Economist in Uruguay

One of the first initiatives undertaken by Sebastián Torres - among the first economists in a Resident Coordinator’s Office (RCO) in the Latin America and the Caribbean – was to create a broad coalition of peers in Government, universities, private sector, trade unions and civil society to exchange and collaborate on socioeconomic issues in the country.  

This platform drafted a set of policy options to the Government to accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It delivered in 2021 the first course on the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, with over 300 students attending different modules. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this same group joined forces with the Uruguayan National Academy of Sciences to create the “Social Sciences Research Network to Assess the Impacts of the Pandemic”, and published more than 20 technical papers on different social and economic issues, produced a UN joint support plan on post-COVID recovery, and conducted a public opinion poll that provided key insights to the national and regional governments recovery strategies. 

Sebastián work with peers across the UN also helped lay the foundation of various joint programmes - on global value chains, agro-ecology, blue economy and global export services.  He is currently coordinating a task force with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) to study the socioeconomic impacts of the war in Ukraine in Uruguay, which has already published two technical papers and presented initial findings to national counterparts.