The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) will hold its most important biennial meeting in Mexico City from May 23 to May 27, 2016, where officials will present to its 45 member countries a report on recent activities and will offer governments a reflection upon development strategies in the context of the commitments contained in the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Mexico’s Foreign Minister, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, and ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, signed the agreement today through which Mexico becomes the venue for the Thirty-sixth session of this United Nations organization.
“For our country it is very important to host ECLAC’s session and receive representatives from throughout the region to discuss issues of development and equality, especially of gender,” Ruiz Massieu affirmed.
Bárcena indicated that in this session participants will debate the region’s economic, social and environmental development based on a position document written by ECLAC, in light of the agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approved by the UN General Assembly in September 2015. This document continues along the same path as the “trilogy of equality” presented by the Commission in its three previous meetings (2010, 2012 and 2014).
“We keep equality at the center of our proposals and with a gender approach in which the role of Latin American and Caribbean women is made more visible in the agenda of the SDGs,” said the United Nations official. “As a Mexican woman, it is an honor that this meeting be held in my country.”
The Executive Secretary also met with President Enrique Peña Nieto, whom she thanked for the invitation that Mexico’s government made to ECLAC to host the session. She also expressed her appreciation to him, since he will be the person to kick off the work of this regional UN commission’s highest governing body.
During her visit Bárcena met as well with the most senior authorities of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), accompanied on both occasions by Antonio Prado, ECLAC’s Deputy Executive Secretary, and the Director of the Subregional Headquarters in Mexico, Hugo Beteta.
At the UNAM, Rector Enrique Graue and Secretary-General Leonardo Lomelí agreed to jointly publish with ECLAC a series of studies about Latin American development, while also drafting a joint proposal for a possible oceanographic expedition between the Antarctic and the whale sanctuary in the Gulf of California in the framework of Pacific Alliance cooperation. Both sides also proposed reinforcing academic exchanges and scholarships for Latin American students.
Bárcena also met with Julio Santaella, President of the INEGI, and with Vice Presidents Félix Vélez and Rolando Ocampo. The Institute currently presides the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC (SCA-ECLAC) and will participate actively in the upcoming session. The officials agreed that the INEGI will present its experiences regarding South-South cooperation, the Caribbean and Central America, gender statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the relationship between statistics and geography in its studies.
The senior United Nations official will finalize her official activities in Mexico tomorrow, Saturday, February 13, upon participating in the reception that the Mexican State will offer to Pope Francis in the National Palace.
The complete program of ECLAC’s thirty-sixth session, along with general information on the meeting, is available on the gathering’s special Web site: http://periododesesiones.cepal.org/36/en. Journalists who want to get accredited to cover the meeting can also do so through this site.
