Infrastructure, integration and equity: The social impact of the health and public transportation infrastructure.

Academicians and practitioners generally agree that there is a positive correlation between more and better infrastructure and economic growth. From the broader perspective of development, attempts have been made in the literature to identify the different theoretical connections and the empirical patterns that link infrastructure to productivity, on the one hand, and those that link it to social inclusion and equity, on the other hand. Infrastructure contributes to development in different ways. The capital involved is not homogeneous, nor is its effect on the distributive aspects. Water and sanitation have a particularly strong association with the health of the general population and with infant mortality, early childhood health, learning abilities and the acquisition of labour skills. With respect to transportation, the reduction of costs and travel times has a direct economic impact on economic activities of production and domestic and international distribution. That infrastructure also has a social and distributive role to play by reducing the number of fatal accidents and serious injuries in the sectors that are naturally most susceptible to them, namely, the poor. Under the broad umbrella of infrastructure, we can include a number of facilities that make possible the provision of certain services. Some of these facilities require very significant fixed capital investments; some of them are residential, while others are not necessarily. What they all have in common is the existence of networks (transportation, wiring, pipelines) and a strong convergence of physical capital and/or technology, as well as the need for major investments in periodic maintenance.

Modernization of Customs and Implementation of Single Window Systems for Foreign Trade: Results of an International Seminar-Workshop

An international seminar-workshop entitled "Facilitation of trade and transport in Latin America: situation and outlook" was held at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on 29 and 30 November 2005, organized jointly by the ECLAC Division of International Trade and Integration and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The event was attended by about 50 persons involved in customs modernization and/or the implementation of single window systems for foreign trade in 20 Ibero-American countries.The main purpose of the seminar-workshop was to exchange ideas, opinions and proposals concerning the efficient implementation of trade facilitation instruments. The conclusions reached at this event point to the need to seek convergence among the existing trade agreements associated with trade facilitation in Latin America. Customs modernization requires the re-design of processes and procedures in order to achieve interoperability among the systems, and single window systems for foreign trade can only be implemented successfully if clear political leadership is established with broad participation from both public and private organizations.

A new frontier for Caribbean convergence: integration without borders

Today, forty years since its birth, the Caribbean integration has reached its limit.1 2 Consequently, there is urgent need to respond to the current realities and emerging global trends — which require greater engagement from the public, students, academics and policymakers — in moving the Caribbean Community towards a new trajectory of Caribbean convergence. The immediate concern is to devise ways of improving the convergence process among Latin American and Caribbean countries. This convergence process will have to be sensitive to both current and emerging global dynamics. This paper presents the roadmap of a new trajectory towards Caribbean convergence, sensitive to both current and emergent regional and global trends. It begins in Section I by identifying the emerging international political and economic trends that provide a backdrop against which the discussion on Caribbean convergence is squarely placed. Section II discusses the need for a new strategy of convergence, and provides the conceptual framework of Caribbean convergence. Section III spells out the pillars, strategies and delivery mechanisms of Caribbean convergence, and highlights the role of Trinidad and Tobago in this process. The paper concludes by pointing out the urgent need for a regional synergy of economic logic and political logic.

Jamaica: Macro-socio-economic assessment of the damage done by flood rains and landslides May 2002

This assessment was prepared for the Government of Jamaica following the significant damages to social and economic infrastructure and productive sectors as a result of a period of sustained and unusual rainfall associated with the convergence of a tropical wave over Jamaica and an area of high pressure to the north of the island resulting in periods of heavy and sustained rainfall over the period May 22 – June 2, 2002. A request for technical assistance was directed to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean, on May 31, by the Planning Institute of Jamaica. In view of the recent training provided by the ECLAC Caribbean team in the use of the ECLAC methodology to a multi-disciplinary group of 58 persons spanning several sectors, it was felt that this event, while most unfortunate, nonetheless provided an opportune moment for the Jamaican “trainees” to utilize the skills transferred and to apply the methodology which had been taught. Consequently, ECLAC fielded a team of five persons a few days after the request had been made , to give the Jamaican counterpart team the opportunity to collect data of the type and using an approach well suited to the preparation of assessments such as this.