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Background

The Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean is a subsidiary body of ECLAC established with the ultimate responsibility for monitoring and reviewing issues relating to population and development, such as international migration, indigenous peoples and Afro-descendent populations, and ageing, among others.

The Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development was adopted at the First Session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development, held in Montevideo from 12 to 15 August 2013. The Montevideo Consensus is the most important intergovernmental agreement on population and development ever signed in the region and has become a fundamental part of the review process of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and its follow-up beyond 2014.

At its second session, held from 6 to 9 October 2015 in Mexico City, the Regional Conference adopted the Operational Guide for Implementation and Follow-up of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development, as a voluntary technical tool to support the Latin American and Caribbean countries in the implementation of the priority measures set forth in the Montevideo Consensus. The Operational Guide takes into account the synergies with other instruments or international bodies, such as the Programme of Action of the ICPD beyond 2014 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In the third session of the Regional Conference, held from 7 to 9 August 2018 in Lima, the countries welcomed the Draft first regional report. With the incorporation by the secretariat of the observations and suggestions conveyed by the countries, that document became the First regional report on the implementation of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development, which represented the regional contribution to the global review and appraisal of the implementation of the Programme of Action of the ICPD beyond 2014, undertaken by the Commission on Population and Development at its fifty-second session held in April 2019.

In view of the situation caused by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Population and Development decided to postpone the fourth session of the Regional Conference, which was to be held in the fourth quarter of 2020. Instead, in 2020 a series of thematic virtual dialogues was held in order to analyze the sociodemographic scenario of the countries of the region in the framework of the COVID-19 pandemic and its possible impacts on population groups in a situation of greater vulnerability.

The Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference, at its Executive Meeting on May 20, 2021, in virtual mode, agreed to hold the Fourth Meeting of the Regional Conference on Population and Development during the first semester of 2022.