Adopting territorial dimension is key perspective for development in Latin America and the Caribbean
Representatives from 17 countries of the region are participating in a seminar on the policy challenges facing the territorialization of the 2030 Agenda, starting today in the Dominican Republic.
PLANNING FOR DEVELOPMENT
Adopting the territorial dimension of development is a key perspective for Latin America and the Caribbean, a region where great challenges persist due to the heterogeneity of opportunities and living conditions in the region, agreed the authorities and experts gathered today for an international seminar in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
The seminar “Territorialization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean: Policy Challenges,” which finishes on Thursday 30, was organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) through its Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Economic and Social Planning (ILPES).
The event was opened by Isidoro Santana, Minister of Economy, Planning and Development for the Dominican Republic, Javier Abugattás, Chairman of the Board, National Council for Strategic Planning of Peru (CEPLAN) and Raúl García-Buchaca, Deputy Executive Secretary for Management and Programme Analysis, ECLAC.
During his remarks, Minister Santana said that “territorial cohesion must be built through participation and consolidated through equal opportunities and access to basic services and infrastructure.”
“There cannot be first- and second-category citizens just because of where they live or were born,” he asserted.
The minister added that “fostering a comprehensive development process is going to require structural reforms,” and underscored that, in the Dominican Republic and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, “there is a vicious circle that hinders our possibilities of overcoming underdevelopment and that includes poverty, inequality, insufficient public spending, low tax burdens and distrust in our institutions.”
Javier Abugattás, Chairman of the Board, National Council for Strategic Planning of Peru (CEPLAN), the country currently holding the Chairmanship of the Regional Planning Council (CPR), called for working to continually improve – despite technical difficulties – policies and plans in specific territories based on how people make their livings.
In that sense, he emphasized that “ILPES is a natural channel for showing, for communicating how we can improve.”
The CEPLAN representative added that “the diversity in Latin America and the Caribbean is huge and sometimes we don’t even understand where we are in cultural and territorial terms. And this is in addition to climate change. This demands we all discuss the matter,” he insisted.
Raúl García-Buchaca, Deputy Executive Secretary for Management and Programme Analysis for ECLAC, said that the region shows major subnational differences when it comes to the existence of territories with great prosperity and riches in contrast to areas of great poverty and deficiencies.
“As ECLAC has sustained systematically, these socio-spatial inequalities in Latin America and the Caribbean constitute one more expression of the overall panorama of inequalities associated with the peripheral style of development, which pose a serious obstacle to progress toward the goal of sustainable development with equality as proposed under the 2030 Agenda,” he affirmed.
He added that to confront territorial inequalities, the region requires that States with capacities to act, not only as active promoters of development plans and policies, but also with the capacity to coordinate and promote dialogues and agreements among the different levels of government and an increasingly diverse and demanding civil society.
The international seminar on territorialization of the 2030 Agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean is being held anticipating the twenty-seventh meeting of the Regional Planning Council’s Board of Directors, scheduled to begin Thursday, August 30 in the Dominican capital.
Ministers, vice ministers and planning leaders at that inter-governmental meeting will review the progress of work and compliance with agreements approved by the Regional Planning Council, the principal government authority when it comes to guiding the activities of the ILPES at ECLAC.
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Opening panel photo.
Photo: ECLAC.
