CUENCA, Ecuador – Antigua and Barbuda Minister of Social Transformation, Human Resource Development and Blue Economy, Dean Jonas, has called on Latin America and the Caribbean to collaborate more to help the region deal with the access to sustainable financing.
Antigua and Barbuda Minister of Social Transformation, Human Resource Development and Blue Economy, Dean Jonas (second from right) at conference in EcuadorJonas is chairman of the board of the Fifth Meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean that is taking place within the framework of the XIV Ministerial Forum on Development in Latin America and the Caribbean organized with United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Government representatives from Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago participated in person in the hybrid conference, while officials from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico and Peru, among other countries in the region, participated virtually.
The objective of the meeting was to facilitate the exchange of experiences and the identification of areas of cooperation and synergies between the Ministry of Social Development and equivalent entities to return to the path of sustainable development based on solid social institutions in the countries of the region.
“We must collaborate and support each other to mitigate all facets of the devastation and crises that continue to hit countries, and especially in the growing demands for the availability and access to sustainable financing,” Jonas said urging closer collaboration between Latin America and the Caribbean.
Deputy Executive Secretary for Administration and Analysis of Programs of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Raúl García-Buchaca, said “we met in Cuenca to share visions, experiences, opportunities and challenges in terms of social institutions and regional cooperation, in order to strengthen the development of universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection systems in Latin America and the Caribbean”.
He said that one of the four axes of the Regional Agenda for Inclusive Social Development (ARDSI) -approved in 2019 during the Third Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean held in Mexico- calls precisely for the strengthening of the social institutionality, basis for implementing universal social protection systems and social and labor inclusion policies.
“Strengthening social institutions is a condition for fulfilling the social commitments of the State, generating quality programs and providing continuity, legitimacy and coherence to policies.
“We are convinced that the concerted and simultaneous action among countries is essential to advance towards sustainable development. The 2030 Agenda has put multilateralism at the center,” he said.
UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Luis Felipe López-Calva, said “it is time to act and double our efforts to recover the lost progress and to get back on the path of human, sustainable and inclusive development.
“Institutions play a central role in the effectiveness of any social policy. We know that it is not an easy task for countries to build this institutional framework, but the idea is also to say that no country is alone. There is a multilateral effort and an effort among the countries themselves to share experiences in this area,” he said.
Created in 2014, the objective of the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean is to promote in the region the improvement of national social development policies and international, regional and bilateral cooperation in the social field in order to examine multidimensional poverty and advance in the measurement of poverty, inequality and gaps.
The Fifth Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean is scheduled to be held here in the second half of 2023.
