Annual report on regional progress and challenges in relation to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean

In May 2016, at the thirty-sixth session of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), held in Mexico City, the Commission’s member States adopted resolution 700 (XXXVI), the Mexico Resolution, which established the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development as a regional mechanism to follow up and review the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals and targets, its means of implementation, and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. The Economic and Social Council subsequently endorsed the establishment of the Forum in its resolution 2016/12. The regional response to this new challenge, the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development is State-led and open to the Latin American and Caribbean countries. It is convened under the auspices of ECLAC and is guided by the principles established for all follow-up and review processes by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in September 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly. It involves States, the private sector and civil society, as well as subsidiary bodies of ECLAC, development banks, other United Nations agencies and regional integration blocs. The Forum seeks to provide useful opportunities for peer learning, including through voluntary reviews, the sharing of best practices and discussion of shared targets. This report represents a contribution to the efforts by the region’s governments and the multiple stakeholders to implement, follow up and evaluate policies and strategies for the 2030 Agenda and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. We are aware that no single document can encompass the complexity and variety of the challenges this involves. Accordingly, this report confines itself to three spheres: a diagnostic of progress made thus far and the challenges ahead; a description of national institutional mechanisms existing in the region for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda 2030; and an analysis of the challenges and opportunities involved in building and measuring Sustainable Development Goal indicators.