Meeting of the TUCA Trade Union Development Cooperation Network on the 2030 Agenda debate in the Americas

The 2016 Regional Meeting of the TUCA Trade Union Development Cooperation Network was held in São Paulo and was attended by 20 trade union representatives, members of the Network, on 26 and 27 October. The main theme was the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In addition to that, the meeting discussed other themes related to development in the region, such as South-South and triangular cooperation, the privatisation of cooperation, tax justice and the impact of free trade agreements.

This article was originally posted on the TUCA website

The Agenda has 17 goals and 169 targets covering environmental, economic and social issues, among others, and renewing the Millennium Development Goals adopted by the UN in 2000.
“We want development cooperation policies, led by states, that promote human rights and the Trade Union Principles on Development Effectiveness drawn up by TUCA-ITUC,” said Víctor Báez, general secretary of the TUCA, at the opening of the meeting.

The meeting was attended by Antonio Prado, deputy executive secretary of ECLAC, who presented the challenges and opportunities of the 2030 Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean, highlighting the need for a new relationship between state, market and society, placing equality at the heart of development policies. Víctor Báez underlined that “all the issues addressed in the SDGs are relevant for the trade union movement. That is why the 2030 Agenda represents an opportunity for shaping national development policies, by promoting the TUCA development proposal presented in the Development Platform for the Americas (PLADA).” The participants discussed the relationship between the SDGs and the main action priorities of the PLADA, underlining the importance of assessing the Goals in terms of the various regional, sub-regional and national realities.

In addition to the 2030 Agenda, the meeting discussed other themes related to development in the region, such as South-South and triangular cooperation, the privatisation of cooperation, tax justice and the impact of free trade agreements. In this regard, Rafael Freire, TUCA Economic Policy and Sustainable Development Secretary, presented the Continental Day for Democracy and against Neoliberalism, to be held on 4 November in the streets of all the countries on the continent, as an example of the avenues for denouncing and raising awareness among civil society about the corporate capture of the region.

In conclusion, the meeting provided an opportunity for more in-depth analysis of the key issues in the global debate on development cooperation, identifying the priorities for trade union advocacy at both national and regional level. The results of the Network’s work were reviewed in this light and the 2016-2017 action plan was drawn up, with the aim of increasing the TUCA’s impact on national, regional and global policies, through processes such as lobbying, research, capacity building and outreach.

You can find all the meeting documents here (in spanish).