CAF: THE CHALLENGES FOR THE NEW LATIN AMERICA IN THE GLOBAL SCENARIO

Caracas, September 4- The XVI Annual CAF Conference, sponsored by the Inter-American Dialogue, the Organization of American States (OAS), and CAF –development bank of Latin American- will be held on September 5 and 6, 2012. During the event, the political and economic dynamics that support the changing role of Latin America in the international scenario will be analyzed.

The conference will be opened by Enrique García, President and CEO of CAF; Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the OAS; and Michael Shifter, President of the Inter-American Dialogue. Former President of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández, will give the opening address.

“As a development bank of Latin America we seek to encourage people to reflect on all spheres that have an influence on the region’s development. On this occasion, we are particularly pleased to have a group of top-level panelists to analyze how the new Latin America is taking shape in the global scenario from the political, economic, social, and international perspectives,” stated Enrique García.

Topics such as the emergence of the new global South; elections and political trends in Latin America; the region’s relations with the United States in the context of the US elections; the still pending challenges in economic development; the region’s violence, drugs, and transnational crime issues; and the future of hemispheric relations will be addressed by a series of panels in which former presidents, ministers, and former ministers of state from the region, heads of international bodies, and renowned experts, analysts, and journalists of the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa will take part.

The conference will be the scenario of a dialogue on the challenges faced by the region, after several boom years, in order for the current decade to be the one of its definitive economic takeoff. This session will be chaired by Enrique García and will have the participation of Peru’s Minister of Economy and Finance Miguel Castilla; the president of CIEPLAN, Alejandro Foxley; the World Bank’s vice-president for Latin America, Hasan Tuluy; the chief economist of the IDB, Santiago Levy; and the director of the OECD Development Centre, Mario Pezzini.

A novel panel made up of analysts from renowned institutions from four continents –America, Europe, Asia, and Africa– will debate the appearance of the emerging countries of the “South” and how this phenomenon is influencing the reconfiguration of the balance between world power and economic and trade relations.

In addition, the XVI Annual CAF Conference will have a panel made up of a select group of young Latin American leaders who will debate with Economist Moisés Naím the challenges facing the region as regards violence, transnational crime, and drugs, scourges that are threatening to weaken the social and institutional foundations of development and, in particular, of young people.

The closing session of the encounter will open with an address by former US President Jimmy Carter, to be followed by a dialogue between President Carter and the Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, on the outlook for hemispheric relations, which will be chaired by well-known CNN journalist Claudia Palacios.

The 2012 CAF Conference will be attended by more than 400 political leaders and leaders of opinion, including representatives of the US and Latin American governments, high-level officers of international agencies, distinguished businessmen and members of the financial community, and renowned academicians, journalists, and political analysts.

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