By: Staff Writer
April 4, 2025
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in their latest report said that Latin America and the Caribbean will only complete 23 percent of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the year 2023.
The report, “Latin America and the Caribbean in the Final Five Years of the 2030 Agenda,” notes that, “ only 23 percent of the SDG targets will be achieved by 2030 in the region; 41 percent are moving in the right direction but at an insufficient pace for reaching the defined threshold; and the trajectory of compliance for the remaining 36 percent of targets has stalled or regressed versus 2015 levels.”
The report also argues, “the region is mired in three development traps: (i) low capacity for growth; (ii) high inequality with low social mobility and cohesion; and (iii) low institutional capacity and ineffective governance. These traps tend to curb the possibility of quicker progress towards the thresholds established for meeting SDG targets, as shown by the fact that most indicators reveal that the region is not advancing fast enough to meet these targets by 2030.”
“In 2025, ten years after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and five years before the deadline for fulfilling the SDGs, progress on the attainment of the Goals in the region is not what we hoped for,” José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs affirmed.
Among the factors that have halted the region’s progress are weak institutional capacities, the lack of prioritization of certain goals in national development plans, and limited financing and fiscal space, mainly due to the debt burden. Nor did the relatively slow growth of the global economy and global trade starting in 2014-2015 provide the best macroeconomic environment for advancing at a faster speed. The COVID-19 pandemic and the cascading crises that followed it decelerated progress and deepened structural inequalities. Although a recovery was seen after the pandemic, it has only been enough to return to prior levels in the majority of cases, the document explains.
The report, “concludes with a summary of key findings, conclusions and policy recommendations to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs. Despite progress, doing so requires structural changes and greater political efforts in the region. This section underlines the need for innovative solutions to questions on the structural transformations that are needed and how to manage them, and highlights the importance of adopting a model of anticipatory governance, strengthening investment and implementing productive development policies, including productive development agendas in dynamic sectors, as well as policies linked to social protection and care and environmental sustainability.
“The above should be approached through a framework of strong partnerships, enhanced governance and reinforced technical, operational, political and prospective capabilities of relevant institutions, underpinned by the required mobilization of both internal and external resources.”
Salazar-Xirinachs also referred to the current global economic and geopolitical context and to the value of multilateralism for navigating an uncertain international scenario. “The world is facing geopolitical shock, a period of low growth in economies and trade, the resurgence of protectionist tendencies and the risk of trade wars, rapid technological revolution, and challenges in environmental sustainability and climate change. This Forum, convened each year around the 2030 Agenda and now around the Pact for the Future as well, shows a path forward and promotes a cooperative, peaceful and non-conflictual way of resolving the region’s problems. This is its profound meaning, and within that we are moving from global agendas to regional and national ones. It is possible to say that this Forum is ultimately also a catalyst for hope, hope in which it is possible to build a better future, and we are talking here about how to do that,” he indicated.