SANTIAGO, Chile, CMC – The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) says it has ratified its support for member states in the final stretch to fulfill the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda (SDA).
It said that it adopted the position during the meeting of the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development 2025 (HLPF) in New York, held under the auspices of the global organization’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
The SDGs, also known as the Global Goals, are a universal set of 17 interconnected goals adopted by all United Nations member states in 2015 as a blueprint for a better and more sustainable future for all people and the planet by the year 2030. They are a call to action to end poverty and inequality, protect the planet, and ensure peace and prosperity for everyone, leaving no one behind.
ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, who participated in the meeting, stressed the commitment to support the regional countries in surmounting the development crisis and underlined the urgency of reaching agreements and sharing experiences to overcome the lag in fulfilling the global Agenda.
According to ECLAC’s figures, at the current pace, only 23 per cent of targets are forecast to be achieved by 2030 in the region; 41 per cent are moving in the right direction, but too slowly to meet the established threshold; and fulfillment of the remaining 36 per cent of targets has either stalled or is backtracking as compared with 2015.
Salazar-Xirinach warned during the plenary session on Regional Perspectives on SDG Implementation that Latin America and the Caribbean are caught in a trap of low capacity for growth, which includes low job creation and stalled poverty reduction.
He said that growth is closely tied to the fulfillment of several of the SDGs, including poverty reduction and the creation of decent work. He noted that the region slashed the poverty rate from 50 to 27 per cent between 1990 and 2015; however, that positive trend stagnated during the period known as the “second lost decade” (2014-2023), a stage that also marked the lowest job-creation rate in six decades.
Salazar-Xirinach said that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the cascading global crises exacerbated difficulties for a region that, with high debt levels, has seen its fiscal space further reduced.
“In this complex context, ECLAC supports its member states to overcome these development traps and strengthen institutions’ Technical, Operational, Political, and Prospective – or TOPP – capabilities. We do this through our singular convening power, technical assistance, and intellectual leadership for rethinking, reimagining, and transforming development models in the region,” Salazar-Xirinachs said.
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