At its fourteenth meeting, held in Brasilia in November 2013, the Regional Council for Planning (RCP) of the Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Economic and Social Planning (ILPES), the subsidiary body of ECLAC that convenes the national planning authorities of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean and Spain and guides the work of ILPES, approved a new strategy to strengthen regional cooperation and assist in shaping a long-term vision for the whole region from a development planning perspective.1 With a view to achieving its strategic objectives, the Council gave ILPES a series of instructions: to draft a proposal for a regional work programme; create a regional repository of development plans; analyse the state of planning in the region and identify challenges in strengthening it and contribute to building a long-term regional vision of development planning.