CARIBBEAN-ECLAC calls for new initiatives to deal with rights in LAC

SANTIAGO, Chile, CMC – The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, says the LAC needs to comprehensively address at least five factors underlying social inequality in the region.

Addressing the inaugural fourth Regional Seminar on Social Development on Social Protection and Inequality, titled “Social Protection and Inequality: Latin America and the Caribbean towards the Second World Summit for Social Development of 2025,” Salazar-Xirinachs said the countries in the region could start by increasing economic growth through new-generation productive development policies.

The conference, which ends on Thursday, has brought together social development, social inclusion, labor ministers from the region, other government officials, academics, and specialists.

The program points up thematic panels, three keynote speeches, and three side events.

“As we have been saying, Latin America and the Caribbean are in a development crisis manifested in three traps: one involving low capacity for growth; another, high inequality and low social mobility and social cohesion; and a third involving weak institutional capacity and ineffective governance.

“This regional seminar seeks to delve deeper in assessments and proposals for breaking away from the core causes that determine, in particular, the trap of high inequality and low social mobility,” Salazar-Xirinachs said.

According to the UN official, inequality has been central to ECLAC’s thinking and reflections for over 75 years.

“Inequality not only goes against basic concepts of social justice, it is inefficient for growth and corrosive to social cohesion and the stability of social compacts.”

Salazar-Xirinachs said the five factors that the region must urgently address to reduce inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean include the productive heterogeneity that characterizes the region’s countries and does not allow for creating quality employment for the majority of the population, the persistence of regressive tax systems, and limited-scope social and social protection policies.

He said the still-insufficient coverage and low quality of education, gender inequality, and the discrimination against and violations of the human rights of indigenous, Afro-descendent, and other population groups are also among the factors.

“Low and mediocre growth rates make it very difficult, not to say impossible, to promote productive transformation, reduce poverty, reduce informality, create high-quality jobs, and generate fiscal revenue for impactful social policies.

“All of this points to productive development policies being part of the solution to productive heterogeneity as a cause of income inequality, policies that would invigorate growth and reduce the major differences in productivity between sectors, that would reduce productive dualism and stimulate a structural shift in production and employment towards sectors and companies with higher productivity,” Salazar-Xirinachs said.

The regional event also featured remarks by Manfred Haebig, Principal Advisor of the ECLAC-BMZ/giz Cooperation Programme; Laura Oroz Ulibarri, Director of the Directorate of Cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean at the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID); and Ximena Andión, Deputy Director at the Ford Foundation’s Mexico and Central America Office.

“I hope that this Fourth Regional Seminar on Social Development will contribute to analysis, debate, and exchange so that the region’s countries can design and implement public policies to help make the triple transition in the digital, ecological, and socioeconomic realms, leaving no one behind,” Manfred Haebig said.

Laura Oroz Ulibarri said, “The strategic partnership between AECID and ECLAC, which is already 30 years old,” and she announced that in a new phase of this collaboration, they will seek to contribute to strengthening the social, institutional framework in the region to promote social cohesion policies centered on equality and the effective enjoyment of rights.

Ximena Andión of the Ford Foundation also expressed appreciation for “the collaborative work we have done with ECLAC in recent years because ECLAC is an institution that has always been at the forefront of discussions on inequality.” She agreed that this issue “runs North and South, very prominently affecting all the world’s countries, which means we must continue analyzing it from different perspectives.”

President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Paula Narváez, in an address, urged convergence among the various multilateral processes underway that are focused on promoting social development in the world.

“The Second World Summit for Social Development, which will be held in 2025, is an important pillar in our collective efforts to create an impetus that would accelerate progress on implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” she said.

The first day of the regional seminar also featured the presentation of the book Non-contributory Pension Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean: Towards Solidarity with Sustainability, edited by Alberto Arenas de Mesa, Director of ECLAC’s Social Development Division, and Claudia Robles, a Social Affairs Officer from the same Division, in the framework of the ECLAC-BMZ/giz project entitled “Transformative reactivation: overcoming the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

“This is the first book published by ECLAC to exclusively focus on the study of non-contributory pension systems in the region. This is fundamental because these systems constitute a basic pillar for achieving universal, comprehensive, sustainable, and resilient social protection systems. In addition, these systems are essential for achieving inclusive social development,” Salazar-Xirinachs said.

According to the publication, non-contributory pension systems have experienced a remarkable increase in the cove, or just over one million people, to cover 31 percent of this population in 2022, or nearly 20 million people. In 2022, only five countries in the region needed this type of system.