To Take on the Challenges of Demographic Change in Latin America and the Caribbean, it Is Essential to Strengthen Democracy, Human Rights, and Multilateralism

The member states of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), which participated in the Sixth Session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, acknowledged today that in order to take on the challenges of demographic change, it is necessary to strengthen democracy, human rights, and multilateralism, emphasizing the importance of promoting alliances at all levels and innovative approaches that combine private initiative and multi-actor cooperation.

Among the Conference's resolutions, the countries reaffirmed that the Montevideo consensus on population and development is a comprehensive roadmap for national and regional action in this matter and called for reinforcing compliance with its priority measures through the execution of specific actions, appropriate allocation of resources, and the creation and strengthening of institutional mechanisms for its implementation and monitoring.

They also acknowledged that transformations in demographic dynamics, in a context of persistent poverty and structural inequalities in the economic, social, and territorial spheres, will have repercussions on all aspects of society, such as labor markets, health systems and social protection, care systems, education, and the fiscal sustainability of social policies. It is therefore necessary to bear these changes in mind when financing the design and implementation of public policies that promote the population's human rights within a framework of sustainable development.

The main intergovernmental forum for monitoring and reviewing issues related to population and development in the region brought together delegates from 29 member and associated member states of ECLAC, as well as representatives from 12 entities in the United Nations system. They were joined by participants from intergovernmental organizations, parliaments in the region, academia, the private sector, and nearly 400 members of civil society. Nearly 800 people participated in total.

The Conference was created in 2012 by ECLAC, which serves as the Secretariat, in coordination with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The closing session included the participation of Luis Fidel Yáñez, Secretary of the Commission at ECLAC; Héctor Hugo González Coltrinari, Deputy Regional Director of the UNFPA Office for Latin America and the Caribbean; and Rodrigo Arim, Director of the Office of Planning and Budget of Uruguay, the country serving as Chair of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

"It is clear that the demographic changes our region is experiencing today are not a terrible fate. The drop in fertility, population ageing, care crisis, transformation of households, human mobility: all of this is, in fact, a historic opportunity. The opportunity to restructure our development models toward sustainability, toward inclusion, toward gender equality. This Conference was a space in which to think collectively about that opportunity," the Secretary of the Commission at ECLAC affirmed.

For his part, the Deputy Regional Director of the UNFPA emphasized that "our task as we go back to our countries is clear: to contribute to transforming consensuses into concrete policy, strategies into allocated budgets, and commitments into the transformation of lives that face multiple and intersectional discrimination. This also means strengthening the institutions for population and development in our region so they will have the capacity to call on different sectors and translate demographic transformation into concrete and sustainable responses," he said.

Director Rodrigo Arim, in turn, recalled that 13 years ago in Montevideo, the foundation was laid for a new regional agenda on population and development. "The Montevideo Consensus marked a turning point in the region by placing human rights, equality, dignity, autonomy, and the wellbeing of people at the center of public policy and translating those principles into concrete commitments throughout people's lifespans. Thirteen years later, in this same place, we renew that commitment. We are not here to replace that agenda but rather to reaffirm and update it in order to hold firm to those principles and, at the same time, put them into dialogue with a region that has changed profoundly," he asserted.

In the final resolutions, the delegates reaffirmed their commitment to achieving gender equality, as well as to combating racism and the inequalities that affect Afrodescendent, Indigenous, and migrant people, and emphasized the importance of continuing the work of inclusion of disabled people's rights.

They likewise recognized homeless people as an especially vulnerable population group that faces multiple and interrelated forms of discrimination and barriers.

The Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Population and Development for the next two years will have Uruguay as Chair, along with the Plurinational state of Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Guyana, Jamaica, and Mexico as Vice-Chairs.