Update Country Report Curaçao 31 May 2017

Development goals adopted under the UN's "2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" (known as the Sustainable Development Goals-SDG) will inform public policies across much of the Latin America and Caribbean region (LAC) over the next decade and beyond. The 2030 Agenda follows on from a previous 15-year programme of UN development targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDG; covering 2000-15). LAC policymakers met in late April in Mexico City to discuss progress so far and the challenges ahead.

In the light of the successes and lessons learned from implementing the MDG, the UN adopted a new set of targets in September 2015. These are now gradually being assimilated into the policy planning process by the 193 member nations. Like its predecessor, the 2030 Agenda identifies a 17-point action plan intended to bring measurable improvements to 169 human-development indicators, with significantly more ambitious targets than under the MDG. A stronger focus on economic and environmental sustainability is also a hallmark of the new targets.

Sustainability will focus policy priorities to 2030

The countries of the LAC region responded to the new challenges with the creation in May 2016 of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development, under the auspices of the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). The regional grouping held its first meeting on April 26th-28th, and reaffirmed regional the commitment of governments in the region to achieving the goals and establishing mechanisms for co-ordination between states to support their implementation.

According to the UN's annual report, the LAC region made positive progress towards achieving its MDG targets, albeit with differences between nations, as well as adaptation to specific country circumstances in some. The region had the highest proportion of nations that actually fulfilled several of the MDG targets. The entire region has made significant progress to eradicate hunger, with the proportion of the population considered undernourished declining from 15.3% in 1992 to 6.1% by 2014. However, large disparities exist, with undernourishment in Latin America at an average of 5%, while in the Caribbean the figure is much higher, at 20%. The entire region has made strides towards increasing access to primary education, with the net enrolment rate increasing from 87% to 94% between 1990 and 2015. However, progress in the Caribbean has been markedly deficient, with net enrolment of 82% in 2015.

Improved gender parity is notable, with the region achieving equality in terms of boys and girls attending primary school. By 2015, Latin America and the Caribbean was the only region in the world where girls outnumbered boys in secondary education. Women also account for 45% of the non-agricultural workforce, the highest proportion among all developing regions. The share of seats held by women in single or lower houses of national legislatures increased from 15% to 27% between 2000 and 2015, slightly above that of developed country regions.

Improved health outcomes targeted under the MDG include a two-thirds reduction in under-five mortality, which the region achieved. Mortality rates dropped from 54 deaths per 1,000 live births to 17 during 2000-15. The proportion of pregnant women in the region with access to at least four antenatal care visits increased to 97% in 2015, one of the highest levels among all developing regions. However, reducing adolescent pregnancy met with less success. The Caribbean region made considerable gains towards reducing the incidence of new HIV infections, declining by 56% between 2000 and 2013. Latin America, on the other hand, showed only a modest decline, and the population living with HIV remains very high. Broader public healthcare goals included improved access to clean drinking water, with the region reaching its MDG target in 2010; access had reached 95% of homes by 2015. The proportion with access to improved sanitation facilities increased to 83% in 2015, very close to target, while the proportion of those living in slum conditions fell to 20%.

Achieving new SDG goals will depend on harnessing domestic and private resources

The goals and targets set out in the 2030 Agenda seek to deepen progress achieved by the MDG, particularly in education, housing and the provision of basic services. New broader goals include elements related to the economy, production, disaster risk management, renewable energy and social change. Chief among these is the intent to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. The theme of protecting common goods, such as oceans, the atmosphere and biodiversity also underpins many of the policy targets. As energy consumption has risen over the past few decades, the share of renewables in the matrix has actually declined, something that the SDG plan seeks to address. The LAC region will have to raise significant amounts of financing to address the development challenges, both domestic and external, in the context of modest economic growth -Latin America as a whole experienced a 0.8% contraction of real GDP in 2016, owing mainly to a marked recession in Brazil. With an economic recovery underway this year, the medium term outlook is for moderate growth in the long term.

The region's low rates of national savings and weak fiscal performance pose major challenges to the mobilisation of capital to implement new public policies and finance future development. Fiscal resource availability remains limited and a recent ECLAC paper presented at the April forum, Financing the 2030 Agenda, highlights the need to improve tax systems, many of which are characterised by rampant evasion of income tax and indirect taxes (estimated by ECLAC at 6.7% of regional GDP and worth US$340bn in 2015), and tax bases that have been eroded by the proliferation of tax incentives to interest groups. Low levels of taxation meant an average tax/GDP ratio of 22.8% in 2015, well below the average for OECD countries of 34.3% of GDP. The paper concludes that the region's public finances will need comprehensive and sustained reform in order to secure public-sector solvency and safeguard investment.

The landscape for development financing has also changed significantly for the region in recent years, as flows from sources of traditional official development assistance have dwindled. New instruments and mechanisms have emerged with climate funds and green bonds. Private capital will become a more important source of financing from a diversified range of sources, including share and bond issues, debt securities and concessional loans, as well as workers' remittances and voluntary private contributions. These differing financing mechanisms pose a major challenge, as financial instruments will need to be co-ordinated in order to mesh with the 2030 development framework.