Recap: Latin America and Caribbean SDG Summit 2024

Author: João Pildervasser

In September 2024, Springer Nature hosted the third annual Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean Summit. Aiming to promote regional actions, projects, and leadership advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this year’s summit focused specifically on SDGs 4 (Quality Education), 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), and 10 (Reduced Inequalities). 369 delegates from 54 countries attended to hear from experts across academia, multilateral institutions, governments, the private sector, and the third sector.

Most delegates hailed from Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, India, and the United States. About 85% of the audience was from the Global South (Latin America and the Caribbean (LA&C), South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa), highlighting the importance of fostering a global debate on the SDGs and the relevance of LA&C in this context.

Day One: Education and Inequality

Day 1 focused on Education and Inequality, two highly relevant issues for the region given the high inequality rates and gaps in national educational systems. In LA&C, the richest 10% earn 22 times more than the poorest 10%, and in countries like Argentina, 85% of university educators have salaries below the poverty line. 

The event began with a keynote presentation by Dr Ana María Ibáñez, Vice President for Sectors and Knowledge at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), followed by presentations from Dr Laura Ación, Full Professor at Universidad de Buenos Aires, Dr Javier González, Director and Co-Founder of SUMMA, the Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Education for LA&C, Dr María José Álvarez Rivadulla, Full Professor at Universidad de los Andes, and Dr Francisco Ferreira, Professor at the London School of Economics.

The speakers highlighted key challenges for LA&C, such as the lack of equal access to quality education, gender and income disparities, and the need for urgent reforms in early childhood, secondary, and higher education. They emphasized that inequality in education perpetuates social inequality, disproportionately affecting poorer and marginalized communities, calling for increased investment and reforms in educational systems and policies.

The need to improve teacher training and student retention was a recurring theme as well as offering more educational opportunities for those from low-income backgrounds. Another topic raised was the importance of fostering cultural changes at schools and the workplace to facilitate social mobility. Dr Sebastián Villamizar-Santamaría, Associate Editor of Nature Cities, brilliantly moderated a round table discussion where the speakers had the chance to delve into other issues and answer audience questions.

Day Two: Sustainable and Inclusive Energy Transition

The second day focused on the Sustainable and Inclusive Energy Transition given that although most countries in LA&C are nearing universal access to energy services, households in the region spend more on basic services (energy, communications, transport, and water) than households in any other developing region. 

Dr Tomás Serebrisky, Manager for Infrastructure and Energy Sector at the IADB delivered the keynote presentation. Following him were Dr Lourdes Melgar Palacios, Research Affiliate at the Center for Collective Intelligence/MIT, Dr Fernanda Delgado, Executive Director of the Brazilian Green Hydrogen Industry Association, Mr. Carlos Posada López, Technical Supervisor at Colombia’s Non-Conventional Energy and Efficient Energy Management Fund, and Dr Gonçalo Pereira, Full Professor at UNICAMP.

The speakers stressed that energy transition in LA&C is crucial due to the region’s vulnerability to climate change, the current economic barriers to energy access, and the need for sustainable development. They pointed out leveraging technological advancements, in addition to policy and regulatory reforms to achieve a just and sustainable energy transition. 

Recommendations included shifting the focus from infrastructure to services, emphasizing efficient investment and regulatory frameworks, and ensuring communities are at the centre of energy initiatives to promote social justice and democracy. The speakers also highlighted the importance of implementing energy efficiency projects to optimize consumption and support vulnerable communities. 

Also on the agenda: The role of new technologies, such as green hydrogen in decarbonizing industries and creating jobs, and the potential of converting CO2 into valuable products. Dr Nicky Dean, Editorial Director of Earth Environment and Social Science Nature Journals, hosted one of the liveliest round table discussions we’ve ever had thanks to the engaged audience who was eager to hear more from the speakers.

Sharing Experiences, Lessons, and Examples

At the end of the two-day event, many experiences, lessons, and examples were shared. One key takeaway was the importance of LA&C developing its own vision and capabilities to address its challenges, rather than merely adopting solutions from other regions that may not fit the local context. Knowledge exchange is crucial when supported by educational, technological, and political capacities capable of transforming a sustainable future for LA&C into reality.

As we close another successful year for the Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean Summit, Steven Inchcoombe, President of Research at Springer Nature, said:

It is wonderful to see this event, now in its third year, focusing on education, inequalities, and sustainable energy solutions. With these, as with all the SDGs, we aim to bring together leading researchers, government representatives, private sector actors and third-sector advocates from all parts of Latin America and the Caribbean to spotlight the region's challenges and opportunities, foster collaboration, and work together on shared solutions. 

Springer Nature is proud to be a leading publisher of SDG-related research — we have published more than 940,000 articles and book chapters across all 17 SDGs since 2015, last year a quarter of the articles we published related to the SDGs, and over half of them were published open access enabling everyone to access and use them. We aim to combine the cooperation of events like this with our great content to help everyone successfully achieve the SDG goals in the region and globally.

We are delighted to be able to continue supporting important conversations around the SDGs globally and for delivering a fruitful event for our audience and speakers.

Download the policy document from this event and find out more about everything Springer Nature is doing to support the SDGs at our main SDG Programme hub.