 Good morning. Welcome. This is a panel on this big question we have about how to make Latin America safer. We'll do it in Spanish. That's the preference of the panel members and we will try to be as dynamic as possible. Obviously this is a very broad topic. This title could refer to defence. We could be talking about food security, but we will focus on crime. This has to do with a reality in our region. Statistics are very clear regarding the problem of crime in the region and the demand from population. It's very common in almost all Latin American countries when people are asked what are their major concerns, they always refer to crime and insecurity. Among the top 10 concerns, here we have three panel members, Minister of Security of Argentina, Patricia Bullrich. With us is also the Mayor of Medellín, Mr. Federico Gutiérrez. Ilona Savo, who is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Igarapé Institute in Rio de Janeiro. It's one of the main institutes in the region dedicated to these issues. So welcome. Thank you. Let me now start by asking that this panel should be focused on finding solutions rather than identifying the problem. The problem is clear. This is the most violent region in the world if we don't count war areas that are at war. Latin America and the Caribbean. So the idea is to find some solutions, some innovative answers to the issue. Let me first turn the floor to the Mayor of Medellín. I'd like to ask you what solutions, what has worked in Medellín, which are the main recommendations you would make. Good morning, everyone. Let me greet the Minister, Patricia and Ilona, and you, Juan Pablo, and the audience at large. There are two important things in Medellín. Much progress has been made, but we still have a lot to do. That's the first thing we have to say. This is an issue where you cannot stop working. I always say that it's important to remove ideologies from the debate on crime. Security is not a right wing or left wing. It's a right we need. Security is a right we need to guarantee. We need to have a state that ensures that right. When you look at Medellín that moved from being the most violent in the world in 1991, we had 381 murders every 100,000 inhabitants generated by that absurd war and the phenomenon of drug trafficking. There were terrible characters that were associated with us and caused a very serious crime problem. It's important to understand that Medellín was in dire straits and it was society the one that took ownership of the situation and lifted their city out of this situation. It was joint work by the public sector, private sector and universities. This is not something that the state alone can do. Working with civil society is very important. When we look at the rates today at around 18, 19 murders every 100,000 inhabitants after having lived what went through is a proof that it can be done, but security has to be something comprehensive, integral. There were marginalized areas, socially marginalized areas where the state was absent so crime goes in and they co-opt areas and they try to make a profit out of illegal activities and it's key to have a comprehensive security strategy in this regard. Important things. When you look at the charts of murders in the last few years you see a permanent decline. Last month in March was the month with the fewest number of murders in the last 38 years in Medellín and this is important because it's, but it's not the only important thing. Even if it's a murder, the highest impact crime, I always ask the numbers to be compared for all crimes. It's not only important to reduce the number of murders if there are other crimes increasing. If you ask any Latin American citizen what their priorities are among the first, there's always security and public order among their major concerns. It's important for us to lead our actions in terms of security. Local leaders or the mayor has to be in person, has to own the work relative to security. I work on security daily and if I'm here in Argentina I have telephone conversations on a permanent basis but we are the ones that need to lead this process and we see how in Latin America or many cities where things do well they are owned by the political leaders but if they do badly they are problems that have to do with others but this is something we really need to lead. It's absolutely necessary to lead this process in a comprehensive manner. Fighting against criminal structures is key. Many of these structures gain ground throughout Latin America through drug trafficking, criminal profits. There is something that's absolutely necessary in the strategy that is fighting against money laundering and those are the two main issues we have to address in terms of criminal structures and when we talk about a comprehensive strategy for security we need to take into account opportunities. Who are part of the criminal structures of Latin America today? We can talk about ages between 11 and 26 years, young children, youth. That's why it's so important to avoid school to work on school dropout levels and this is something we've been addressing in the last few months. If I know that those that are there at a higher risk of belonging to criminal structures and they are the ones that drop out of school or that are part of the dropout statistics what we need to do is stop dropout. Last year we focused on the task of developing a program that's called el colegio cuenta con vos. Cool counts on you and we went house by house, home by home looking for children that had dropped out of school. School presidents gave us the lists of those children that had dropped out and we went home by home knocking doors asking who had dropped out of school and the neighbors would