UNIT­ED NA­TIONS–The ex­ec­u­tive sec­re­tary of the Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Ali­cia B�rce­na, has called for the re­think­ing of de­vel­op­ment in the Caribbean "us­ing equal­i­ty and en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty as our com­pass."Ad­dress­ing a UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly high-lev­el ses­sion on in­equal­i­ty, B�rce­na said the world eco­nom­ic cri­sis has had a neg­a­tive but not a dra­mat­ic im­pact on Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

"The main ef­fect has been felt in terms of trade," she said, adding that the re­gion's re­silience to this sit­u­a­tion is due to "coun­tries' macro­eco­nom­ic pru­dence dur­ing the boom pe­ri­od, as well as the coun­ter­cycli­cal poli­cies im­ple­ment­ed dur­ing the cri­sis." B�rce­na said that pover­ty and in­equal­i­ty have al­so fall­en in Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean coun­tries, stat­ing that while the 1990s were typ­i­fied by ris­ing in­equal­i­ty, "there was a turn­around in the re­gion from 2003, re­lat­ing to labour mar­ket de­vel­op­ments.