Highlights: The 5th Latin American Young Leaders Meeting in Panama
Panama City - More than 40 leaders from over 12 countries met between 27th and 28th of August in Panama City to discuss about the challenges and opportunities of development in Latin America. The event was fully organized and supported by CAF: Latin American Development Bank.
It was such a great opportunity to learn, share and connect with different leaders from all over the region and from public, private and social sectors. There are two highlights that I'm happy to share.
The first one is about a great society simulator we went through on the first day. That was an incredible experience created by Prof. Ricardo Pérez Nückel. We are not allowed to share much details, but he developed a simulation that creates a perfect dynamic expressing realistically in a few hours the complexity of social, political, economical and cultural perspectives.
Young Leaders were grouped in 4 regions. Mine was the green one.
The second highlight was the lecture given by the Argentinean Sebastián Mazzuca, professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of John Hopkins. After a thoughtful historical analysis of the growth of Latin America in the past 500 years, he brought an insightful perspective of assets and liabilities to develop the region. In his perspective, the three main causes that impacted the global development are geography, culture and institutions and put the new democracy we are experiencing throughout the region as an important asset to support the development.
Among other relevant points, these were what most made me reflect. Several studies appoint that 2 degrees celsius are the minimum increase that we will have by the end of this century so far. This is going to change dramatically the World's geography and consequently the global development - both California and Sao Paulo states have been very aware of this new normal.
Brazil has gone though the gravest crisis in the history of the institutional politics. Personally, I'm not in favor of the economic policy of the current government, but neither am I to support the impeachment of President Dilma, which, in my opinion, represents a huge risk to the new democracy.
Provoked by my comment, prof. Mazzuca highlighted three important facts in Brazil that will impact and influence all the region. Firstly, the autonomy of the judiciary power to investigate and punish is remarkable. Secondly, there are 1 million on the streets and it doesn't matter for what they stand for. The point is that we have never experienced such 'citizenship' and that represents an evolution. Lastly, the President was elected democratically and - if she falls - it is not going to be caused by a military dictatorship and another president will be legitimately elected via democracy.
It isn't a question of agree or not agree. The point is that we are living an inflection point in the region. Prof. Mazzuca also pointed that the challenge of Latin America to develop in the coming decades is - in opposite of the developed countries - to create the bureaucracy after the democracy and that is a major shift in culture and in institutions.
The meeting also had a great conversation with the charismatic CAF president, Mr. Enrique Garcia. A fearless and inspiring leader who truly believes in the coming generation to accelerate the growth and promote the sustainable development for Latin America. I'm grateful for having experienced these days in Panamá and thanks to all to the CAF's Institutional Development Team for the invitation and organizing such a great meeting.
5th CAF Latin American Young Leaders Meeting