tell us in that house there are two children that dropped out we talked to the children we talked to their parents and grandparents and in four months we recovered 1,400 children and youth that had dropped out of school that's the best structure against criminal structures that's the best structure strategy against crime prevention we need to have a strong state yes criminal structures have to feel the power of the state yes but if we do not work at the social level the rest is useless and let me say the following all the social component plays a key role if we only use a public force but we do not offer opportunities education and there's something fundamental in Latin America and that is why there's so much dropout there why is there such a high dropout level you ask people why they drop out of school children will say I won't finish school if I won't primary school if I won't have access to secondary school we have to give opportunities to the youth we have to go beyond in our juvenile policies to prevent the development of criminal structures and let me conclude by saying that it's useless to use the force only or to offer social to make social offerings only we need both at the same time minister the case of Argentina is interesting because if we look at the homicide levels you have much better statistics than the rest of the region however in some cities like Rosario those percentages are very high and when we ask the population about insecurity it's usually among the first two one or two concerns what's the ministry what the ministry is doing in this regard in Argentina very well thank you thank you very much for this opportunity to talk to all of you thank you for visiting our country the truth is that yes Argentina has a 6.1 a rate of 6.1 murders every 100 000 inhabitants but you each country does not compare against other countries but it compares against its own history so for Argentina 6.1 rate is high compared to one or two percent rates that we had 30 years ago so the reality is linked to the experience of each one of the countries so we currently have high levels in the last few years we've been working very hard on this rate of murders and it's become one of the major concerns in our reality we've learned a lot from Medellin's experience we've learned from Rio de Janeiro's experience and we are working in on all this you have to think that Argentina has a different structure from that of other countries because we are a federal country we have 24 police forces 23 police forces in the 23 provinces and one police force in the autonomous city of Buenos Aires so we have 24 police forces that are devoted to offering daily security citizen security and four federal forces that report to the ministry of security that I lead these four federal forces are devoted to what we call federal crimes or complex crimes federal crimes are smuggling drug trafficking trafficking in persons money laundering that is all those crimes that have a strong connotation or impact on these homicide rates and these realities that the mayor just described what have we started doing to give you a concrete example we started a program that's called safe neighborhoods barrio seguros that works on conflicts created by the fight over drug trafficking control that leads to a high level of crime and things that in Argentina were not very common that is death by people that are asked to kill others wars among drug traffickers drug traffickers killing one another and we implemented a plan that's called safe neighborhoods and that have this component that the mayor just described we have specially prepared security forces neighborhood prevention units with a dialogue with the population that clearly attacked the bunkers the criminal business of drug trafficking and this what we do is work with local authorities provincial authorities to create a climate that favors strategic social changes to give you an example last year when we took office at the national level we implemented the plan barrio seguros in the neighborhood 31 many of the visitors know it it's a slum that because of its location had a high level of participation in the drug trafficking crime it's right in the center of Buenos Aires we went into the slum with the security forces and with the government of the city of Buenos Aires and all the drug bunkers that used to be located there are centers where children learn karate where they perform different school related activities and in one year of work we reduced the homicide rate by 62 percent in that neighborhood same thing in the city of Rosario Rosario had become a city of a very high level of involvement in drug trafficking today the national government is cooperating with the government of the province of Santa Fe where Rosario city is located and together with them we've formed an operational committee and we work on all aspects involved in this crime and there are federal forces provincial forces and we work at the social level too as part of that committee of the work of that committee we are very much dedicated also to our borders imagine that we are in a continent where we have a hundred percent of the coke production of the world we have borders with Paraguay that today has a serious problem in terms of the large number of hectares planted with cannabis with marijuana we have a border with bolivia that produce that produces coke peru we don't have a border with peru but they have a very big problem with the production of cocaine we don't receive much from colombia that goes to the north mostly and we have drugs coming synthetic drugs coming from europe and these are drugs that young people believe they don't cause any problem and they do cause serious problems last