Bo­got�–At the clos­ing ses­sion of a re­gion­al con­fer­ence in Bo­got�, Colom­bia, au­thor­i­ties from sev­er­al Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean coun­tries and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts agreed on the ur­gency of build­ing a glob­al, uni­fied, com­pre­hen­sive and eq­ui­table post-2015 de­vel­op­ment agen­da that is rel­e­vant to every­one.

The Con­fer­ence on Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean: Fol­low-up to the de­vel­op­ment agen­da be­yond 2015 and Rio+20, which be­gan on March 7 in Bo­got�, was or­gan­ised by the Gov­ern­ment of Colom­bia and the Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (Eclac) and was at­tend­ed by all Unit­ed Na­tions agen­cies in the re­gion, as well as in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal and civ­il-so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions.

The meet­ing was held as the re­gion's first step to­wards adopt­ing a re­gion­al per­spec­tive on ex­am­in­ing progress to­wards the Mil­len­ni­um De­vel­op­ment Goals (MDGs) and the post-2015 de­vel­op­ment agen­da, as well as the agree­ments adopt­ed at the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­fer­ence on Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment (Rio+20) held in June 2012.The clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny was at­tend­ed by Ali­cia B�rce­na, ex­ec­u­tive sec­re­tary of Eclac, Al­va Bap­tiste, min­is­ter of for­eign af­fairs, In­ter­na­tion­al Trade and Avi­a­tion of Saint Lu­cia, An­to­nio Pa­tri­o­ta, min­is­ter of for­eign af­fairs of Brazil, and Mar�a �ngela Hol­gu�n, min­is­ter of for­eign af­fairs of Colom­bia.

B�rce­na said par­tic­i­pants had come to the meet­ing "to lis­ten to each oth­er, to re­dis­cov­er the val­ue of be­ing to­geth­er and to en­rich our own re­flec­tions with the in­valu­able in­put of oth­ers' views. We are liv­ing in a time of un­prece­dent­ed re­gion­al uni­ty, and we have a his­toric op­por­tu­ni­ty to joint­ly re­think an equal­i­ty-based de­vel­op­ment par­a­digm." Bap­tiste said: "Dis­cus­sions have been fo­cused and pro­duc­tive, and we now have much in­for­ma­tion to guide us in our am­bi­tious post-2015 de­vel­op­ment agen­da."

Pa­tri­o­ta said in re­cent years dis­cus­sions on sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment had be­come more im­por­tant and in depth, while MDGs had in­spired new en­thu­si­asm for ac­tion in the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.The post-2015 agen­da will there­fore have two com­ple­men­tary di­men­sions: con­tin­ued ad­vances in MDGs and a con­sol­i­da­tion of the re­sults of Rio+20.

Hol­gu�n stat­ed: "We should all con­sid­er the suc­cess of this meet­ing as an in­cen­tive to con­tin­ue work­ing to­geth­er as a re­gion, with the con­struc­tive at­ti­tude that has guid­ed these dis­cus­sions...This Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean meet­ing is an im­por­tant guide­line for the de­lib­er­a­tions of the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al's High-lev­el Pan­el on the Post-2015 De­vel­op­ment Agen­da."

Over three days, par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed the chal­lenges fac­ing the re­gion in terms of build­ing a more am­bi­tious post-2015 de­vel­op­ment agen­da that pro­motes growth with greater cul­tur­al aware­ness, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the most vul­ner­a­ble so­ci­eties, in­clu­sion, pro­tec­tion, so­cial equal­i­ty and en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty.The event was at­tend­ed by the min­is­ters of for­eign af­fairs of Guatemala, Fer­nan­do Car­rera, and Cos­ta Ri­ca, En­rique Castil­lo, as well as vice-min­is­ters from sev­er­al coun­tries.

Al­so in at­ten­dance were Her­al­do Mu�oz, chair of the Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Group–Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (UNDG-LAC), Am­i­na J Mo­hammed, spe­cial ad­vi­sor of the UN sec­re­tary-gen­er­al on Post-2015 De­vel­op­ment Plan­ning, Gisela Alon­so and Pa­tri­cia Es­pinosa, mem­bers of the High-lev­el Pan­el on the Post-2015 De­vel­op­ment Agen­da set up in Ju­ly 2012, and Min­is­ter Mar�a �ngela Hol­gu�n.The in­ter-agency UN doc­u­ment Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean Fol­low-up to the Unit­ed Na­tions de­vel­op­ment agen­da be­yond 2015 and to Rio+20 was pre­sent­ed dur­ing the con­fer­ence, in­cludes con­tri­bu­tions from 17 Unit­ed Na­tions agen­cies in the re­gion, and was co­or­di­nat­ed by Eclac.

The re­port states the need for a new de­vel­op­ment mod­el based on struc­tur­al change for equal­i­ty and en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Ac­cord­ing to the in­ter-agency pub­li­ca­tion, glob­al gov­er­nance for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment should be based around fair trade, tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer, in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial re­form and new fund­ing mech­a­nisms, the pro­mo­tion of South-South co­op­er­a­tion and the strength­en­ing of so­cial par­tic­i­pa­tion mech­a­nisms.The con­fer­ence was pre­ced­ed by the Caribbean Fo­rum: Shap­ing a Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Agen­da to ad­dress the Caribbean Re­al­i­ty in the 21st Cen­tu­ry, which was al­so held in Bo­got� on March 5 and 6. (CMC)