the entity “is the guide in the economic thinking of the region, according to its development and historical challenges,” through “rigorous and in-depth research in the areas of economy and “social and ecological development”.
The event took place as part of the special session of the Economic and Social Council on the “Future of Work”, which is taking place this week in an exceptional manner in the South American country.
ECLAC was established on February 25, 1948 by Resolution 106 (VI) of the Sixth Session of the UN Economic and Social Council.
The initiative came from the Chilean lawyer and diplomat Hernán Santa Cruz, who was serving as Chile's UN ambassador at the time and negotiating a draft resolution establishing the aforementioned regional commission.
(Web editor: 吴思萱, Zhao Jian)