At a time when the world is reassessing its energy systems to address the most significant climate, technological, and geopolitical challenges of our era, Latin America and the Caribbean face a unique opportunity: to establish a unified voice capable of influencing, proposing, and leading sustainable solutions at the global level.
As Executive Secretary of the Latin American and Caribbean Energy Organization, I wish to share with you a milestone that reflects this strategic vision and reinforces the collective mandate we have built: the official adoption of our new name, OLACDE, which was approved by the 27 Member States after completing national ratification processes, in accordance with the 1973 Lima Convention. This advancement is not only fundamental from an institutional perspective but also clearly symbolizes our regional, inclusive, and diverse identity by explicitly integrating the Caribbean subregion into the very name of our organization.
This achievement is the result of a process initiated in 2007, when the Meeting of Ministers approved the amendment of Article 1 of the Lima Convention to make the Caribbean visible in the organization’s name. The materialization of this change required ratification by the 27 Member States, as stipulated in Article 36 of the Convention; the process culminated with Haiti’s ratification, which allowed the change to be effectively implemented.
The value of this transformation lies in its profound political and technical significance. This is not merely a name update; it implies reaffirming our role within an international energy context that demands institutions capable of anticipating trends, fostering cooperation, strengthening capacities, and driving decisions based on solid evidence, while consolidating regional platforms that facilitate the transition toward cleaner, safer, and more resilient systems. In this way, OLACDE becomes a more representative and coherent space aligned with the challenges and opportunities facing our region—a region rich in renewable resources, where the need for electrical integration is growing, new vectors such as low-emission hydrogen are emerging, and urgency is increasing to advance toward low-carbon economic models.
As a leading technical-political body in the region, we see this moment as a renewed commitment to deepen our work in areas such as energy planning, regulatory frameworks, scientific cooperation, climate finance, resilience to environmental risks, energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, clean energy storage, and digital transformation.
The transition to OLACDE strengthens our mission to unite countries under a robust technical agenda focused on concrete results. This will position us as strategic actors within the global energy landscape. Likewise, it represents recognition of our diversity as an essential strength and of our cooperation as a key tool to address the energy complexities of the 21st century.
In the coming months, we will gradually implement this new denomination across all our official instruments, as well as institutional platforms and technical documents. This process will be carried out with full transparency and rigor, consistent with the distinctive characteristics of our Organization.
With this, OLACDE begins a new chapter marked by a renewed identity and the firm conviction that together we can lead a just and resilient energy transformation for the entire region.
