Humanity today faces complex global challenges—including increased inequality, poverty, and environmental degradation—exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic and persisting in the processes of global reconfiguration; this demands the contribution of the entire society.

In various spheres (academic, governmental, labor, and social activism), global challenges are reflected upon as critical issues in development, generating positions that range from their affirmation to their rejection. Under the banner of "development," policies have been implemented with contrasting results: some societies achieve high levels of human development, while underdevelopment persists in Latin American countries (CLACSO, 2025). This persistence is analyzed structurally by academic groups such as the one proposing this project, which asks: What Development? Dialogue between Academia and Politics (2019-2021) or What Development? Multi-Actor and Multi-Level Dialogue. Others problematize the shortcomings of the model, focusing on key issues such as territorial inequalities, social structure, class, gender, ethnicity, poverty, and participatory methodologies.

This proposal aims to further explore the diverse perspectives on development, particularly how different actors connect it to poverty, inequality, social justice, equality, sustainability, systemic crises, and migration, among other issues. This will be done within the framework of situated dialogue as a strategy for exchange, co-construction of knowledge, and public advocacy with a territorial and national perspective. The challenge is to identify the optimal conditions for fostering effective dialogues that enable knowledge management and political advocacy among diverse actors—governments, academia, local stakeholders, community leaders, social movements, non-governmental organizations, and political parties—in order to translate these perspectives into concrete public policies.

Recent experiences in the region have underscored how the co-creation of knowledge among multiple actors is essential for designing interventions that are tailored to the diverse and contrasting realities of Central American and Caribbean island countries. For example, projects focused on territorial planning and climate resilience have demonstrated that the inclusion of academic and community voices strengthens the capacity of governments to develop policies that address disaster risk and environmentally driven migration (ECLAC, 2024).

Despite the intense dialogue that has taken place in recent years, the results have not always translated into effective public policies that bring about genuine social transformation. Recent critical literature underscores that agreements frequently fail to incorporate and respond to the demands of the diverse actors that make up our societies and to adopt alternative proposals for development (FLACSO, 2024). This reflects a persistent gap between the consensus achieved through dialogue and the State's capacity to implement policies that incorporate the alternative perspectives of various social actors, and it demands a change of approach.

This need was identified by the Working Groups "What Development? Academia-Policy Dialogue" and "What Development? Multi-Actor and Multi-Level Dialogue." Both Working Groups promoted the urgent need to adopt new approaches and methodologies in the development of policies at different territorial scales. These new frameworks must be particularly targeted at social groups with multiple vulnerabilities and inequalities, including: returnees, migrants and their families, asylum seekers, refugees, racialized people, and impoverished populations, among others. Recent evidence demonstrates that policies must be sensitive to intersectionality to achieve effective transformation.

This entailed a critical review of the ways of engaging in dialogue, beginning with those who promoted the proposal. In the case of academia, missions have been assumed such as overcoming the coloniality of knowledge (de Sousa, 2010); the integration of knowledge for a greater explanatory, interpretive, and transformative capacity regarding realities and problems that, according to Morin (1999), are increasingly transversal, multidimensional, transnational, global, and planetary; the capacity for constructive dialogue with politics; the dialogue of knowledge among different disciplines, with other forms of knowledge—popular, artistic, religious, and other beliefs—diverse cultures, and dissimilar actors; always with the aspiration that such exchange be characterized by horizontality, recognition, and respect; and, especially, territorially situated.

In the action research of the aforementioned working groups, as in others, progress was observed in the promotion, organization, and implementation of dialogue spaces between 2019 and 2025, with politically relevant results. Examples include the design of municipal development plans for Quetzaltenango and Huehuetenango that incorporate the right to migrate in Guatemala (Palma and Dardón, 2022); the design of a policy to address situations of social vulnerability in Cuba (Fundora and Zabala, 2022); and the design of the Comprehensive Affirmative Approach of the Program against Racism and Racial Discrimination in Cuba (Espina et al., 2021), among others. However, the challenge remains to generate dialogues that contribute to more comprehensive and systemic changes, revolutionizing conceptions and models of development. From this arose the need to connect different spaces for dialogue, stakeholders, agendas, and policies, to foster an impact that drives multidimensional transformations aligned with more emancipatory and situated paradigms, taking into account territorial, cultural, and gender conditions, among others. It is within this context that a challenge is assumed: How to promote dialogues (actors, methodologies, agendas) that move beyond changing specific policies to transforming the entire set of public policies, while simultaneously contributing to transforming development models?

This proposal, in line with CLACSO's objectives, aims to contribute to promoting sustainable public policies—in a broad sense, inclusive of movements, social organizations, networks, and other spaces—in economic, social, and environmental terms; to link social research with public policies and other transformative actions self-organized by social collectives; to contribute to debates on these issues; and to train diverse actors. It is aligned with the Platforms for Social Dialogue, defined by CLACSO as "collaborative and multi-stakeholder workspaces to promote exchanges, influence priority social issues, produce knowledge, and contribute to building common regional agendas that have a demonstrable impact on improving the quality of life of diverse sectors and groups in society." It connects with several of the thematic areas of this call for proposals: democracies, social movements and activism, migration, inequalities, and poverty.

Its novelty, compared to the proposals of the two previous three-year periods, is the greater emphasis on dialogues in the territories, with a view to political influence at the local level.

