SANTIAGO, Chile (CMC) — The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) says representatives from 33 regional countries, 20 United Nations agencies and other organisations have reaffirmed their commitment to implementing the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

ECLAC said regional delegates, attending the fourth meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development, have also committed to confronting the difficulties arising from the crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic with the aim of building forward better. 

In addition to governments and UN system agencies, ECLAC said participants in the high-level meeting — which took place virtually on March 15-18 under the presidency of Costa Rica — included 24 intergovernmental organisations, 21 financial institutions from the region, 118 people from the academic sector and 38 from the private sector, as well as more than 440 representatives of civil society in the region, parliaments and local authorities. 

The meeting ended with a closing roundtable entitled “Building an inclusive and effective pathway to achieve the 2030 Agenda within the context of the decade of action and post-pandemic recovery from COVID-19”, which was moderated by Christian Guillermet-Fernández, Deputy Minister for Multilateral Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship of Costa Rica.

The meeting also featured the participation of Juan Sandoval Mendiolea, Deputy Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations and chair of the Group of Friends on Voluntary National Reviews and others.

In her closing remarks, the senior UN official highlighted that the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development is “the space that allows the region to speak with its own identity about its realities, its specificities, recognising its rich diversity while at the same time encouraging shared aspirations and making them converge”. 

“Once again, our region has given evidence of its enormous commitment to unity, cooperation, multilateralism and to a transformative recovery, which is a key requisite for implementation of the 2030 Agenda,” she said.

“We leave with the responsibility bestowed on us by the regional consensus reached here, which reaffirms the dire urgency of building fair, sustainable societies that would tackle inequality and guarantee citizenship and rights.” 

ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, also stressed the “undeniable urgency of acting together as a region to ensure access to vaccines and to share capacities and experiences so that the vaccination against COVID-19 reaches the entire population”. 

“This is a necessary and indispensable precondition for a transformative recovery with equality and sustainability,” she said.

 “We have heard it in this meeting, and I reaffirm it today: there is nowhere to return to.” 

“We have to move towards a different future,” she added. “Latin America and the Caribbean cannot continue to tolerate the structural injustice that distinguishes the region.” 

“It is time to put an end to the culture of privilege, inequalities and to eradicate poverty in all its forms. The priority must be on employment with rights and on building a future with full rights to universal social protection,” Bárcena underscored.