UNCTAD's COMPAL Programme has been strengthening institutions and capacities in the areas of competition and consumer protection policies in Latin America since 2003. The third phase of the programme began on 2015 with a focus on regional cooperation and integration. Its members are competition and consumer protection authorities of: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. In 2015, the programme has implemented 87% of planned activities for 2015 and 70% of its budget. The activities carried out in 2015 have been: The Annual Conference, bringing together its sixteen members, the donor Switzerland and interested observers.
The Conference will review the outcome and impact of the programme’s activities implemented in 2015-2016 and will decide on the activities for 2016-2017. In the past year the activities that have had the greatest impact have been:
Colombia: Workshop on Investigation Techniques on Competition and Consumer Protection, Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, 22-24 July 2015. This workshop aimed at policy and enforcement coherence in competition and consumer protection among and within its members. It concluded that national joint investigations or information sharing between competition and consumer protection authorities in investigations yielded best results.
Ecuador: Ecuador, SELA and UNCTAD hosted the Annual Meeting of the Working Group on Trade and Competition, Manta, Ecuador 2-3 December 2015, which brought together trade and competition authorities of 26 Latin American and Caribbean countries. The Group adopted a new method of work based on fewer topics for discussion and greater depth, and invited the IDB to co-host the event along with SELA and UNCTAD.
Peru: The V International Consumer Protection Forum, Cuzco, Peru, 15-16 September 2015 organized by Peru and UNCTAD was acclaimed as the only public forum on consumer protection in the region, with 156 participants form governmental agencies, consumer associations and private sector. The Forum showcased best practices for policy making in the field of agency effectiveness, education campaigns and alternative dispute settlement.
The INDECOPI-COMPAL School in Lima, Peru hosted one course on consumer protection (15-16 June 2015) on e-commerce, and one course on competition (23-27 November 2015) on leniency programmes. These one-week high level intensive courses are offered to operative staff of member agencies and respond to capacity needs identified by members themselves. The courses also aim at replication in respective home agencies, which has resulted in a total of 800 people trained. According to an internal survey, member agencies' overall knowledge (including participating and non-participating staff) on these issues increased by 64% and was valued as "excellent" by 98% of participants.
