Support for implementing the 2030 Agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean

Context

Since 1980, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (abbreviated to ECLAC in English and CEPAL in Spanish) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) have been working together to promote environmentally sustainable economic development and social cohesion in the region. ECLAC’s mandate is to analyse and develop region-wide policy proposals. Since 2003, ECLAC and BMZ have engaged in a strategic partnership that ensures closer cooperation through various 2-year cooperation programmes.

Objective

Selected countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have strategies in place to facilitate structural change that is environmentally friendly, socially acceptable, inclusive and progressive.

Approach

The project supports the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Focusing on environmentally friendly and socially acceptable economic growth, it develops strategies and measures for long-term development in selected pilot countries.

The project helps these countries to identify development potentials, devise policies for their implementation, and establish the relevant capacities. ECLAC has set up three inter-departmental working groups for this purpose: The first focuses on the relationship between planning, financing and adherence to the 2030 Agenda, the second up on digital change and the third on the ‘green economy’ – i.e. ecological, profitable and inclusive economic growth.

In terms of its role, the project regards itself as a facilitator for cooperation between Germany and Latin America/the Caribbean. In dialogue events and specialist discussions, it fosters exchanges of experience and partnerships between regions. In addition, the project seeks to intensify networking between ECLAC and bilateral projects that form part of German and/or European development cooperation in this region.

Results

In addition to helping prepare five national development plans, the project has also assisted Ecuador with the creation of a national strategy for 2030 and strengthened the national planning process in Paraguay. The focus of work in Costa Rica has been on integrating climate protection considerations into investment projects.

The second working group has assisted selected countries in structuring digital change in an integrative and socially acceptable manner. In Costa Rica, for example, it took part in a seminar on ‘The fourth industrial revolution: maximizing the benefits of the Digital Transformation in Costa Rica’. And together with the Senate and Ministry of Labour in Chile, it organised a seminar in March 2019 on ‘The transformation of employment in the face of the digital revolution and automation’. Thanks to the project, the impacts of technological change on labour markets have been debated in various countries throughout the region.

The third thematic area showcases the prerequisites for green growth in the target countries and provides corresponding examples. At the second Regional Forum for Energy Planners, which took place in Chile in October 2018, government representatives and international delegates successfully agreed on specific activities within the framework of an action plan for 2018-2019. And in Costa Rica, the project team lent its support to the electromobility component of the country’s plan for decarbonising its economy, i.e. for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, which included co-developing a strategy for harnessing renewable resources. Having co-designed a financing proposal for electric buses in Mexico, the project has since performed similar work for the Governments of Brazil and the Dominican Republic.