Ministers and senior authorities involved in development planning and public administration, representatives of civil society and United Nations bodies as well as other specialists will gather for the XV Conference of Ministers and Heads of Planning of Latin America and the Caribbean and the XVI Meeting of the Regional Council for Planning, which will be held from October 11 through October 13 in Lima, Peru.

At both meetings – organized by the governments of Guatemala and Ecuador (which currently hold the Council’s co-presidency), the host government of Peru, and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) – participants will analyze the challenges, experiences and prospects for development planning in the region and its role in the implementation and achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The events in Lima will kick off on Wednesday, October 11, with the XV Conference of Ministers and Heads of Planning, a high-level event aimed at promoting dialogue and cooperation on development planning and public administration.

At the conference, ministers from the region will present their experiences with multilevel territorial development planning, focuses on gender equality and participation in planning, the quality of public investment, and the strengthening of public sector capacities for development.

On Thursday, October 12, the inauguration will take place of the XVI Meeting of the Regional Council for Planning, an intergovernmental gathering in which ministers and heads of planning will review the activities carried out by the Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Economic and Social Planning (ILPES) in 2016 and 2017 along with the 2018-2019 work program.

In the framework of the meeting, ECLAC will present the Regional Planning Observatory, which seeks to become a powerful instrument for analysis, learning and exchange about development planning systems and implementation of the 2030 Agenda in the region. Also to be presented is the Planbarómetro, a tool to characterize planning processes that will allow countries to evaluate themselves and improve the quality of their planning systems and exercises. In addition, a document will be released that analyzes the challenges to planning in Latin America and the Caribbean, based on the experiences described in nine case studies from countries in the region.

Meanwhile, on Friday, October 13, a dialogue with academia has been scheduled that will address, as its main theme, the comparative experiences of the Republic of Korea and Latin America and the Caribbean regarding sustainable territories and cities and their challenges in terms of research and planning.