18 July 2017
African-Caribbean Event Calls for Action on SDG 5, SDG 13 to Achieve 2030 Agenda
Photo by IISD | Lynn Wagner
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The ‘African-Caribbean Cross-Regional Exchange’ discussed the importance of mitigating climate change, tackling gender equality and promoting debt relief and financial sustainability to achieve the SDGs.

Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Executive Secretary Alicia Bárcena called for a “great environmental push” to meet the SDGs.

12 July 2017: Participants supported focusing on climate change mitigation, gender equality and financial and fiscal sustainability to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the ‘African-Caribbean Cross-Regional Exchange.’ The event convened on the sidelines of the 2017 session of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), which is taking place at UN Headquarters in New York, US, from 10-19 July.

ECLAC Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, called for a “great environmental push” to meet the SDGs.

In a keynote address, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Executive Secretary, Alicia Bárcena, called for a “great environmental push” to meet the SDGs, saying a change in productive structures via industrialization, innovation and incorporation of knowledge is needed to close structural gaps in the region. She described the current development model as unsustainable, saying it has led to decreased trade and growth, increased financialization, greater inequality and climate change.

On gender equality, participants called for women’s economic, physical and political autonomy to achieve SDG 5 (gender equality). Bárcena observed that women in the Caribbean have higher rates of unemployment and tend to be underrepresented in areas that require higher qualification and overrepresented in the service sector and other “lowest sectors of the labour market,” among other challenges. Participants recommended focusing on women’s access to education and training and economic resources and financial services to make progress on gender equality.

On climate change, participants recognized the vulnerability of small islands in the region to increasing sea levels and natural disasters. Bárcena observed that natural disasters have cost nearly 5% of the Caribbean’s gross domestic product (GDP). Bárcena said ECLAC has created a prevention fund to mitigate climate change in the English-speaking Caribbean economies, explaining that debt relief programmes in Caribbean economies offer an opportunity to help mitigate climate change as well as to reduce inequalities, including gender equalities.

Participants further discussed, inter alia: the importance of mainstreaming the SDGs into plans and policies; challenges related to middle-income countries (MICs) and graduation from the least developed country (LDC) status; and the role of agriculture in achieving sustainable development.

Regions Refocus, an initiative of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and the Jamaica Permanent Mission to the UN organized the event. [ECLAC Press Release] [Event Description]


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