Representatives of international organizations and government officials from Latin America discussed the new challenges in international cooperation and their implications for the development of Latin America and the Caribbean amid a complex external scenario, ECLAC announced Wednesday, in Chile.
A high-level meeting was held Sept. 13-14 at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile, co-organized with the Development Center of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Chilean Agency for International Development Cooperation (AGCID) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The meeting was attended by delegates from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay, as well as senior officials from international and multilateral organizations.
“Participants stressed the importance of international cooperation in historical times like the present, marked by unprecedented tensions such as the health and socioeconomic crises resulting from the global Covid pandemic,” ECLAC said in a press release.
Participants agreed that countries in the region are calling for “a paradigm shift in development cooperation” that aligns with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The seminar said rankings based solely on per capita income criteria do not reflect the multidimensional vulnerabilities, structural gaps, and financing needs of countries in the region.
It was highlighted that current classification and graduation mechanisms exclude middle-income countries from international cooperation and are no longer adequate to address multiple current crises, including those related to climate change and biodiversity loss.
According to ECLAC, the meeting addressed issues related to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, global public goods, and multidimensional measures of development and prosperity.
The importance of forming regional partnerships to address urgent priorities was also highlighted, as was the renewal of partnerships between the European Union, Latin America, and the Caribbean.