A few days ago, our country hosted the fifth meeting of the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean and the fifteenth Ministerial Forum for the Development of Latin America and the Caribbean, all at the ECLAC offices. Three days of reflection and fruitful dialogue between international leaders concluded, with the Chilean Ministry of Social Development and Family chairing the conference for the next two years.
The main theme of the conference was social institutions and the identification of common challenges for their strengthening: international cooperation, intersectoral articulation and national and subnational coordination of public policies as key elements of sustainable social policy. Likewise, we have concluded that social information systems and single windows must be an axis for access to social protection, as they also improve interaction and communication between the state and the people. These challenges also include financial sustainability and the ability to adapt, which must always be ensured through the comprehensiveness of our policies and progress in universalization.
Taking this into hand is essential to address the challenges posed by the social reality of the region: structural inequality, progressive population aging, persistent gender gap, migration crisis, impact of the Covid pandemic and a regional setback in improving poverty.
Within the framework of the Chilean mandate, we will try to highlight nursing policy on the agenda of our countries. Efforts in countries like Brazil, Panama, Costa Rica, Chile and others represent the region’s contribution to a global problem. It is therefore necessary to incorporate the insights from our experiences and jointly assess how these systems contribute to greater social well-being, more autonomy for people and more enjoyment of their rights and freedoms.
At this conference, I proposed to countries to consolidate our commitment to a common position towards universality and comprehensiveness and to provide an appropriate response to the different vulnerabilities that our peoples face today.
By the way, the tasks that this conference sets for each of our countries are part of a larger and unavoidable task: addressing the relationship between social protection systems and the development strategies of our region in order to build new models of development. This allows us to overcome productive stagnation and create universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection systems.
This means returning to the identified difficulties, not only to review them, but also to promote new strategies that lead to better results, without losing sight of progress and with the necessary participation and openness to organized civil society . In a scenario of various crises and the weakening of social alliances, trust between people and institutions is not a given, but is constantly being built. We need this revitalized social trust to sustain collective efforts that allow us to make concrete changes in people’s daily lives.
With these goals in mind, we will work during our Presidency to bring the voice of Latin America and the Caribbean to the World Social Summit in 2025, and this message will be part of what I will present at the European Union-OAS Dialogue on Poverty. Inequality and Social Inclusion, which will take place in Washington in the middle of this month.
Javiera Toro She is Minister of Social Development in Gabriel Boric’s government