 Good morning and welcome to everybody here. We're starting a little bit late, and we have here six extraordinary personalities with us, and we only have now 35 minutes left. So there are not only many complexities in the world, but these add to the complexities that exist. Nevertheless, we're going to reach the goals that we have established for this session. In a very complex world that is marked by many conflicts, because there are global and regional complexities, well, nevertheless, Latin America is still very dynamic, and the landscape is very diverse. Latin America is still exploring different visions and policies to overcome different issues and create good conditions for good social and environmental development. In a global context, the region is also a source of opportunities and has solutions for the development and to overcome all the challenges that we have globally. With our panelists here, we will explore some of the priorities in our region, the emerging challenges, and how we're going to assure that our region can benefit effectively from this potential. We're going to start with you, Mr. President. Thank you very much for being here today with us. We are really grateful. Let's see how the situation is evolving in Colombia, and which are the two or three priorities that you would like to highlight here for your country in 2024. Well, the priorities are focused on solving the problems that are the most complex and deep ones. In the case of Colombia, they have to do with two main topics, peace, how to eliminate the causes and the factors that cause violence and inequalities, and these two are linked. Social inequalities, well, Colombia is the second or the third most unequal country in the world. Latin America, in general, is the most unequal country in the world, region in the world, and this inequality equals violence, violence that has changed along the history, along the decades. How to solve this? Well, this cannot be done just this year. It's a very long process. It's a very complex one. We would like this year to put the country on the right way of pacification and equality that are not reversible. But so peace has a counterpart, and violence and social inequality have a dark side. Another aspect, which is the territorial unequality. Colombia is a country that is really fragmented, regions that are very diverse, and part of these regions have been excluded for centuries, and this is the legacy of slavery. It's a way of production that persists until the 19th century in Colombia and Latin America. So if I take the violence and I add it to the territorial unequality, I have another couple of terms which are related because violence has to do with illegal economy, illegal economy, illicit economy in excluded territories. So territorial unequality is linked to violence or to the possibility of peace. The illegal economy is the product, among others, of an anti-drug economy, an anti-drug policy at a global level that has failed completely. And this has taken Latin America to a crisis in the coherence of the society and democracies. A million people have died due to wrong policy against drugs. So if I want peace, I have to overcome territorial unequality. And this carries me to transform illegal economies into legal economies in the region. I know I don't have enough time, but this transformation is for me the key this year because for two centuries it hasn't been possible to transform the excluded Colombian territory to prosperity. And I would like to end with this, the Pacific Coast. In Colombia, there is, at that region, the free slaves, the slaves that got freedom by themselves, mainly black ones, they arrive there. And it's the only region in the Pacific, which is really poor, extremely poor, because we have the legacy of slavery there, the white elites of the government, who are focused on Bogota, never cared about that region. And now it's the most important cocaine-producing region in the world, cocaine which is consumed by the rest of the world, and it's a poorest region in Colombia. So there we have the challenge of transforming the region. We have China and Japan on the other side, where there is no mountain separating them, or California or Alaska decided to help, to really help, we could put this region in the Pacific from poverty to prosperity, just crossing the sea. And we would have a possibility, or the possibility, to overcome violence. Thank you very much, President. The group is presiding APEC this year, and this will be a good opportunity to rebalance the relationships between the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America. President, you are coming from Guatemala now, and international support, given by, well, the president and other people that were there, was really decisive to assure this democratic transition in Guatemala. What is the importance of international support to guarantee more institutionality and to consolidate these democratic processes in our region? Well, the history in Guatemala and contemporary reality is very similar to Colombia's, due to social inequalities, the racial fragmentation in the society, racism, levels of violence that have been achieved, because there was a long revolutionary strife. There was a peace process. The process was not respected in Colombia by the states, because some prosecutors decided to destroy the basis of popular elections, because the state was fragmented. We tried to... There is a criminality in the government and power. The criminal organizations have seized political power, and part of the society and the state does not want that. They want to deepen democracy. So for all these reasons, the electoral triumph of the president, for instance, a minister of defense cannot go to Guatemala because he will be put in prison, because Dr. Velazquez guided a special investigation against corruption in Guatemala. So all these regions make our two countries very much alike. So the defense of democracy in Guatemala is also the defense of democracy in Colombia and in Latin America. So we need to work together. It was a very critical moment. I was about to not be able to come here. Up to now, things have gone well. Guatemala, as Colombia, needs, first of all, people that are active, that defend democracy, because if not, we're lost, and then we always need, we also need solidarity from the world with projects of democratization, like in Guatemala or in Colombia or in Latin America in general, of course, president. And this takes me to another question that I'm going to ask to the president of the Supreme Tribunal of Brazil, Mr. Barroso. It's a pleasure to have you here. And I would like to ask you, Latin America, the institutionality and the rule of law are still part of the great challenges in our region, as President Petra has just said. The judiciary is a very important branch, which are the institutional difficulties that we are living in our region. