NONGOVERNMENTAL ACTORS MEET IN MEXICO TO DISCUSS “ENERGY AND THE POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA: THE FUTURE OF LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN"

• The discussions enabled entrepreneurs, academics and representatives of civil society and other key sectors to discuss how to include the issue of energy as part of the new Post-2015 International Development Agenda.

• The results of the discussions, “The Merida Recommendations,” will present the vision of non-governmental actors from Latin America and the Caribbean regarding the issue of energy on the new international development agenda.

A meeting on "Energy and Post-2015 Development Agenda: The Future of Latin America and the Caribbean," was held on March 20-21 in the Mayan Museum in Merida, Yucatan. The participants were non-governmental actors from Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean who met to discuss how to include the issue of energy as part of the new post-2015 international development agenda.

The opening ceremony was chaired by Yucatan Governor Rolando Zapata Bello and attended by the Energy Ministry’s Undersecretary for Energy Planning and Transition, Leonardo Beltran; the special representative of the Norwegian government, Unni Berger; Ambassador Patricia Espinosa, as a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Agenda; and the Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme in Mexico, Marcia Castro.

The Mexican government, together with the governments of Norway and Tanzania, was invited by the UN Secretary-General to co-chair the thematic consultations on energy being conducted as part of the global discussions to define the new post-2015 international development agenda. Mexico, with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Yucatan government, organized the meeting in order to include the vision of all of the key players and sectors that seek to contribute proactively to the debate.

The consultations, which included representatives from business, academia, civil society organizations and other key sectors as well as representatives of international organizations and governments as observers, focused on the following four areas: 1) energy efficiency, 2) renewable energy, 3) access to energy, and 4) the link between energy and development.

The participants discussed energy as an engine of development and the need to consider the environmental, social and economic implications of its use. There was consensus on the need to include energy on the post-2015 development agenda, as it is related to all development issues.

The results of the discussions will be presented at the High-Level Meeting on Energy to be held on April 9 in Oslo, Norway, as the contribution of Latin American and Caribbean non-governmental actors to this issue.

For more information on the subject and the ongoing consultations, see: www.worldwewant2015.org