Business View Caribbean | Volume 9, Issue 3

4 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN VOLUME 9, ISSUE 3 E As the world faces unprecedented challenges, we need the region’s leadership to ensure that we ‘rescue’ the SDGs and build a future of peace, dignity and prosperity pin our hopes on a future with dignity and with inclusive, sustainable and resilient development,” President Carlos Alvarado stated in his opening remarks. Costa Rica’s leader warned that while Latin American and Caribbean countries are making progress in terms of income, achieving levels that place them in the category of middle- income or upper-middle-income countries, paradoxically they are losing – for that reason alone – cooperation opportunities and the attention of developed partners. “These unidimensional classification criteria based solely on income (per capita) hide a reality that leaves out the needs of a great number of countries in the world and their most vulnerable populations. The international community for cooperation cannot leave our region behind,” the President underscored. Meanwhile, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, stressed that in many ways, Latin America and the Caribbean has given birth to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “As the world faces unprecedented challenges, we need the region’s leadership to ensure that we ‘rescue’ the SDGs and build a future of peace, dignity and prosperity. Together, we can do it,” she affirmed, adding that the Fifth Meeting of the Forum on Sustainable Development must serve to chart an ambitious path forward. “This is a region that can and must lead the way,” she urged. In her remarks, Alicia Bárcena, ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, said that we are facing a true change of era where structural problems converge with serious circumstantial difficulties. She added that the global asymmetries between developed and developing countries have deepened, affecting the middle-income nations that include the majority of countries in our region. Furthermore, gaps have widened on access to vaccines, to financial resources, and in the capacity to implement initiatives for the economic recovery.