LatAm economic recovery needs structural reforms: UN agency

SANTIAGO, April 29 (Xinhua) -- Latin America's post-pandemic economic recovery requires structural reforms to achieve sustainable development, the Santiago, Chile-based United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said on Thursday.

The Latin American and Caribbean region has been hit the hardest by the novel coronavirus disease, and the most damaged in economic and social terms, ECLAC officials said in the latest edition of the United Nations agency's Spanish-language online magazine, Revista CEPAL.

"This is due to long-standing structural factors that have foreshadowed its dysfunctional style of development. Therefore, economic recovery will have to undergo, at the same time, significant productive, fiscal and institutional structural reforms, to advance in the configuration of a new style of inclusive and sustainable development," according to the authors.

The authors of the article, ECLAC Executive Secretary Alicia Barcena and the Deputy Executive Secretary Mario Cimoli, virtually presented the latest edition of the magazine.

In the article titled "Structural asymmetries and the health crisis: The imperative of a transformative recovery for sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean," Barcena and Cimoli said the pandemic hit a region already suffering from three structural crises: a social crisis reflected in high levels of inequality; an economic crisis reflected in the region's low growth; and technological lag compared to advanced countries and (increasingly) compared to some Asian economies.

"These three crises and the policies necessary to overcome them interact with each other. Changing the style of development in the region requires coordinated action on all three," they said.

The authors called for a "transformative" recovery toward sustainable development that leaves behind the existing development style.

"Leadership is required that ... promotes solidarity among nations, strengthens regional integration, fulfills international agendas, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and links the (health) emergency with the recovery," they said.