week to give you an example of how we're working in the disarticulation of complexities in the city of Ita T which is a small city in the northeast of argentina in the province of Corrientes we made a big operation and the mayor the vice mayor their families the local head of the police force members of the border police were put into jail because they were all involved in drug trafficking we can fight against drug trafficking but we have to have a clear barrier on this side there's a state with the security forces with education and everything and on this other side there's crime when the state is part of the crime which i think was the big lesson learned in colombia when colombia decided that their security forces were not part of the problem and they cleaned them up and they worked on them and they became professional they hit hard those that were threatened by terrorism and drug traffickers so what we do is try to separate things on this side we have the state and security forces will fully support them but we punish those that are accomplices same thing with judges and politicians we have to be on one side and drug trafficking criminals on the other side that is how when we separate and split very well the different fields we will get to good results in the upcoming four years and would be very important for our drug trafficking is of course one of the main foci in the country and here we have education and social programs as potential result now well i wanted to ask you because the institute works with statistics data technology what can we do on that front to improve how we're working in crime wise thank you well the solution started coming but i wanted to focus on one problem we know that the concern of citizens on security is much bigger than just the deaths but i want to say what happens in our region here latin america we have eight percent of the world population but 38 percent of the crimes in the world of the killings we or murders we have countries that have 33 percent of the country which is much higher than so 400 people die daily in latin america because of murder that is 144 000 a year 43 of the most violent cities in the world are here so when we take a look that i belong to civil society i am representing here a group of 30 members of alliance that we want to launch today which is life instinct instincto de vida it's a campaign to reduce by 50 percent the murder rate in the region over the coming 10 years it looks like very ambitious but it can be done we are reducing seven percent a year and many of the cities for example medicina juarez san paul have already managed to do that how do we think we'll do that these 30 organizations from brazil mexico colombia on duras guatimada salvador in venezuela are members of the alliance working together the idb the latin american development bank and the oas together with the open society foundation we want to support the national and local governments to make sure they can start building integral parts with evidence-based strategies because this is of the essence we know what works and what doesn't but we also want to mobilize our society why well because we cannot accept it is not normal that we have such figures so many years have gone by since the violence has been increasing and this is the only region in the world where where murders are still in the growing numbers and we believe that that's normal it is not so we have to go back because of the life instinct and not the death instinct so invite you to become part for the private sector the media academia the governments of course because we will help but we will also monitor these plans but we may have a commitment of society to lower the figures we don't want the investments not to come to regions because there are so many crimes that our young do not have a future we want to change the trend so we need all of you so we chose this space to say get together come with us in life instinct and i have to do that because this means we cannot keep on killing our future so if you want to know more life instinct or it seems to be that dot org has a lot of material things on how we can continue in terms of strategic solutions based on evidence or evidence based solutions and the various context of our societies we already have two-thirds of the panel so i would ask for the next answers to be very short so we may reach a final question of the public minister you said that although the argentine rate is low regarding the region's high regarding our story what is the focus what are the main gist or areas or the most difficult part we have domestic violence we have the police law enforcement and so on drug trafficking what are the problems with the areas with the biggest problems well we have a murder rate that is made up of three types of murders the first is murder due to drug trafficking which is an intra band so to speak murders we are working to lower those figures which means to get to many places in argentina unfortunately we have had too many years of poverty growth rates and this of course has been a bad thing because it that's where they grew and we are working to make sure that the future of the youngsters are not in the drugs but in education work and possibilities of making progress this is a very important path and as i said in the neighborhoods where we are already present we know how to lower the rate 62 percent in the case of the slum number 231 but in the city of rosario we have lowered 38 percent the rate of murders in a giant work between the government of the province the local government and the city of santa fe in other words when you dedicate a specific plan to work on murders and that are related to the drug business you can lower the