Despite the criticism and controversy surrounding the concept of "development," in this Working Group we want to take on the challenge of continuing to work with this category, attempting to uncover the meanings attributed to it by different social actors, and above all, the policies designed and implemented in its name. This is an area where the struggle over meaning takes concrete form, with repercussions for all aspects of life.

Development policy is defined by some authors as the "broad and complex set of policies and legislative and executive measures aimed at achieving specific goals that first limit and then break the chains of dependency. Development policy integrates, among others, social, educational, scientific-technological, cultural, investment, and technical and productive resource structuring policies. The purpose is the creation of a new society; hence, revolutionary transformations constitute social accumulation." (Bell and López, n.d.: 8 and 9).

This approach opens the door to new debates that we intend to develop within the framework of the Working Group. One key idea of ​​this perspective is the interconnection between different areas of public policy, aimed at subverting the dominant order. Other perspectives consider that this articulation is achieved through social policy in a more generic sense. “To think of social policy as an integral part of development means assuming that its projects, programs, and actions are a necessary, indispensable, and priority investment. It is to invert the equation in which social development arises naturally from economic growth, by removing social policy from its traditional position as subordinate to economic policy.” (Tavares, 2011: 72). Along these same lines, and emphasizing the existing interdependencies between social policy and development, Cuban authors point out: “Social policy is part of the development strategy and, at the same time, an effect of it.” (Espina and Valdés Paz, 2011: 14)

This policy integration exercise can be carried out by an academic team that articulates different proposals in a text, or it can be deployed in spaces of dialogue where multiple knowledge, interests, conceptions and experiences converge, allowing progress in a creative, liberating, and engaging way.

We maintain that, in order to advance a conception of development and its operationalization and implementation in a comprehensive development policy—one that truly has an inclusive and sustainable focus, and the emancipatory force demanded by Latin American critical thought—it is necessary to experiment with new types of dialogue that guarantee the effective participation of invisible, excluded, marginalized, or undervalued groups; of different scientific communities; of various governmental bodies; of community and social organizations; and of others. Hence the importance of promoting these spaces for dialogue and producing knowledge relevant to social transformation.

In previous working group experiences, conceptual notions were used that took into account theoretical foundations, methodological approaches, and practical and operational perspectives in order to present a broad and diverse range of possibilities for discussion. These references are as follows:

- The Multi-stakeholder Dialogue was understood as a process of building shared meanings from the identification and participation of key actors from different sectors (social, private, public) convened through various instances and/or mechanisms of research, periodic and institutionalized dialogue (direct consultations by face-to-face or virtual means, participatory tables, forums, others) to problematize issues, identify priorities, propose solutions (based on information, analysis and evidence) and make decisions based on putting common interests before particular ones with emphasis on the identification of needs of population groups that are in a situation of vulnerability.

Multilevel dialogue refers to the need for participation and institutional coherence at and between territorial and administrative levels in both the design and implementation of public policy in a country (depending on the country, different levels can be identified: national, departmental, municipal, and community). This participation includes inter-institutional dialogue (among various government institutions) and inter-sectoral dialogue (among public institutions (government), business and civil society organizations, and cooperation agencies).

This proposal builds on the progress of the previous GTs: What Development? Dialogue between academia and politics (2019-2022) and What Development? Multi-actor and multi-level dialogue (2023-2025), focusing on the critical study of social and political situations in the Latin American region, especially in Central America and the Caribbean, prioritizing the recognition of environments, processes and social subjects in differentiated contexts.

As previously noted, the proposal for the next three years places greater emphasis on dialogues taking place in diverse territories, using as an analytical framework the relationship between Development, Dialogues, Knowledge and Territories, and Social Research, which facilitates:

- The Critical Diagnosis of the Territory, with theoretical frameworks, rigorous methodologies and empirical data that allow for a structured diagnosis of the problems, inequalities and potential of the territory, which is crucial to denaturalize the power structures and the underlying causes that limit the development of communities (e.g., poverty, exclusion, inequalities, environmental conflicts), a fundamental aspect for effective public management in the territory (Garay, 2015).

- Develop dialogues, as a bridge between knowledge and as a mechanism for: the interlocution and validation between traditional community knowledge, lived experience and historical practices of communities with the development process, systematization, comparability and analytical capacity to evaluate the viability and impact of development initiatives, achieve a culturally situated and scientifically grounded development, thus promoting the necessary Ecology of Knowledges (De Sousa Santos, 2009).

- Planning for sustainable and relevant development, with participatory planning models, impact assessment and evidence-based public policy design.

- To conceive of the territory as a space for social action, for testing and co-creation of Social Research, especially Participatory Action Research (PAR), with a view to a social management of knowledge that generates actions aimed at transformation, informed decision-making and local development (Fals Borda, 2008).

Furthermore, opportunities are also envisioned in a way that multiplies progress and achievements: Strengthening the exchange of methodological experiences for the development of sustainable and inclusive development policies; Strengthening conceptual analysis in action research processes, social participation and participatory construction with a multi-level and multi-actor approach for sustainability and inclusion; Dialogues with various Working Groups that include in their research, training and management processes the analysis of inclusive development policies (education, health, work, diversity, Afro-descendants, childhood and adolescence, migrants, disability, LGBTIQ+, others).