The Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL) was set up under Resolution 106 (VI) passed by the Economic and Social Council on February 25, 1948 and started off that same year. In its Resolution 1984/67 dated July 27, 1984, the council voted the Commission be renamed Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
CEPAL is one of the UN’s five regional commissions and it’s headquartered in Santiago de Chile. It was founded with a view to help in Latin America’s economic development, in the coordination of actions aimed at promoting and buttressing that development among the member countries and the rest of the world. Later on, it scope embraced Caribbean nations and a new objective to foster social development was added to its agenda.
CEPAL counts on two sub-regional headquarters: one for Central America based in Mexico, D.F. and a second one for the Caribbean in Port of Spain, established on June 1951 and December 1996 respectively. Moreover, the organization has national offices in Buenos Aires, Brasilia, Montevideo and Bogota, plus a liaison office in Washington, D.C.
