Port-of-Spain, 9 October. Government Representatives of 27 Latin American and Caribbean countries took on the responsibility of ensuring "sustained growth" capable of simultaneously "correcting social inequalities and setbacks" observed in a number of countries of the region in recent years.
This view forms part of the Declaration of Port-of-Spain on Growth and Employment agreed that evening at the end of the discussions of the XXIII Meeting of the Latin American Council (SELA), regional organisation with headquarters in Venezuela.
The Declaration of Port-of-Spain was spurred by the delegations’ heated debate on the "insufficient linkage between economic growth and social development", as evidenced in the high levels of poverty and marginality throughout the region.
The Declaration goes on to say that "Adjustment and structural reform policies implemented in most of the countries of the region have yet to yield a general improvement in employment levels and that, in fact, serious problems relating to poverty and marginality persist."
The Council pointed out the fact that women and youth make up the "most vulnerable sectors." In this respect, the Council deemed proper to "link programmes to eliminate poverty and employment policies" in order to "improve access by the poorest groups to basic services and to generate new sources of employment with stable and dignified solutions."
For this reason, the Council fosters productive modernisation based on "strengthening human, natural, and financial resources of Latin America and the Caribbean" in an aim to "minimise the social costs generated by the globalisation and technical transformation process under way."
In this quest for modernisation, "the State must play an active role" in close co-ordination with civil society, and at the same time grant priority developing small and medium-size enterprises, placing special emphasis on rural and agroindustrial concerns.
The delegations also agreed to "deepen the extent and speed of educational reform" in order to adapt it to the new requirements of a "productive, flexible, innovative, and competitive system."
By the time the Council concluded its four days of deliberations in Trinidad and Tobago, a declaration rejecting the Helms Burton Act and other specific actions for technical co-operation among countries of the region and the SELA Work Programme for next year had been approved.
