The Steering Committee of the Latin American Regional Development Policy Network, comprised of Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and El Salvador, met last week in Brasilia to prepare the third ordinary meeting of the network. The Brazilian Ministry of National Integration, which currently chairs the network, will pass the baton to the Mexican Secretariat of Agricultural, Territorial and Urban Development.

In this meeting, supported by the European Union's EUROsociAL Programme, the governance model for the network was discussed, and a tentative work plan for 2015-2017 was agreed on. This will be subject to approval at the next meeting of the network, which will take place in May in Fortaleza. Jorge Díaz Cuervo, Director General for Regional Development of the Mexican Secretariat of Agricultural, Territorial and Urban Development, indicated that “one of the themes we want to work on is strengthening of the network as a tool for dialogue and cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean. We are going to compare models in order to find the most suitable one for the practice and development of projects with regional impact”.

This network aspires to become a mechanism for policy dialogue between countries that want to share experiences and knowledge on national policies for regional development. The countries share their advances and bottlenecks in the framework of these processes to find solutions through collaborative work, shortening roads and gaining in the efficiency and quality of national efforts. Among the thematic axes prioritised by the network, the following are noteworthy: legal and conceptual frameworks for regional development; instruments for planning, dialogue, and inter-agency coordination; instruments for financing development; cross-border cooperation; and geo-referenced statistics.