(October 1, 2014) The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, has been awarded the 2013 Medal in International Relations from Mexico's Anáhuac University, where she gave a speech to students on Wednesday.
The senior United Nations official was welcomed by the University President, Jesús Quirce; the Director of the School of International Relations, Carlos Camacho; and the President of the University Student Association, Santiago García.
The officials highlighted the academic training and professional career of Alicia Bárcena, a Mexican national who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and was awarded an honoris causa doctorate by the University of Oslo, Norway.
Bárcena was México's Undersecretary of Environment, Kofi Annan's Chef de Cabinet when he was the United Nations General-Secretary, and also served as the Under-Secretary-General for Management at United Nations Headquarters in New York.
In her speech at Anáhuac University, ECLAC's highest representative said global action is needed to confront big challenges like climate change, economic crisis or pandemics such as Ebola.
Bárcena also pointed out that the main challenge Latin America and the Caribbean face is inequality. To confront that, she said, ECLAC proposes a structural change to reduce the focus on activities with low productivity levels, as well as activities dedicated to the extraction of natural resources, and to promote other areas that provide greater technological contribution and are knowledge-intensive, thus contributing to increased competitiveness.
The Anáhuac Medal was awarded in past editions to politicians and diplomats, such as Rosario Green, former Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, and Fernando Solana, former head of the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Public Education and Commerce.
Alicia Bárcena has been on a mission in Mexico since last Monday, when she gave a keynote lecture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). On Tuesday, she participated in a forum organized by Forbes Magazine Mexico and this Thursday she will close the second Regional Conference on Open Data in Latin America and the Caribbean (link available only in Spanish), organized by ECLAC and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
More information is available at www.cepal.org.
