Latin American and Caribbean Countries Assess Progress in the Sustainable Development Agenda

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(4 March 2013) The Government of Colombia and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) will hold the Conference on Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean: Follow-up to the development agenda beyond 2015 and Rio+20 on 7 to 9 March in Bogotá, with the participation of all United Nations agencies that work in the region.

At the meeting, authorities from Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as international experts, will use a regional perspective to review progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the post-2015 development agenda, as well as agreements adopted following the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) held in June 2012.

On Thursday 7 March at 9.00 a.m. the meeting will be opened by María Ángela Holguín, Minister of Foreign Relations of Colombia, Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, and Heraldo Muñoz, Chair of the United Nations Development Group - Latin America and the Caribbean (UNDG-LAC). During the opening ceremony a representative of the civil society will also address the audience.

In the first session, presided over Minister María Ángela Holguín, will participate Gisela Alonso and Patricia Espinosa, regular members of the High-level Panel on the Post-2015

Development Agenda, created in July 2012.  Amina J. Mohammed, Special Advisor of the UN Secretary-General on Post-2015 Development Planning, will also be present.

During the first day of the conference the inter-agency document Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean: Follow-up to the United Nations post-2015 and Rio+20 Development Agenda will be presented. This work identifies the region's remaining challenges in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to suggest future guidelines. It includes contributions from the United Nations agencies that work in the region and was coordinated by ECLAC.

At the closing session on Saturday 9 March, María Ángela Holguín will be accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guyana, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, and the Foreign Affairs Minister of Brazil, Antonio Patriota.

The conference will be preceded by the Caribbean Forum: Shaping a Sustainable Development Agenda to address the Caribbean Reality in the 21st Century, which will also be held in Bogotá on 5 and 6 March. The event will be opened on Tuesday 5 March at 8.30 a.m. by Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guyana and President of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee, a subsidiary organ of ECLAC, Pati Londoño, Viceminister of International Affairs of Colombia, and Irwin Larocque, Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

In this Forum, organized by ECLAC, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), will also participate Arnaldo Brown, State Minister in the Jamaican Ministry of Foreign Relations and Trade, and Winston Dookeran, Minister of Foreign Relations of Trinidad and Tobago, among other authorities.

The media are invited to cover the Conference on Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Caribbean Forum, which will be held in the Crowne Plaza Tequendama Hotel, in Bogotá, Colombia.

For more information please visit the ECLAC website.

Any queries should be sent to the ECLAC Public Information and Web Services Section

in Santiago, Chile.

E-mail: prensa@cepal.org; Telephone: (56 2) 2210 2040.

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