Bogotá, November 7, 2018 - To accelerate the achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals and promote productivity and innovation for prosperity, the regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the UNDP, Luis Felipe López-Calva, raised the notion that countries within the region should be routed on a three-lane road of productivity, inclusion, and resilience.

This approach was introduced during the panel "Employment Quality and Development of Skills for the Future", working within the framework of the CAF Conference for Productivity and Innovation for Development. CAF is a development bank made up of 19 countries - 17 from Latin America and the Caribbean, plus Spain and Portugal - and 13 private banks in the same region- all promoting a model of sustainable development.

The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, supported the importance of Innovation and Productivity in his opening remarks to the Conference. He described the National Development Plan "Pact for Colombia, Pact for Equity" as one that is based on innovation, productivity and inclusion, harmonizing its policy pillars with the challenges of the 2030 Agenda:

"(The National Development Plan) joins the Sustainable Development Goals, and joins the need for the region not to continue to see the debate on public policies as a conjectural situation of government in government, but to treat the paths for the next two decades with the objective to locate ourselves on the path of being a developed country.”

"The Sustainable Development Goals, in the 2030 Agenda, are a global approach that -we hope- will mark a guide on how we view societies. What we propose for a new generation of UNDP is that the road to achieving the SDGs must be paved through effective governance, "affirmed Luis Felipe López-Calva at the beginning of his speech.

The conference, with an inaugural lecture by the director of UNDP, suggested reflecting on strategies, as well as interventions of public policies that reduce informality and favor the growth of quality jobs, and the development of the skills of the Latin American and Caribbean workforce so that the countries within the region can face the transformations and productive challenges of the 21st Century.

"Latin America and the Caribbean -although it is a region of middle income- is far from being a middle-class society. Middle class is defined as those who have reduced the probability of falling back into poverty by having stable economic security. Most in Latin America and the Caribbean, however are vulnerable to relapse into poverty, "he added.

During his presentation, the Regional Director of UNDP for Latin America and the Caribbean described how productivity should go hand in hand with the promotion of innovation and reforms that promote inclusion. From an economic perspective, resilience is understood as the beneficial use of opportunities.

"The three lanes should be grounded in effective governance: how to recover institutional trust through the State's capabilities to guarantee citizens the delivery of basic services, in addition to the consolidation of the rule of law," he said. In an age of booming new technologies, policies for the strengthening of skills with education should be formulated: "It is necessary to prepare those entering the labor market with the capacity to adapt to a faster technological change at an early stage. Apprenticeships in the education system need to address these transformations."

López-Calva concluded by suggesting the integrality that public policies must assume in order to understand the challenges of social vulnerability in a systemic way: "there are challenges for educational systems, social protection systems, for fiscal policy, and instruments that are required for redistribution. Thinking of them separately leads us back to the productivity traps in which we follow. "