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. I was about to speak in English. I had prepared myself to speak in English, but I'd rather speak in Spanish. The truth is that Latin America has a colonial heritage and a past of slavery and a past of inadequate territorial occupation, which has led, which has left a legacy of poverty and inequality. Some factors, chronicle factors, which have always made institutionality difficult in Latin America are poverty. Almost 30 percent of the Latin American population lives below the poverty line. Extreme inequality, the past and the present to some extent of a private appropriation of public space by extractivistic elites, and sometimes that leads into corruption. We have a chronic educational problem. Latin America has not invested enough in education, especially in basic education, and I think that this is what has left us lagging behind in history. Agenda is low economic growth, which makes it difficult for health generation and distribution because of injustice internationally to some extent, but also because of several domestic circumstances, and it has become more severe with the problem of public security and violence. And I think that we have to include this concern into the agenda, including in the progressive agenda. Progressive thinking has always neglected public security to some extent, attributing it only to poverty and inequality. That's a fact, but poor people also need public security, not to remain just on negative aspects. I think that the Latin American continent today provides major potentials for the world, and I would like not to dwell only on negative comments. I think that Latin America can and should take up the leading role of global environmental position because we have biodiversity, we have the largest amount of drinking water around the world. Amazon, which is the greatest storage place for carbon in terms of global warming, we have peaceful living together of countries with well-established frontiers, except for a fright or another. In spite of all institutional problems, democracy has remained in most countries, the large countries like Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile have managed to preserve their democratic institutionality in spite of several difficulties. We have no relevant religious conflict, and we are a multicultural, multi-racial society with all of the prospects that offers to the world. So without neglecting chronic problems that afflict us, that have to be resolved, I think that Latin America provides major potentials to the world that can be well tapped into if we find the right pathway. Thank you. Thank you very much, Minister. You have talked about insecurity. I would also like to acknowledge... I would like to acknowledge the participation of Mrs. Sommerfeld, who is representing her minister, who cannot be here. So what is the situation in your country, and what would you like to command here in this international arena? Thank you very much for the invitation. On behalf of President Novoa, he's sending you his warm greetings. He cannot be here, but he's sent part of his cabinet to represent him here. We're all women here. It's the first cabinet with gender parity. So there we see the differences of our president. What I'm listening to here, what I'm hearing here, is no different to what is being lived today in Ecuador. But I would like to talk here about the perspective under which Ecuador is living today. The reality is that only seven of 10 Equatorians have a job. The presidents say that 250,000 young students come from college each year and don't have a job. They don't have activities. They don't have work. They don't have a job. They don't have work. We have lots of problems with immigration. Over 500,000 Venezuelan citizens are in Ecuador. We are a transit country. And we also have lots of immigrants or Ecuadorian immigrants that go outside the country. So we don't give them opportunities, job opportunities. There is also a lot of insecurity. So in this landscape, all the vulnerable communities have to work, have to do something, have to act. And if they don't have a job and they cannot study, so what do they do? They start committing crimes. And this has weakened the country because criminality has increased enormously in institutions public or private institutions in Ecuador. And this has weakened, terribly weakened all the institutions that deal with security and with the judicial system. And all this have taken the country to a point where criminals are in power. It's organized criminality. It's organized crime. And these organized crime groups, which are violent, they threaten citizens. And many shops have had to close. In 2022, 4,000 businesses have had to close partly because of the market, partly because of high costs and high financing costs, but partly because we had the so-called vaccines. Vaccines, that means that each shop that was polluted with this organized crime had to pay to keep open because if not, either they killed them or they destroyed the shops. So these small shops, these micro-businesses or small businesses couldn't keep on working because they couldn't pay for these vaccines. And this was institutionalized, so they had to close. And if we think that the first job generator are SMEs and micro-businesses, well, if we destroy the productive basis of a country, what can we expect from a country, from the economy and from the society of our country? Every day, more and more people start or part of organized crime. In December, and this is to conclude the idea I was expressing, it