figures the second one is a debate we haven't started which is the gender violence we have many murders because of gender violence in argentina and we have observed something that is difficult to put on a debate we need more scientific evidence but what did we see at some point in time the world started a discussion whether we they would still keep on disseminating the suicide numbers in the 60s when suicides were reported in the media the suicide wave would continue so we are working on studies with our scientists on how we have seen in some cases with very famous people that have led to gender murders for example by burning their partners and we had immediately 24 similar cases so we're working together with the ministry of justice and all of the provinces to analyze this phenomenon because between gender violence and drug related murders when we take to the murder because of theft the rate drops a lot therefore if we attack this murder because of or drug related murder and we have effective policies as the ones we're carrying out as in gender violence to lower the gender violence figures and the theft related rate it would take us to very interesting rates for argentina ilona has told us something where fideliko which is the standardization of violence that it has always been there it's the only region where we see that the rates are growing and maybe there's this idea that maybe we're doomed for some reason to live in this atmosphere how do you break that momentum we don't have much time well the first thing i would say to ilona i congratulations for doing this and if you need any partners you already have one here we are as a city to learn also from other cities and from experience and to share the experience that have been useful that we can apply one always talks about successful cases we also should have unsuccessful cases failure cases because we have to know where we failed and all cities have done things that are useful and things that are not it is very important in this process to work with indicators when we design programs you shouldn't wait until the end of the program to assess it you need impact indicators that will tell us very quickly if the resources we are investing are indeed leading to some results because all of these strategies call for public funds and you have to make in between decisions two important things often when we talk about murders we talk about criminal structures that's why typification is so important in cities like medellin and other colombian cities according to what i've seen almost 30 percent of murders are due to problems of living together or intra family or gender murders so you have to make a distinction one is fighting against the structures the the the mafias and another one is the respectful life there is a very fundamental issue which is the war fuel which is the drug traffic but it is impossible for the drug traffic to get into the life if it doesn't come with high corruption levels fighting against corruption in all senses in all of the institutional topics local and regional is of the essence that's why we have to understand that what happens in argentina in brazil and all of these countries is directly related to transnational organizations these organizations that have their routes have the way to take the drug from place a to place b it's really of concern the increase of the cultural level in a country like colombia where the coca culture crops have increased so much is very serious it's very serious for everybody and also for colombia for internal consumption reasons and also for a public health perspective addictions are really really bad and because everything goes back to the state and i think this cannot be done i think the family issue is more and more and more important where is the responsibility of the parents in the field of addictions because is as if you give the kids to the state and you get them back when they're 18 and that's impossible and i finish with this because i think it's the main main topic which is legality culture if in latin america we want to make some headway not only in reducing crime but also fighting against all kind of crimes we have to fight against illegality or unlawfulness we have to know it fight against illegality and we need a citizen culture what you're saying we have common roots for everybody ilona do we have common roots well we know that some strategies work like the minister and fidelik but he already said we need to have the strength in term of law enforcement that will focus on problems for example we know that a hotspot policing that it works on hotspots works but we know that on the other side investment in the early childhood is something that will always be extremely useful besides parent ability jobs for the young also for the young that have been arrested so that they get a social reinsertion to avoid crime and just like medindin the question of urban space anything that promotes living together we know this works we know we need leadership that wants to implement in the evidence-based policies of course if we can we should lower the rates if we can reduce 50 in 10 years we can save 30 365 thousand lives in 10 years and together we can on our own we can't that's why we are calling on society to participate to support the governments and make sure the governments commit to get a solution in the long run so as to place the continent on the map not because of the murders because but because of the deal that number is extraordinary 365 thousand lives one can save we have the appropriate public policies thank you very much for participating in this panel and for giving us all of these ideas to solve this main main problem of Latin america thank you very much