Remarks by José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs
Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
Plenary Meeting of the Summit of the Future
(Monday, September 23, 2024)
Mr. President of the General Assembly,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
The Summit of the Future offers us a unique opportunity to show the world that it is possible to restore trust in the multilateral system, and to demonstrate that regional and international cooperation can meet the enormous challenges we face and serve to build a more peaceful, just, productive, inclusive and sustainable future through collective action.
We have gleaned important lessons from the process that led us to the Pact for the Future, as well as the Global Digital Compact and the Declaration on Future Generations. Beyond the agreements on each issue, perhaps the value-added and the most important lesson that the Pact for the Future teaches us is that it is crucial to think about the future so that, based on that future, we can establish the issues that are important for the present.
In other words, it is important for countries and the international community to adopt policies and take actions with full awareness of what type of future they are building.
Unfortunately, as societies we tend to live in the moment and in the short term, a tendency that has been exacerbated by social networks, which also produce more emotions than analytical thoughts. Futures thinking is a way of creating spaces for coming together and for analysis to combat that short-term bent and that polarization.
At ECLAC we believe that, with the proper follow-up, the Pact for the Future and its complementary agreements can be an accelerator for attaining the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs.
In addition, the Pact for the Future is a major step in the right direction for reforming a multilateral system that was designed more than 70 years ago and that, as the Secretary-General has indicated, requires urgent reforms, such as one involving the international financial architecture, which does not measure up to today’s development financing challenges.
The issues of peace and security; science, technology, innovation and digital cooperation; youth and intergenerational solidarity; and gender equality are critical issues for the world and for Latin America and the Caribbean.
In that regard, one of ECLAC’s priorities is to contribute by strengthening foresight and anticipatory governance in the region’s countries. For example, we are creating a network of Parliamentary Committees of the Future in the region.
And we are emphasizing not just the responses to questions about what must be done, but also how to do it, which leads us directly to the issues of institutions’ TOPP capabilities – meaning their technical, operational, political and prospective capabilities – along with spaces for social dialogue to manage these vital transformations.
The world and LAC need and would benefit from a world at peace; a strong multilateral system; a trade system governed by rules; collaboration for moving towards sustainable development; for making progress on the SDGs; and for tackling climate change.
At our upcoming 40th session of ECLAC, to be held in Peru in October, we will have the first opportunity to converse about implementing the commitments of the Summit of the Future in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Thank you very much.
