SAN SALVADOR, 31 August 2009: The President of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, and the Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, signed a cooperation agreement Sunday in San Salvador for institution-building in that country.
ECLAC and the Government of El Salvador agreed to cooperate in research, training and technical assistance with the aim of strengthening institutions and designing public policies for development.
The agreement encompasses several areas; among them, macroeconomic analysis and prospectives, policies to address the global economic crisis, statistics systems, climate change and fighting poverty and inequality.
In her visit to El Salvador, Bárcena also participated in the conference Public Policies and the Global Crisis, organized by ECLAC, the European Commission, the Secretariat for Central American Economic Integration (SIECA) and the Government of El Salvador.
During the event, which finalizes today, representatives and experts from several Latin American and European nations analyzed macroeconomic policies and their role in buffering the economies of the region from external turbulence.
In her presentation, Bárcena stated that the current world economic crisis marks an end to a model of development and opens new avenues for debating economic, social and environmental issues.
Bárcena stressed that the State should once again play a key role in leading development strategies, and called on countries to avoid isolation and protectionism, and foment multilateralism and responsibility.
