The global financial crisis will leave important and serious lessons, and the region must work united to overcome the effects of economic turbulence, said the President of Guatemala Álvaro Colom during a lecture at ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Chile.
There are two major challenges for Latin America, said President Colom. "The crises the region has faced, such as the oil, climate or financial crises, are superposed on old crises that are even more severe: hunger, discrimination, abandonment and exclusion. If they are solved, we will have more harmonic States," he stated.
Economic recovery will be viable only to the extent it is fair, said Colom. "It was a bad idea to have converted human beings into objects of the market. We have to go back to considering human beings as the center of action for everything," he stressed.
The region has the opportunity to raise its commitments and duties with the most unfortunate, said Colom. "We have to work united and ECLAC may make a great contribution by providing a place to reflect, dialogue and bring forth proposals in light of the new challenges. We have to seek a balance between social cohesion and economic growth," he said.
President Colom was received by the Executive Secretary of the United Nations regional body, Alicia Bárcena, who offered the Commission's cooperation for Guatemala to advance towards equality, the creation of decent economic alternatives and ensuring food security.
"The recent shocks in the price of food and oil, shrinking demand for exports and the fall in remittances, tourism and access to financing for development are revealing new structural problems, challenges that ECLAC hopes to contribute to overcome," said Bárcena.
The lecture was attended by members of the diplomatic corps in Chile, academics and representatives of international agencies and civil society.
For more information, contact ECLAC's Information Services. Email: dpisantiagocepal.org; telephones: (56-2) 210-2380/2149.
