The 38 OECD Member countries have committed to further strengthening their partnership with the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region at the conclusion of the 2025 Council Meeting at Ministerial Level, held in Paris on 3-4 June and chaired by Costa Rica.
The newly adopted OECD Strategic Framework for Latin America and the Caribbean aims to “maximise the value, impact and complementarity of OECD work in the region, contributing to solutions to the region’s longstanding challenges.” It reaffirms the relevance of the priorities of the OECD LAC Regional Programme: increasing productivity, enhancing social inclusion, strengthening institutions and governance, and ensuring environmental sustainability. The Strategic Framework will also explore policy options and shared solutions for emerging opportunities and challenges, from Artificial Intelligence to ensuring reliable, sustainable value chains for critical minerals and raw materials.
“The adoption of a Strategic Framework reflects the OECD’s growing and deepening partnership over the past three decades with Latin America and the Caribbean as an important region and a key global relations priority for the Organisation,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said. “Latin America and the Caribbean makes up the world’s fourth-largest regional economy, with extraordinary human and economic potential, thanks to a young and culturally diverse population and immense natural capital. The Latin America and the Caribbean countries in our membership are playing a growing and leading role, demonstrated by Costa Rica’s role as Chair of this year’s Council Meeting at Ministerial Level, and our new Strategic Framework marks the collective commitment of all our members to build on our work with the region.”
“This has been a defining year for advancing Latin America and the Caribbean’s voice and visibility within the OECD,” Costa Rica’s Minister of Foreign Trade Manuel Tovar said. “We are determined to build on this momentum by promoting a more structured and ambitious engagement with LAC countries and by championing the region’s contributions to global policy debates.”
The Strategic Framework calls for an enhancement of OECD’s contribution to regional economic integration processes and regional summits, while further developing channels of communication with leaders in the region, the private sector, trade unions, civil society, parliamentarians, think-tanks and academia. The OECD will prepare an Implementation Plan in co-operation with partners in the region through existing mechanisms by the 2026 OECD Ministerial Council Meeting.
For further information, journalists are invited to contact the OECD Media Office (+33 1 45 24 81 18).
Working with over 100 countries, the OECD is a global policy forum that promotes policies to preserve individual liberty and improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.