Background

The Regional Council for Planning is a subsidiary body of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and governs the activities of the Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Economic and Social Planning (ILPES). It comprises the ministers or heads of planning of the Council’s Latin American and Caribbean member States.

The Council is a forum for intergovernmental technical-political dialogue that facilitates experience- and knowledge-sharing among planning authorities on how to overcome the challenges of building a culture of the future at the national and subnational levels, and how to strengthen public management and enhance the State’s technical and political capacities to promote a culture of continuous learning and greater multi-stakeholder collaboration.

At its nineteenth meeting, held from 7 to 9 November 2023 in Santo Domingo, the Regional Council for Planning of ILPES agreed to begin the negotiation of a regional agenda on governance of planning and public management for sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean with a view to identifying priority lines of work for the following five years, aligning efforts and resources and sharing lessons learned, in order to generate capacities to move towards more productive, sustainable and inclusive development in the region.

At the thirtieth meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Council for Planning, held at ECLAC headquarters in Santiago on 27 and 28 November 2024, the Dominican Republic, in its capacity as Chair, presented proposed guidelines for the drafting of a regional agenda on governance of planning and public management for sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The countries endorsed these guidelines and agreed to organize multistakeholder dialogues in the first half of 2025. These were held on 31 March within the framework of the eighth meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development, and addressed each of the following four areas of the regional agenda on governance of planning and public management for sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean:

(i) Governance, institutional frameworks and social dialogue.
(ii) Anticipatory governance and the dimension of the future in the framework of sustainable development.
(iii) Coordination for comprehensive and coherent public policies.
(iv) Evaluation, public value and establishing a culture of continuous learning.

In addition, an online survey was conducted within the framework of the Latin American and Caribbean Development Planning Network of ILPES, and two virtual sessions were organized to present the strategic guidelines proposed for each of the areas of the proposed agenda.

Accordingly, the Presiding Officers of the Regional Council for Planning hereby present the draft regional agenda on governance of planning and public management in Latin America and the Caribbean for consideration and adoption by the Council.