Sixth Regional Seminar on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean "Inequality and digital Inclusion: challenges and opportunities for inclusive social development in Latin America and the Caribbean"
This sixth edition of the Regional Seminar on Social Development seeks to become a space to share experiences, good practices and proposals aimed at closing the digital divide and moving towards more inclusive societies.
In a global context marked by technological acceleration and structural changes resulting from digital transformation, Latin America and the Caribbean face the urgent challenge of ensuring that these processes effectively contribute to promoting inclusive social development and overcoming the three traps of development: low capacity for growth; high inequality and limited social mobility and cohesion; and low institutional capacity and ineffective governance.
Gaps in access, use and appropriation of technologies threaten to reproduce and even widen the structural inequalities that limit inclusive social development in the region. In this context, there is an urgent need to move towards digital inclusion, which implies recognizing the social dimension of technological transformation and placing people and their rights at the center.
Within this framework, ECLAC, together with the activities of the Inclusive Societies project, implemented through the CEPAL–BMZ/GIZ Strategic Alliance and the Team Europe Inclusive Societies Initiative, the Republic of Korea and the Ford Foundation, is organizing the Sixth Regional Seminar on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, entitled “Inequality and Digital Inclusion: Challenges and Opportunities for Inclusive Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean”, to be held on June 16th, 17th, and 18th, 2026. The seminar seeks to present and discuss new evidence and studies that will help advance the reduction of social inequalities and promote inclusive social development in the digital era.
This meeting will continue the discussions initiated at the Sixth Meeting of the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean and the commitments made at the Second World Summit on Social Development, held in Qatar in 2025, seeking to create a space for dialogue and analysis that brings together specialists, think tanks, representatives of civil society and authorities on social development in the countries. This effort will be aimed at generating strategic inputs that not only diagnose the challenges but also identify recommendations and transformative proposals that articulate inclusive social policies, universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection systems, and effective mechanisms to strengthen labor inclusion. The seminar will provide a space for sharing experiences, good practices and proposals aimed at closing the digital divide and moving towards more inclusive societies.
Programme of work
16 June 2026
09:00 am - 09:30 am
DAY1 ǀ Opening Panel Sixth Regional Seminar on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean
Room
Celso Furtado
Moderator: Alberto Arenas de Mesa, Director of the Social Development Division, ECLAC
• José Manuel Salazar Xirinachs, Executive Secretary, ECLAC
• Claudia Gintersdorfer, Ambassador of the European Union in Chile
• Hak-Jae Kim, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Chile
• Barbara Scholz, Director ECLAC-BMZ/GIZ Strategic Alliance Cluster
• Ximena Andión, Regional Director, Mexico and Central America, Ford Foundation (virtual)
09:30 am - 10:30 am
Keynote speech: “Inherited Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean”
Room
Celso Furtado
Moderator: Mariana Huepe, Social Affairs Officer, ECLAC
• Prof. Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies and Director, International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science
11:00 am - 01:00 pm
High-Level Panel
Room
Celso Furtado
Moderator: Claudia Robles, Social Affairs Officer, ECLAC
Presentation: “Multidimensional inequality and the challenges of digital inclusion for inclusive social development in Latin America and the Caribbean”
• Alberto Arenas de Mesa, Director of the Social Development Division, ECLAC
Panel
- Adrian Forde, Ministry of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, Barbados (virtual) (to be confirmed)
- María Jesús Wulf, Minister of Social Development and Family, Chile
- Zaida Rovira, Minister of Human Development, Ecuador
- Beatriz Carles de Arango, Minister of Social Development, Panama (virtual)
- Gloria Reyes, Minister of Women, Dominican Republic
- Osmar Ribeiro de Almeida Júnior, Executive Secretary (Deputy Minister), Ministry of Development and Social Assistance, Family, and Fight Against Hunger, Brazil (virtual)
- Claudia Valenzuela, Deputy Minister of Policy, Planning, and Evaluation, Ministry of Social Development, Guatemala (virtual)
- Dennis Cáceres Valladares, Deputy Minister of Education, Ministry of Education, Honduras
- Carlos Paris, Deputy Minister of Social Policy, Minister of Social Development, Paraguay (virtual)
- Federico Graña, Deputy Minister of Social Development, Minister of Social Development, Uruguay (virtual)
Presentation(s)
01:00 pm - 03:00 pm
Side event: "Universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient health systems: a requisite for advancing towards inclusive social development"
Room
Sala Medina
03:00 pm - 04:30 pm
Panel I: “Towards a multidimensional measurement of inequality”
Moderator: Daniela Trucco, Senior Social Affairs Officer, ECLAC
Opening remarks
• Alberto Arenas de Mesa, Director of the Social Development Division, ECLAC
Presentation: Proposal for a regional multidimensional inequality index
• Andrés Espejo, Economic Affairs Officer, ECLAC
• José Joaquín Prieto, Consultant, Social Development Division, ECLAC
Comments panel
• James Foster, Oliver T. Carr Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics at the George Washington University (to be confirmed) (virtual)
• Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies and Director, International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science
• Fernando Marani, Director of the Justice, Inclusion and Equality Program at the Center for International Cooperation of New York University, Global Alliance Against Inequality (virtual)
Presentation(s)
04:30 pm - 06:00 pm
Side Event: "Eradicating old-age poverty: design options to strengthen the impact of non-contributory pension systems in Latin America and the Caribbean"
Room
Medina
Presentation(s)
17 June 2026
09:00 am - 10:00 am
DAY 2 ǀ Keynote speech: “The challenges of digital inclusion for reducing inequalities”
Room
Celso Furtado
Moderator: Nincen Figueroa, Research Assistant, ECLAC
• Prof. Ellen Helsper, Professor of Digital Inequalities, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Panel II: “Inequalities and digital inclusion: towards inclusive social development in Latin America and the Caribbean”
Room
Celso Furtado
Moderator: Carlos Maldonado Valera, Social Affairs Officer, ECLAC
Presentation “Digital inclusion and inequality: a growing challenge for inclusive social development”
• Amalia Palma, Senior Research Assistant in Social Affairs, ECLAC
Comments panel
• Ana Veneroso, Programme Coordinator, ITU – International Telecommunication Union (to be confirmed)
• Fernando Rojas, Senior Economic Affairs Assistant, ECLAC.
