At the Current Pace, Only 23% of the Sustainable Development Goal Targets Will Be Achieved by 2030 in Latin America and the Caribbean

José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, ECLAC's Executive Secretary, presented a new report on follow-up of the 2030 Agenda in the region, emphasizing the importance of strengthening institutional capacities to manage transformations and reasserting the value of multilateralism as a catalyst for action and hope, in the face of a complex international context.

With updated data on the indicators of the 2030 Agenda's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) forecasts that only 23% of the targets will be achieved by 2030 in the region; 41% are moving in the right direction but at an insufficient pace for reaching the defined threshold; and the trajectory of compliance for the remaining 36% of targets has stalled or regressed versus 2015 levels. There is also unequal progress among subregions: the highest proportion of targets expected to be achieved is seen in South America (23%) and Central America and Mexico (24%), which is 10 percentage points more than the Caribbean (13%).

This is according to the report Latin America and the Caribbean in the Final Five Years of the 2030 Agenda: Steering Transformations to Accelerate Progress. Eighth report on regional progress and challenges in relation to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, presented today by José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, ECLAC's Executive Secretary, at the inauguration of the Dialogues on regional action taking place in the framework of the eighth meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development (March 31-April 4).

Participating in this event, being held at ECLAC's headquarters in Santiago, Chile, are senior government authorities from Latin America and the Caribbean and other regions of the world, international officials, and representatives of the private sector, academia and civil society, among other stakeholders.

"In 2025, ten years after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and five years before the deadline for fulfilling the SDGs, progress on the attainment of the Goals in the region is not what we hoped for," José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs affirmed. Among the factors that have halted the region's progress are weak institutional capacities, the lack of prioritization of certain goals in national development plans, and limited financing and fiscal space, mainly due to the debt burden. Nor did the relatively slow growth of the global economy and global trade starting in 2014-2015 provide the best macroeconomic environment for advancing at a faster speed. The COVID-19 pandemic and the cascading crises that followed it decelerated progress and deepened structural inequalities. Although a recovery was seen after the pandemic, it has only been enough to return to prior levels in the majority of cases, the document explains.

Despite this lag, ECLAC's Executive Secretary emphasized that there is room to maneuver to invigorate fulfillment of the targets, by strengthening institutions' TOPP (technical, operational, political, prospective) capabilities. "Weak institutional capacities are an obstacle to implementing effective public policies and managing the transformations needed in the economic, productive, social and environmental spheres. There is a downward trend in state capacities and governance in the region, with deterioration on key indicators such as governmental effectiveness, regulatory quality and control of corruption. It is necessary to insist that spaces for social dialogue with the private sector and civil society, and accountability, are key components of good governance," he said. To facilitate this conversation about how to accelerate the pace of progress, this year's report includes a conceptual framework for analysis on the question of how to manage the necessary transformations better and more efficiently.

Salazar-Xirinachs also referred to the current global economic and geopolitical context and to the value of multilateralism for navigating an uncertain international scenario. "The world is facing geopolitical shock, a period of low growth in economies and trade, the resurgence of protectionist tendencies and the risk of trade wars, rapid technological revolution, and challenges in environmental sustainability and climate change. This Forum, convened each year around the 2030 Agenda and now around the Pact for the Future as well, shows a path forward and promotes a cooperative, peaceful and non-conflictual way of resolving the region's problems. This is its profound meaning, and within that we are moving from global agendas to regional and national ones. It is possible to say that this Forum is ultimately also a catalyst for hope, hope in which it is possible to build a better future, and we are talking here about how to do that," he indicated.

At the eighth meeting of the Forum, the Dialogues on global action were held on Tuesday, April 1; the Dialogues on regional action are taking place this Wednesday and Thursday, April 2-3; and the Dialogues on national action will be featured on Friday, April 4.

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