The President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, affirmed today that only by generating new development paradigms together can we overcome this crisis due to COVID-19 and find a more humane and supportive world.
“These are extraordinary times, so we need extraordinary responses that are effective, that happen. It is time to start the operationalization of these responses,” said the Costa Rican President at the opening session of the fourth meeting of the Forum on Sustainable Development of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
In exercise of the Pro Tempore Presidency of ECLAC in the 2020-2022 period, the President of Costa Rica highlighted the need to bring the concerns and proposals of the region to all global discussions with the united force of their wills and their conviction.
Deep structural development gaps
As we have already reflected in the framework of ECLAC, the Pandemic has exposed the deep structural development gaps that our societies are going through and caused an unprecedented crisis in our region and the entire world, he said.
Among them, he mentioned inequality, poverty, the weakness of many of the health and social protection systems, job insecurity, financial exclusion, the technological gap, precarious urbanization, and inequality between men and women.
A new future
Alvarado urged to build a new future, a transformative recovery, with equality and sustainability, because – he specified – what is at stake is our survival as a species, our culture as Latin America and the Caribbean and it is our responsibility as a generation to rebuild towards that future in a better way.
He exalted that the new normal must be really new and called for creating a modern, green, emission-free, resilient, but also inclusive economy, leaving no one behind, based on respect for human rights and gender equality. He argued that global architecture also faces moments of imbalance and tension, but we are convinced of the value of multilateralism.
“Solidarity and international cooperation constitute the only real way out of this crisis caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic,” he asserted, adding that international institutions must reorient themselves to fulfilling the role for which they were created: serving the needs of the people in times of great suffering and loss like the present one.
A united region
“But for this and for this to be the case, we must keep our regional voice united and firm, and positively influence the reconfiguration of the world order and its new rules”, he stressed. The President assured that this appointment makes sense to the extent that as a region, together, they can see their challenges and have joint solutions and unite to face these difficulties, in one of the most difficult moments that as humanity and as a region they face.
“Only together can we move forward,” he said.
