BACKGROUND
Technical coordination among institutions, geographical dispersion of governmental organizations and asymmetries among member countries of integration mechanisms are some of the aspects that must be addressed in order to promote the regional integration process. Faced with these difficulties, various technical teams have come to the conclusion that the meeting of the minds and the establishment of agreements on regional policies related to specific areas of activity is the most effective mechanism for overcoming these challenges and the pillar for the promotion of convergence among the countries in the region.
In this connection, the role of multilateral organizations is essential for the promotion and exchange of best practices that provide alternatives for the reduction of barriers to trade, facilitate the factor mobility and generate new cross-sectoral investment agreements. Thus, the Permanent Secretariat, committed to the efforts of regional cooperation, has convened various institutions that promote the Latin American and Caribbean integration with the aim of monitoring integration processes and trying to align regional, technical and political agencies in the pursuit of common objectives, such as, for example, the coordination and design of actions in the economic, social, environmental and cultural dimensions, among others.
In this context, the Permanent Secretariat of SELA organized the Seminar on Prospective vision of Latin American and Caribbean integration, held in Mexico City on 6 and 7 March 2018. In addition, based on the conclusions arising from the Seminar on Assessment of the Latin American integration process, held in Montevideo on 7 May 2019, a diagnosis of the integration processes was made with a view to identifying new work strategies around issues of growing regional interest. Then, a group of regional specialists was created with the purpose of designing an agenda for monitoring and updating the integration process, which would be disseminated by means of institutional meetings and publications about the actions provided for by the various organizations that promote integration.
Considering the expectations arising from these activities for interinstitutional complementarity and cohesion among participants and due to the growing interest in further expanding partnerships, the Permanent Secretariat of SELA is organizing the Seminar Closing gaps in Latin American integration processes. The aim of this event is to provide support tools for the design of public policies, with particular emphasis on the analysis and use of methodologies associated with the search for convergence and reduction of asymmetries between relatively more and less developed countries.
The seminar has been structured in four working sessions, in which initiatives for regional convergence will be presented and economic asymmetries will be identified in order to enhance progress in some of the dimensions of integration whose treatment is still incipient. In this context, an analysis of the gaps will be made, with special emphasis on social disparities, and a description will be provided of the efforts by the various regional players in designing public policies to address such disparities.
The conduction of this seminar is part of the efforts by the Permanent Secretariat of SELA in fostering interinstitutional cooperation and consensus about the design of regional public policies for overcoming intra-regional asymmetries and the search for greater convergence in Latin American and Caribbean integration processes.
