In a special session of the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Small Island Developing States, ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, called for urgently providing concessional funds to address these countries’ vulnerabilities, regardless of their per capita income.
Concessional financial support for Caribbean countries is imperative as a response to the crisis unleashed by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and to confront the economic and climatic vulnerabilities affecting them. So said Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), today during a session of the United Nations High-level Political Forum 2020 (HLPF), which is taking place virtually this July, where she also presented five proposals that would enable these countries to increase their fiscal space.
The event entitled Mobilizing international solidarity, accelerating action and embarking on new pathways to realize the 2030 Agenda and the Samoa Pathway: Small Island Developing States was presided over by Ambassador Munir Akram of Pakistan, who is Vice President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and moderated by Fekitamoeloa ʻUtoikamanu, UN High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS). Participating in the discussion along with Alicia Bárcena were Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Attorney-General, Minister for Economy and Minister responsible for climate change in Fiji; Abdulla Shahid, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Maldives; Terri Toyota, Head of the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Markets Group; Karol Alejandra Arambula Carrillo, Executive Director and Founder of MY World Mexico; Marsha Caddle, Minister of Economic Affairs and Investment of Barbados; and representatives of various countries.
In her presentation, Alicia Bárcena specified that Latin American and Caribbean countries are suffering the effects of the COVID-19 crisis through five channels: a drop in trade with their main trading partners, lower prices for commodities, the disruption of global value chains, lower demand for tourism services, and a decline in remittances. Read more >>