Caribbean Must Equalise To Grow And Grow To Equalise, Says Eclac
KINGSTON | NEW YORK – If they are to meet commitments agreed under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its sustainable development goals (SDGs), the countries of the Caribbean must focus on closing the structural gaps they still have – particularly with regard to gender equality and financial and fiscal sustainability (due to their high debt level) – and mitigating the effects of climate change, .
Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), spoke in this regard during the ‘African-Caribbean Cross-Regional Exchange’ at the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) which ended July 19 at United Nations headquarters in New York.
“The current development model is unsustainable in that it has led to a decrease in trade and growth, greater inequality, excessive financialisation, and has fallen into the greatest market failure of all: climate change,†she said.
“The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have thus come about as an aspirational response with a view to the long term … [and] “in order to meet the SDGs, ECLAC proposes a great environmental push, a change in productive structures via industrialisation, innovation and the incorporation of greater knowledge.â€
The New York event, which focused on dialogue around proposals related to debt, climate change and gender equality in Africa and the Caribbean, was organised by the Regions Refocus initiative of the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation (with headquarters in Sweden), the German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) foundation and the Jamaica Permanent Mission to the United Nations.
Participants in the dialogue included Ambassador Courtenay Rattray, Representative for the Jamaica Permanent Mission to the United Nation; Ambassador Pennelope Beckles of Trinidad and Tobago; Ambassador Keith Hamilton Lewellyn Marshall of Barbados and other Caribbean and African ambassadors to the United Nations, Anita Nayar of Regions Refocus, and Caecilie Schildberg of FES, among others.
In her remarks, the ECLAC Executive Secretary said that in order to implement the 2030 Agenda, develop their national institutional frameworks to follow it and mainstream the SDGs into their plans and policies, it is essential that the countries of the Caribbean know the challenges they face in the current global context in terms of trade flows and accords, access to financing and mobilisation of resources, and technology.
“We must equalise to grow and grow to equalise, fostering investment and gender equality,†said Bárcena.
On this last point, she stated that the main issue is assuring women’s autonomy in its three dimensions: economic, physical and political.
In the Caribbean, women tend to be over-represented in the lowest sectors of the labour market – especially in the service sector – and under-represented in areas that require higher qualifications, she explained.
Furthermore, the unemployment rate is higher among women, who also suffer lower levels of social protection and have lower salaries compared with men (in similar positions).
“Much more needs to be done to completely capitalise on women’s potential, requiring methods that encompass their access to education and quality training, to economic resources and financial services, and to new forms of financing,†Bárcena said Read more
Candidates in this article: