The Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA) has consolidated its commitment to the promotion of the circular economy in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region by organising seminars that address this issue from various perspectives.

In October 2023, SELA held a seminar entitled “Circular Economy: actions and best practices contributing to sustainable development,” with the aim of identifying key areas for promoting circularity in the region’s markets. This event focused on policy implementation, innovation, and knowledge sharing to promote the circular economy as a path to sustainable development. In addition, the importance of disseminating best practices and lessons learned to increase the scalability of circular initiatives in the region was highlighted.

Subsequently, in September 2024, SELA, in collaboration with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), organised the II Seminar on Circular Economy entitled “Global Plastics Treaty: progress and challenges, how to strengthen the agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean.” This seminar focused on the problem of plastic pollution and the need to implement public policies that promote the circular economy, technological innovation and environmental education. The event also served as a platform to consolidate regional positions before the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) of the Global Plastics Treaty.

The evolution of these seminars reflects a progressive approach towards integrating the circular economy into public policies in LAC, initially focused on identifying best practices and areas of opportunity. The events have moved towards discussing regulatory frameworks and the need for indicators to measure and monitor the performance of circular policies. This evidence-based approach is essential for evaluating the effectiveness of the strategies implemented and for guiding decision-making in the region.

Following on from this trajectory, the XXXIII Meeting of International Cooperation Directors for Latin America and the Caribbean will be held in the second half of 2025, with the central theme being “Progress and challenges in strengthening the circular economy through South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) mechanisms in Latin America and the Caribbean as a driver for sustainable development.” This edition, part of a tradition of more than three decades of regional dialogue, will focus on coordinating cooperation initiatives with ongoing efforts in the area of the circular economy, particularly with regard to measurement, monitoring and the design of indicators for public policies.

In this context, the III Seminar on Circular Economy, whose proposal is developed in this Concept Note, will seek to provide technical and strategic inputs that will enable the consolidation of an evidence-based regional agenda capable of evaluating effective progress towards sustainability goals in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The transition to a circular economy has been established as a key strategy for urgently addressing the structural challenges of sustainable development, in a global context marked by the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and increasing pressure on natural resources.

In LAC, this model for implementing circular value chains not only seeks to mitigate the impact of climate change and pressure on natural resources, but also to promote new opportunities for productive development, foster technological innovation, generate green jobs, and reduce the vulnerabilities that disproportionately impact the most affected populations. In fact, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in its publication “Circular Economy in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Shared Vision,” highlights that the circular economy has the potential to transform current production and consumption systems, enabling the achievement of higher levels of sustainability, inclusion and resilience.

However, moving towards this model requires overcoming institutional, technological and statistical barriers. One of the main challenges facing the region is the migration to Circular Transition Indicators (CTI), the limited availability of comparable data, harmonised methodologies and robust indicators that allow for measuring the degree of circularity achieved by countries, evaluating the impact of public policies and guiding evidence-based decision-making. The lack of harmonised data, standardised methodologies and interoperability among information systems currently limits countries’ ability to make evidence-based decisions and comprehensively assess the impact of their strategies.

In recent years, several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have made progress in formulating public policies geared towards the circular economy. National roadmaps, sectoral strategies, and action plans have been developed to integrate circularity principles into development policies. In addition, observatories and statistical systems have been established to monitor and evaluate progress in this transition. These initiatives reflect a growing commitment to the transformation towards more sustainable production and consumption models.

In the Latin American context, financing for the circular economy began to gain relevance as a key tool for the transition to sustainable models. The report Unlocking Circular Economy Finance in Latin American and the Caribbean(2023)[1] stresses the need to update environmental laws, develop common taxonomies, and establish measurement frameworks, actions that will enable companies and investors to identify more clearly the productive activities aligned with the principles of circularity.

In this context, SELA will hold the III Seminar on Circular Economy: measurement, monitoring and design of public policy indicators in Latin America and the Caribbean, with the aim of strengthening regional capacities in evaluating the effectiveness of public policies through circular transition indicators (CTI). The seminar will focus on the analysis of circular value chains in various sectors, as well as the exchange of experiences on the measurement and implementation of indicators that promote circular economy models in the region.

[1] United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) & Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) (2023). Unlocking Circular Economy Finance in Latin America and the Caribbean: The Catalyst for a Positive Change.

To strengthen the institutional capacities of Latin American and Caribbean countries by developing a handbook of recommendations on circular transition indicators (CTI) that will enable the measurement, monitoring, and evaluation of the effectiveness of public policies on the circular economy through the design and use of technical, comparable, and regionally aligned indicators aimed at promoting more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive development models.

1. Analyse regional and international experiences in designing circular economy indicators applied to public policies, with an emphasis on their ability to measure performance, results and impact.
2. Collect and analyse cases of circular value chains in strategic sectors, identifying methodologies used to measure their economic, social and environmental effects, and their coordination with multisectoral public policies.
3. Explore models and opportunities in data governance and interoperability, based on the role of national statistical systems and digital platforms for monitoring circular strategies.
4. Discuss regulatory and economic frameworks that integrate indicators into decision-making, including regulations, financial incentives, and impact assessment methodologies with a circular approach.
5. Promote technical cooperation among public institutions, multilateral organisations, and actors in the productive sector, with the aim of generating consensus-based recommendations for the harmonisation and regionalisation of circular economy indicators.

The seminar is organised by the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA) in collaboration with international organisations and institutions with expertise in the subject (to be defined), as a prelude to the XXXIII Meeting of International Cooperation Directors for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Date: 28 August 2025

Time: 11:00 – 13:20 (Caracas time | GMT-4)

Format: Virtual.

Language: Spanish, with simultaneous interpretation into English.

Expected participants: SELA membership, AMEXCID, UNTACD,  UN Habitat, UNFCCC, ECLAC ( to be confirmed), WBCSD (to be confirmed).

Registration Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rALNgvGJT12pKbgWwpTusg

For coordination purposes or any additional information, please contact:

• Luis Emilio Martínez, Social Development Analyst – lmartinezm@sela.org
• Gustavo Herrera Caballero, Social Development Coordinator – gherrera@sela.org