does just affect companies, but the civil society and the community because if people go out on the street, they're not sure if something is going to happen to them and if they will be robbed. And the country ended up paralyzed due to fear and lack of opportunities. So we were really down. And in December, the justice system together with the government, together with the prosecution office, it moved 900 officials to pursue corrupted elected people. And this changed a lot of things. And President Novoa issued a decree in January, beginning of January, that said that Ecuador was in a real state of shock. And by January, a second decree was issued where that state, but thanks to the actions taken the first day, because there were even television channels that were attacked by criminal bands, criminal gangs, there was a second decree was issued and declared things and called things with an armed non-international conflict. We have identified 22 terrorist groups within Ecuador. How can we help? How is Ecuador? What solution does Ecuador see? Yes, that's what I wanted to explain. Once all this happens, we gave power to the armed forces to help bringing order internally and this hadn't happened until now in Ecuador with the police. 95 percent of the population is in favor of the president's decision. So the citizenship was oppressed by criminal organized crime. And the population supports the government and the armed forces and the police so that they carry out their job in an opportune and efficient way. But the most beautiful thing we saw is that as we started calling things by their names and calling these people terrorists, Ecuador called for help. The whole international community responded and that's what I want to say. These are, of course, problems in a small country like Ecuador, but the responsibility is not just for Ecuador. This organized crime feeds from drug traffic and illegal mining. And this is a problem that affects many of our countries and both these industries, because they are industries, feed international organized crime. We're a transit country for drug. We don't produce or consume drugs, but this is not a producer country of drug. But we got the support of every country, and this is something I would like to point out. Yes, Minister Barroso and the president, Pedro, talked about the root cause of the problem and the international support to look for a solution. Vice president, this is your fourth year that you are working with your president, and what are the lessons you could share with us about your country, about what you succeeded that could be useful for the rest of Latin American countries? Yes, thank you, Marisol, for your invitation and warm greetings to my panelist colleagues on behalf of the president and on my own behalf. We're convinced that the learned lessons in government management revolve around strategic vision, as we did in the Dominican Republic. We recovered the economy and we guaranteed a better and greater social investment since 2020. And we saw that it was key as President Vuyami Naveed helped all of these sectors of society work on improving and we worked with the academia, with the state, but we gave a lot of relevance and support to the private sector without forgetting the civil society. This was greatly important for us to face the pandemic. We vaccinated the whole Dominican population and with this we succeeded to preserve lives. We are 10.7 million inhabitants, and if, as President Vuyami Naveed said, one casualty is too much. We had 4,500 people who died, unfortunately, due to COVID. So at the same time of this vaccination, we worked with the president Abinav Der. Let me work on the pandemic, and in the meantime he reactivated the economy. We didn't close tourism, we didn't lock tourism. And this was the best decision because today we may be proud of a collaboration model, a partnership between state, private and public initiatives. And last year we broke the record of 10 million visitors in the Dominican Republic. And this is a lesson we learned from ourselves but also from all our brother countries that surround us. We need to guarantee the institutionalization of our country and we need to reinforce democracy. And nothing is magic. The only magic is to keep on working from government in a transparent way to deal with corruption because fortune-free societies cannot accept corruption anymore because corruption means a bad standard of living for the inhabitants of our countries. So as President Abinav Der did, we fought corruption, we fought money laundering and we went to war against drug traffic as well. And all this, we translated it into a series of specific actions and public policies that improved the quality of life for all Dominicans. And we reinforced institutions and we kept working on influencing transparent and just policies, promoting companies and entrepreneurship, especially female entrepreneurship, youth entrepreneurship and training is essential. We need to help progress and innovation, yes, we need, of course, a technological transition and that's, yes, because of time we will be able to come back with a question so that you can tell us about the importance of innovation. I would also like to give the floor to the chair of the Inter-American Development Bank. What could we do to avoid a new lost decade as many believe? Here we all want to prevent this from happening. What can we do, President? Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity. It's a pleasure to be here. I think we're, to the contrary, we're facing unique opportunity. I think Latin America has the potential to be at a real turning point because for the first time I think we have a symmetrical relationship with the world. Latin America and the Caribbean was always kind of a side of the world and needed the world. But I think now the world needs Latin America and the Caribbean region because they are part of our revolution. I'm going to give you examples, the clean energy, and we know very well. Food production for the world, the Amazon and the biomass, or a sponge like President Petro says, these are world solutions. How can we make sure that we take this opportunity along? And I think that we need to be able to absorb influx and we need stability to take advantage of this opportunity. And the institutional relationships are quite relevant, as President Barroso said. And as many of you said, security is quite relevant because physical insecurity is prevailing and we need to stop that. And also we've had good growth periods from 23 to 2013, but this did not reflect in productivity here. We need to improve education and skills and once we have stability we need to generate productivity and innovation. Thank you, President. One very short question, integration in a region, in Latin America and the Caribbean region. In your opinion, what are the areas that have potential so that we can go forward in an effective and practical integration? This is where we see consensus. The IDB works where it sees that there are opportunities. I'll give you two examples. And for ever, this is a program we're carrying out and President Petru is here, other countries echoed or two, we've had, we saw a political will. And I think we have a unique opportunity of several players to play together. And I think that this is quite positive. And another example, in Mercosur they are discussing physical and digital integration. The route that comes from Brazil, Guyana and the Oceania, so the IDB is working and is going to invest $10 million to work on this. So I think that there's a moment where we can work on regional integration and the global context is quite polarized, fragmented, and this leads us to forces us to integrate more and more. Thank you for such a hopeful regional vision. I'd like to ask Marco Bulgaria about the role of the private sector, because it was already mentioned as a productivity and employment facilitator. In your opinion, what is the role of private sector and what is the sector of greater potential from your perspective, please? Thank you, Marisol. Yes, traditionally the role of the private sector is linked to investment and employment development, employment offer, but as President, Vice President Ebenia and as President of the IDB Elam said, we need to invest and we've seen examples where the private sector played a role of change player in Latin America. And I'll give you two examples, the food sector. The food sector doesn't usually offer much employment or uses much technology. And it presents low innovations, but in the last decades we've seen a revolution and this sector has started using new technologies and nowadays the food producer's work has totally changed. Direct sowing in Brazil and Argentina has helped and also the improvements of seeds has brought more productive hectares, which means more grain and therefore more food security for the world and also a better management of the earth, of the land. We also see innovation around the food companies. Nowadays a food producer as a processor is guided by GPS and uses digital technology and he monitors the hectares that he's sowing and cultivating with satellite images. And the sector where the private sector has been a change agent, but I think we need to continue to do it in the future. It is my sector, oil and gas. There's a great transformation that expects us, which is the energetic transformation. We need to be players of this energetic transition. We from Pan American are committed to it. We don't know which technology will help us to solve climate change, but we know that we need to produce as a sector, as an industry, we need to produce more energy for million consumers in order to support the growth of economies. But this needs to be an energy of lower emissions. We need to help decarbonize the energy used by our economies. We're doing it in the Americas and this is a way to be players and not victims of this process and we're investing in renewable energies, in bio fuel, in lithium as well and we see that throughout time, more and more companies are entering this process and therefore I'm convinced that private sector has a relevant role. Without an industry it will be harder to do and we have to self-impose to be leaders on the sector, in the sector. And I'd like to say that it is not just the private sector. We need a partnership with the public sector and of course with the financial bodies that need to finance these projects more and more. So I will ask you for more money and thank you very much. And this time for one closing remark, President Petro, as you all know, the central topic of a meeting in the World Economic Forum is rebuilding trust. How in a diverse and pluralized backdrop with players with different visions in a region, President, how can we reach consensus and progress towards more cooperation and a better integration? Well, there's always two ways, which is to increase division, fragmentation. In America, generally speaking, I'm not just speaking about the Chimney in the north with the CO2, but the forest in the south. So there's two ways to take it, either we continue this paradox and we separate again more north, which pollutes more and more, with greater levels of social destruction and the south, which keeps its potential without developing it. And a victim of violence, which is due to criminal organizations together with politics. So there's another way, which is the pact, the meeting up, looking for common objectives. And this way, together with a chimney, is a sponge, and it eliminates the chimney for the future of the planet. But we need to plan this option, and this means to reach agreement, to delocalize the American production towards Latin America. It means thinking of a common agreement as the president of the Inter-American Development Bank. It requires an integration in Latin America, but it requires also an American integration and in the European style and looking at Europe around a project. And what Europe did on carbon emissions, we need to do it with clean energy. Yes, we will do it, Mr. President. So we take this message on concern regarding public security that we need to solve in Latin America and also the relevance to finding consensus for a better integration and innovation and technology. Because I think that Latin America needs to push this, we can't be left behind. So thank you for such extraordinary personalities who have such a great responsibility to fulfill the Latin American dream. Thank you very much.