The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) started a five-day meeting in Montevideo on Monday to address social secuity reform and poverty in the region.

Jose Luis Machinea, head of ECLAC, said health care and social security were in urgent need of reform, citing the figure that only four out of 10 workers have a certain kind of social security.

He believes that there can be no social security without economic growth and the poverty issue can not be solved by just one policy.

According to ECLAC, some 220 million people, 43 percent of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean, live in poverty. One of every five lives in extreme poverty.

Machinea said that barriers to knowledge and technology, to land and to social security are the reasons behind.

He proposed countries in the region work out both short-term and long-term programs based on concrete cases to fight poverty.

About 200 government officials and 100 others from the United Nations and non-governmental organizations took part in the meeting.

According to the agenda, ECLAC's Special Committee for Population and Development will publish its program for 2008 and 2009 on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the organization will publish the document: Social Security of the Future: Access, Financing and Solidarity.

Source: Xinhua