With the forty-first session of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), a few days away, we present five key points about the meeting:

1. It will be held from 7 through 9 October in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic

The forty-first session, ECLAC’s most important biannual meeting, will be held at the Centro de Convenciones y Cultura Dominicana UTESA, from 7 through 9 October, 2026. At the meeting, the Commission will present its analysis on how to manage the productive, social, and environmental transformations the region needs to thrive in the new global geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape.

The sessions of ECLAC are the main regional space for sharing analyses, building agreements, and transforming them into concrete public policy orientations. Every two years, they bring together governments and key actors in development—international organizations, development banks, academia, the private sector, and civil society—to discuss the significant challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean and agreeing on priorities to meet them. In the current context, the forty-first session is especially relevant because it will allow for a better understanding of the transformations in the global landscape, anticipating its effects, and collectively building roadmaps to navigate uncertainty, strengthening integration, regional cooperation, and the region’s productive, social, and environmental capacities.

2. The official inauguration will be on Wednesday, 7 October

Multiple actors will participate in the 2026 session of ECLAC. High-level government authorities are expected to attend, as well as representatives of the United Nations system, regional organizations, development banks, parliaments, academia, the private sector, and civil society.

The opening ceremony will take place on Wednesday, 7 October at 2:30PM local time (GMT-4) and will be led by Luis Abinader Corona, President of the Dominican Republic, and José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of ECLAC.

3. A new ECLAC position document will be presented, and a Dialogue of Ministers and High-level Authorities will be held

On Wednesday, 7 October at 3:20PM Dominican Republic time (GMT-4), Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs will present the position document titled Managing Transformations in an Era of Ruptures, which analyzes the “game-changing” shift in external conditions for development, with a view to understanding, anticipating, and successfully navigating the new global landscape.

On Thursday, 8 October, the Dialogue of Ministers and High-level Authorities will be held, a space for political reflection and strategic dialogue on the region’s future. The meeting will include the presentation of the ECLAC report on Geopolitics, Globalization, and Development Ruptures and opportunities: proposals for Latin America and the Caribbean to thrive in the new geopolitical era, with the participation of various members of the Commission.

The programme will include a high-level seminar which will examine the position document in detail, organized into three themed panels: i) a new stage of regional integration: what to do and how to move forward; ii) digital transformation, artificial intelligence and productive development; and iii) macroeconomics for development and sound and strong taxation.

4. It will be livestreamed on multiple platforms

There will be a live connection at:

• The meeting’s special dedicated website: https://periododesesiones.cepal.org/41/en  
• ECLAC website: https://www.cepal.org/en
• Stream website: https://live.cepal.org
• Official account on X: https://x.com/eclac_un 
• Official Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/eclac  

Any media outlet or organization is free to duplicate the stream on their own internet portals.

All meeting debates will remain available on ECLAC’s YouTube channels to be viewed later. Subscribe to https://www.youtube.com/user/CEPALONU and https://www.youtube.com/user/ECLACUN.

5. The conversation can be followed via social media

We will be posting in Spanish and English from ECLAC’s two institutional accounts on X (formerly Twitter), @cepal_onu and @eclac_un, using the hashtags #PSEScepal2026 and #SESeclac2026. We will also use #CEPAL and #ECLAC, #RupturasyOportunidades and #Rupturesandopportunities, and #GestiónDeLasTransformaciones and #ManagingTransformations.

Via our pages on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/cepal.onu/ / https://www.facebook.com/eclac), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/cepal_onu/ / https://www.instagram.com/eclac_un/), and Threads (https://www.threads.com/@cepal_onu / https://www.threads.com/@eclac_un) we will also share a variety of content on the meeting.

High-resolution photos of the event will be posted on our institutional Flickr accounts in Spanish and English: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cepal/ and https://www.flickr.com/photos/eclac. The corresponding credits will be posted with each image, and media outlets can use them freely, citing credit.