HAVANA, Cuba (CMC) — The United Nation’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has reaffirmed its historical commitment to equality for the peoples of the region.

During a seminar commemorating ECLAC’s 70th anniversary, held here in the framework of the 37th session, speakers addressed the institution’s history and contributions to Latin American and Caribbean thinking.

The speakers included the former Executive Secretaries of ECLAC Enrique Iglesias (1972-1985), Gert Rosenthal (1988-1997), José Antonio Ocampo (1998-2003) and José Luis Machinea (2003-2008), along with the current Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena.

“After 70 years of history, today ECLAC faces the coming decade with a civilising, universal and indivisible roadmap, the 2030 Agenda, which puts people’s dignity and equality at the centre and, therefore, requires the broadest possible participation of all actors,” said Bárcena on Wednesday.

“We are convinced that equality must be at the centre of sustainable development and that sustainable development occurs when there is a virtuous relationship between economic, social and environmental policies underpinned by a solid institutional framework,” she added.

The top representative of the United Nations regional organisation underscored that “today, when we recognise the effort behind what has been done and the achievements made, we also take on the unequivocal task of continuing to work for a more prosperous region, with greater equality and sustainability.”

The four previous executive secretaries of ECLAC recalled their respective periods at the head of the institution, and offered an analysis of the current scenario and ECLAC’s role in the development of the region’s countries.

Enrique Iglesias highlighted ECLAC’s commitment to the region.

“The vision of Latin America and the Caribbean acting as a unit in the face of economic problems at the United Nations and later in the major stages of integration was really something that characterised ECLAC’s image throughout its history,” he said. “ECLAC is Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Iglesias emphasised ECLAC’s commitment to the United Nations’ fundamental values: the commitment to freedom, democracy and human rights.

“ECLAC is a place where there is a central commitment to being an organization that is useful to the United Nations but, above all, very useful to the peoples of the region,” he said.

Rosenthal, meanwhile, stated that “the concern for equality or for the concept that many people truly are left behind, is a very powerful driving force that has appeared since ECLAC’s pioneering literature.”

“Although ECLAC is Latin America and the Caribbean, it is also the United Nations,” he said, adding that “ECLAC practically invented Central American integration, playing the role of the secretariat of the Central American process.”

Ocampo assessed the importance of ECLAC’s contributions in five specific areas: the fiscal compact and macroeconomic management in the face of capital movements; productive development in open economies, which emphasised the relevance of integration and technological development; social development, which prioritised social policies with a rights-based approach; the reincorporation of issues related to environmental sustainability in all its main reports; and participation in international debates.

Machinea reviewed the events that marked the commission’s actions during his administration and warned about the need for an integration of Latin America and the Caribbean that continues fostering a productive transformation with equality, according to ECLAC.

It said Machinea emphasised the challenges entailed by the current global uncertainty, with the risk of a new financial crisis that, combined with protectionist trends, can have serious consequences.

Bárcena presented the book Development and Equality: ECLAC’s thinking in its seventh decade. Selected texts from the period 2008-2018, which “provides a detailed and careful compilation of 25 texts that are representative of the organisation’s intellectual production in the last decade” coinciding with her leadership.