How to Manage Transformations in the New Geopolitical Era: ECLAC Calls for Strengthening Capacities and Acting as a Region in the New Global Context

(6 October, 2026) The new global geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape creates new challenges for development and requires strengthening capacities. This new landscape is "game-changing" shift in external conditions, and to successfully navigate it, Latin America and the Caribbean needs clear strategies, solid institutions, effective governance, and a new era of regional integration and cooperation, advises the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in the position document that will be launched during its forty-first session in the Dominican Republic.

The publication Managing Transformations in an Era of Ruptures, which José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, will present this Wednesday, 7 October, aims to orient discussions this week between ministers and high-level authorities in Santiago de los Caballeros. With this proposal, "ECLAC hopes to contribute to an informed conversation focused on possibilities and how to strengthen the capacities of countries and the region to manage transformations and turn opportunities into results," stated the head of the United Nations regional organization.

The region has strategic assets, some of which have undergone a considerable revaluation as a result of ongoing technological revolutions and geopolitical competition: natural resources, including immense biodiversity and abundant reserves of critical minerals and energy; productive capacities, with world-class clusters and entrepreneurial ecosystems; human talent; a uniquely rich cultural heritage, and a regional market more than 600 million strong. However, taking advantage of these assets for development gains will not happen automatically, the Commission emphasizes.

ECLAC's analysis is that most countries in the region are caught in three traps that limit development: a trap of low capacity to grow and transform; another of high inequality with low social mobility and weak social cohesion; and a third of weak institutional capacities and ineffective governance. To overcome them, the region must implement 11 vital transformations to their development models. One of these, transversal in nature, is strengthening governance and what are known as technical, operational, political and prospective (TOPP) institutional capabilities.

The publication draws on the recent report of the ECLAC Commission on Geopolitics, Globalization and Development for Latin America and the Caribbean, entitled Ruptures and opportunities: proposals for Latin America and the Caribbean to thrive in the new geopolitical era. It also continues the analysis begun in the document Development Traps in Latin America and the Caribbean: Vital Transformations and How to Manage Them (2024).

Understanding ruptures, building capacities, managing transformations, and acting as a region

ECLAC's new contribution, which presents its strategic vision for Latin America and the Caribbean, analyzes the current geopolitical era the world is facing, some of its dynamics and main implications, and the challenges it creates for policies of development and international insertion for countries in the region.

In this context, the Commission identifies some of the institutional capacities required by the new international order: geopolitical intelligence for interpreting and anticipating the environment; economic diplomacy for expanding room for manouvre; and public-private coordination for productive transformation for mobilizing available assets.

The text also describes progress made since 2024 in developing the transformation management approach, delving more deeply into the concepts of endogenous governance (which states that institutional and political capacities that affect policy execution must be incorporated from the design phase) and transformative capability.

In particular, three key transformations are analyzed in the current era of ruptures: How can digital transformation and artificial intelligence be used to overcome the trap of low capacity for growth? A new stage in regional integration: what should be done and how? How can macroeconomics for development be built on a sound and strong fiscal framework?

Each of these chapters analyzes not only the respective transformation (the "whats") but also the institutional capacities, governance, economic policy, and social dialogue that determine their viability and sustainability (the "hows").

"In the current era of ruptures, Latin America and the Caribbean must clearly understand what vital transformations to its development models are needed and how to effectively manage them, leveraging its strategic assets and productive strategies under a renewed vision of regional integration," José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs states.

During the forty-first session (7-9 October), ECLAC's most important biennial meeting, which will include the participation of authorities from the 45 member States and 14 associated members of the Commission, representatives from the United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations, as well as the private sector and academia, countries will have the opportunity to discuss economic, social, and environmental development in the region, learn about the Commission's work during the previous period, and set priorities for the programme's work during the coming years.

The meeting will be officially inaugurated on Wednesday, 7 October at 2:30 PM local time (UTC/GMT -4) by Luis Abinader Corona, President of the Dominican Republic, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, and Gustavo Lembcke Hoyle, Ambassador of Peru in the Dominican Republic.