Peace in Colombia formed part of the debate at the 20th Annual CAF Conference

Officials and observers at the end of the Colombian conflict kept the audience spellbound during the closing event of the 20th Annual CAF Conference with a debate about the recent peace agreement reached between the Colombian government and the guerrillas.

The panel on "Challenges of Peace in Colombia", in which the Chancellor María Angela Holguín; the Attorney General of Colombia, Néstor Humberto Martínez; the Minister for the post-conflict period, Rafael Pardo; and the President of the Colombian Foundation for Reconciliation and the Director of the weekly magazineSemana, Alejandro Santos, participated, was part of the last session on the closing day of this annual conference taking place in Washington, D.C., marking the 20th anniversary that it has been held.

Holguín, as well as Pardo, defended the peace agreement.

"This is not the one that we would have wanted, but the one we have to live with if we truly want peace," Holguín said. For Pardo, peace is not free, "but it is always costs more not to have peace."

 Martínez gave assurances that the Attorney-General's Office would act of ensure that peace would not mean impunity for any of the parties and he said that the assets of the FARC were not recognized legally in the agreements and that the guerrillas would not be permitted to use money derived from their illegal activities to finance their integration into Colombian democracy.

"The FARC will not enter politics in Colombia with the assets that it has obtained illegally," he said. "But peace in a democracy also means that we will not accept corruption money either," he added.

During Thursday morning and in response to the interesting question, "Is Latin America at a pivotal moment?" the first panel of the day revolved around the challenges confronting the region as it moves towards its goal of achieving a full and sustainable peace, at those times in which the end of the "supercycle" of raw commodities begins to peak, completely filling up the public coffers in various countries, and a decisive political landscape is experienced throughout the hemisphere.

The need to drive a process of diversification in production through structural reforms, in order to achieve dynamism in the economy, as well as to adopt a vision and a long-term agenda, over and above ideologies, were points of consensus among the speakers.

"If Latin America wishes to rise to the level of industrialized countries, it must grow at a higher rate and increase its level of investment. Driving productive transformation is the key to sustainable development, accompanied by social inclusion," insisted the Executive President of CAF, Enrique García, who moderated the panel. "In this context, the key is integration. Because the region does not have a chance to insert itself into the world stage if it is fragmented," he added.

The ex-President of the Inter-American Development Bank (BID) and the ex-Ibero-American Secretary-General, Enrique Iglesias assessed the current global situation, in which "confused economic conditions, an angry citizenry, and disoriented sense of international politics all exist at the same time," and he referred to the "intelligent and painful adjustments" which the region must make in the face of this new environment.

He highlighted, however, that Latin America is better positioned than in the past. "We have lived through times that were much more stressful," he said in summary. In addition, he pointed out the need for there to be "an overarching fiscal agreement that would enable countries to achieve a better balance between the economic and the social, in order to be able to face the challenges of a world that seems so bewildered at the present time."

Also participating in the roundtable were the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal), Alicia Bárcena; the ex-Chancellor and Minister of Finance of Chile, Alejandro Foxley; the Director of the Department of the Western Hemisphere of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Alejandro Werner; and the chief economist for Latin America and the Caribbean of the World Bank, Augusto de la Torre.

Bárcena pointed out that, while the region has made significant strides towards reducing extreme poverty, which has dropped to 12.7%, it has stalled on a plateau and we need to "grow to achieve equality, but also we need equality in order to grow." For this reason, she stressed the importance of adopting the new world paradigm of technology and of working to achieve gender inclusion. "In our countries, if women had the same opportunities and the same income as men, poverty would fall between one and ten points," she said.

Foxley spoke about the enormous challenges confronting politics in Latin America, in light of the need to reduce expenses and at the same time to respond to the growing demands of the new middle classes, in a region where 80% of the countries already consider themselves to be middle-income.

Werner, for his part, called for laying a foundation for more rapid growth with improvements in infrastructure, education, technology, and the rule of law. "The achievements of the last decade, in terms of levels which have been achieved, have not disappeared; they continue to exist. We have to protect these achievements" with policies promoting greater growth, he stated.

Another important topic of this day's session was "Global Governance and Reforms in International Financial Architecture." Internationally recognized leaders in the world of finance reflected on the challenges that lay ahead in terms of world economic governance with the rise of new players and emerging markets on the world stage.

