LAC: Territory, Sovereignty, and the Future We Must Imagine Together

The year 2026 does not begin like any other. It opens in a world where the rules we once believed to be stable have shown weak, where geopolitical balances are being redefined without warning, and where Latin America and the Caribbean once again realize—sometimes abruptly—that their future continues to be contested from the outside.

There is no need to name recent events to understand the message: the global order inherited from the twentieth century no longer exists. Traditional forms of power—military, economic, technological—are now exercised with a troubling mix of urgency, deregulation and force. In this context, our region reemerges as a territory of strategic interest: for its energy, its biodiversity, its water, its minerals, and its capacity to sustain life on a planet in crisis.

Today we know that the future is not decided solely in cities or financial markets. The future is decided in territories—sometimes virtuous, with hydrological systems that cross borders, fertile soils that feed millions, ecosystems that regulate the planet’s climate, and communities that sustain ancestral knowledge and practices of care; and sometimes also tortuous—the stage for transnational criminal systems that drive the trafficking of weapons, drugs, and people, and their painful trail of violence from Mexico to Patagonia.

Without a territorial vision of our own, Latin America and the Caribbean will continue to reproduce the burdens that prevent them from reaching the quality of life we would wish to offer every inhabitant of this beautiful region. At the same time, they risk becoming the ecological support system for a world that refuses to take responsibility for its own survival.

Sovereignty is not isolation: it is shared vision

To speak of sovereignty today is not to advocate for withdrawal from the world. On the contrary, it is to participate in it with our own voice. It is to build a Latin American narrative about development, territory, and the future—one grounded in regional cooperation, intergenerational justice, and planetary co-responsibility.

A sovereign territorial vision recognizes that:

• resilience cannot be only urban; it must be territorial;

• planning cannot be only technical; it must also be cultural, social, ethical and regional;

• development cannot be measured solely by growth, but by the capacity to care.

  
  

This vision does not emerge from the top down, nor from a single country. It is built through dialogue between rural and urban communities, between science and local knowledge, between public policy and community-based forms of governance.

LACPlan: imagining in order to survive

LACPlan is born precisely at this historical moment. Not as a reaction to a single event, but as a long-term commitment to reimagining the future of Latin America and the Caribbean from the territory.

We believe that ensuring the survival of our region is inseparable from ensuring the survival of humanity on Earth. That protecting the Amazon, the páramos, the glaciers, the islands, the mangroves, and rural systems is not a local concern, but a global responsibility and one that concern cities. And yet, that responsibility cannot continue to be defined without us.

In 2026, the challenge is clear: to move from being strategic territories to becoming strategic subjects of the future. The year ahead calls for something more demanding than hope. It demands vision, cooperation, and courage. From LACPlan, we embrace this call with humility and determination—convinced that the future is not something we wait for, but something we plan, care for, and build together.