Latin American and Caribbean officials attend debate on economic development

Ministers and senior officials from Latin America and the Caribbean agreed on the need for global collective action to finance sustainable and inclusive development within a structure where everyone can be heard during a debate Tuesday in Addis Ababa.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Executive Secretary Alicia Barcena were also at the event.

The debate was dedicated to analyzing the domestic mobilization of resources and international financial governance from the perspective of middle-income countries and small-island developing states. It was organized by ECLAC and the governments of Chile and Colombia.

“We urgently need greater transparency, reciprocity and international cooperation in fiscal and tax areas,” Barcena said in regards to boosting domestic resources mobilization.

Jamaica Finance Minister Peter Phillips and Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister of Barbados Darcy Boyce emphasized the fiscal limitations that English-speaking Caribbean countries face because of the external debt burden, the decline in tourism-related income and the fall in foreign direct investment.
  
“We need an international accord. We hope that in Addis Ababa we can launch a general framework for fiscal policies,” Phillips said.

Other participants in the debate included Colombia Deputy Minister of Finance Andres Escobar, Costa Rica Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship Eduardo Trejos, Ecuador Vice Presidency Aide Jeannette Sanchez and Director of the General Office for Multilateral and Global Matters at Chile’s Foreign Affairs Ministry Eduardo Galvez,