Kamath, President of the New Development Band (NBD) of BRICS, K.V. (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, countries known by the acronym of BRICS), is of the opinion that "responding to the dizzying changes in the world today requires the structural reform of current institutions." He stressed, along these same lines of thought, the vital role which regional development banks play. "Lending foreign currency carries complications with it. The fact that we are offering financing using local currency is a sign that it is indeed possible to redesign things. Those of us who are in development banks could make greater use these institutions as leverage in order to make more financing available to our countries," he insisted. 

The Vice President of the Asia Development Bank (ABD), Stephen Gross, believed that changes in the new financial architecture should be gradual. "The solution is not to throw out the current system. Our institutions can supplement those that already exist," he pointed out.

For his part, the President of the International Investment Bank (IIB), Nikolay Kosov, stressed that "the emergence of new institutions is a sign that things are starting to change," highlighting the cooperative spirit that prevails among the new regional banks that have arisen. 

The panel was moderated by the President of the Emerging Markets Forum, Harinder Kohli, with contributions from the other participants, including the ex-Minister of Finance of Colombia, José Antonio Ocampo; and Visiting Professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and former Minister of the Economy and Finance of Peru, Luis Miguel Castilla.

The prospects for Cuba after the historic process of normalizing relations with the United States was a topic of great debate by members of an interesting panel, in which the Ibero-American Secretary-General (Segib), Rebeca Grynspan; the former advisor to Barack Obama for the region, Dan Restrepo; the Associate Director of the University of Havana, Vilma Hidalgo; and the President of the Central Bank of Uruguay, Mario Bergara, all shared their points of view, moderated by Guillermo Fernández del Soto, CAF Director for Europe.

"Cuba has been converted into a key link for unifying the hemisphere and this is the first point that I'd like to stress. But we have to put aside a binary perspective in order to evaluate the changes which have occurred and the challenges that lie ahead," explained Grynspan.

Hidalgo, for his part, applauded the joint work agreement that was recently signed between Cuba and the CAF, highlighting its contribution to the new development agency in the country, and made reference to the enormous challenges, which, in his judgment, lie ahead for the country, among them singling out "the macroeconomic consolidation through monetary unification and the greater high-quality foreign investment that would be needed to overcome lags in infrastructure, technology and productivity in order to achieve competitiveness." 

Moreover, and in line with the challenge to drive these structural reforms, world-renowned experts pointed out in another panel the need to promote, through innovative financial instruments, development in infrastructure so that the economy of the region can gain greater competitiveness.

"We currently see how infrastructure quality has become a bottleneck to growth in many countries", insisted the former Minister of Finance of Colombia, Guillermo Perry, who moderated a discussion panel in which the CAF Corporate Vice President, Peter Vonk; the Vice  President  for Countries of the Inter-American Development Bank (BID), Alexandre Meira da Rosa; the Director of the International Financial Corporation (CFI) for Latin America and the Caribbean, Liz Bronder; the Director of the Capital Foundation, Martín Redrado; and the Director of McKinsey & Company, Robert Palter, all participated.

There were also spaces for paradigm-breaking topics: gastronomy as a tool of social transformation and inclusion was the focus of a pleasant exchange in which the chefs Sumito Estévez (Venezuela) and Michelangelo Cestari (Bolivia) and Brian MacNair, Executive Director of World Central Kitchen, shared their invaluable experiences with help from the moderator, Ana Mercedes Botero, CAF Director of Social Innovation.

There, the participants talked about the potential of gastronomic initiatives to empower and motivate people, thus contributing to the generation of jobs and people's individual resources, which would radically change their individual and social realities. The construction of social capital and the possibility of replicating successful gastronomic projects in other places were two aspects which particularly stood out.

The 20th CAF Conference will culminate with the vision of Latin America's new leaders and the future of the region during a roundtable in which world-recognized women from the Latin American political stage will share their opinions, along with Gustau Alegret, political correspondent from the NTN24 channel in Washington, D.C. as moderator. Also participating will be Loreto Carvajal, Representative of Chile from the Party for Democracy (PPD); Daniela Chacón, Deputy Mayor of Quito, Ecuador; Soledad Núñez, Minister of Housing of Paraguay; Cecilia Alemany, representative in Uruguay from the United Nations Office for Project Services (Unops); Cecilia Chacón, Councilwoman of the Municipality of La Paz in Ecuador; and Verónika Mendoza, leader of the Wide Front of Peru, a representative to Parliament from the Cuzco region, and a former presidential candidate.

For access to all the information about the conference, visit   www.caf.com/xx-conferencia-caf/ and on Twitter through the hashtag #DiálogoCAF