• Cora Steinberg, Education Specialist, UNICEF Argentina
Closing remarks
• Daniela Trucco, Senior Social Affairs Officer, ECLAC
11:45 am - 01:15 pm
Panel III: “Digital social protection: challenges and opportunities for integrated health”
Room
Celso Furtado
Moderator: Ernesto Espíndola, Research Assistant, ECLAC
Presentation “The importance of digital social protection for advancing integrated health”
• Maria Luisa Marinho, Social Affairs Officer, ECLAC
Comments panel
• Jaime Urrego, Deputy Minister for Public Health and Service Delivery, Ministry of Health and Social Protection, Colombia (to be confirmed)
• Paulina Pinto, Head of the Primary Care Division, Ministry of Health, Chile
• Luis Tejerina, Health and Social Protection Division, Inter-American Development Bank (virtual)
• Víctor Cruz, Head of the Operations Division of the Health Planning and Innovation Unit at the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS)
03:00 pm - 04:30 pm
Panel IV: “Digital technologies and childhood: uses, opportunities and risks”
Room
Celso Furtado
Moderator: Amalia Palma, Senior Research Assistant, ECLAC
Presentation of the study “Digital Childhood and Adolescence in Latin America: Argentina, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay”
• Daniela Trucco, Oficial Superior de Asuntos Sociales, CEPAL
• Magdalena Claro, Director of the Center for the Well-being and Development of Adolescents and Children in the Digital Age (BAND) and associate professor in the School of Education at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
Comments panel
• Sonia Livingstone, Professor in the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics (virtual)
• Matías Dodel, Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at the Catholic University of Uruguay, member of the Kids Online Network
• Ana Laura Martinez, Regional Technical Cooperation Coordinator, Cetic.br/NIC.br
Closing remarks
• Amalia Palma, Senior Research Assistant, ECLAC
04:30 pm - 06:00 pm
Side event: "New metrics for old problems: Educational inequality and social mobility"
Room
Enrique Iglesias
Side event "New metrics for old problems: Educational inequality and social mobility"
18 June 2026
09:00 am - 10:00 am
DAY 3 ǀ Keynote speech: “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work in Latin America and the Caribbean”
Room
Celso Furtado
Moderator: María Luisa Marinho, Social Affairs Officer, ECLAC
• Dr. Fabian Stephany, Departmental Research Lecturer, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford (virtual)
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Panel V: “Labour policies and social mobility in the age of artificial intelligence”
Room
Celso Furtado
Moderator: Andrés Espejo, Economic Affairs Officer, ECLAC
Presentation
• Kirsten Sehnbruch, Deputy Director for Impact and Engagement, International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science (virtual)
Comments panel
• Tomás Rau, Minister of Labour and Social Security, Chile
• Mónica Recalde de Giacomi, Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Security, Paraguay (to be confirmed)
• Fabio Bertranou, Deputy Director of the ILO Office for Latin America and the Caribbean
12:00 pm - 01:30 pm
Panel VI: “School-to-Work Transition and Social Mobility in Latin America and the Caribbean in the Digital Era”
Room
Celso Furtado
Moderator: Raquel Santos, Social Affairs Officer, ECLAC
Presentation “School-to-work transition in the digital era: the role of technical and vocational education and training for social mobility”
• Mariana Huepe, Social Affairs Officer, ECLAC
Comments panel
• Ancell Scheker, Vice-Minister for Technical and Pedagogical Affairs, Ministry of Education, Dominican Republic (virtual)
• Valerie Catherine Sánchez Ferrer, Director General of Technical-Productive Education and Higher Technological and Artistic Education, Ministry of Education of Peru
• Diana María Quimbay Valencia, Director of Ayuda en Acción Colombia
• Felicitas Acosta, Lecturer at the National University of General Sarmiento, Argentina, and NORRAG’s Regional coordinator for Spanish-speaking Latin American countries
Closing remarks
• Daniela Trucco, Senior Social Affairs Officer, ECLAC
Presentation(s)
01:30 pm - 02:00 pm
Closing Panel
Room
Celso Furtado
• Alberto Arenas de Mesa, Director of the Social Development Division, ECLAC
02:30 pm - 04:00 pm
Side event: "The state of social cohesion in Latin America from a comprehensive perspective: regional trends and national profiles"
Room
Enrique Iglesias