- More than 50 former policymakers, academics, civil society and business leaders from across the Americas engaged in nonpartisan discussion and analysis over the past 12 months to examine three of the region’s most pressing challenges.
- The high-level delegation—that spans across 10 countries in the Americas—drafted over two-dozen recommendations as a roadmap to build a more prosperous and secure hemisphere.
Washington, DC, November 4 — As a response to the current global and hemispheric challenges, the Global Americans High Level Working Group on Inter-American Relations and Bipartisanship released today three new policy papers containing over two-dozen recommendations on the challenges of the Venezuelan refugee crisis and the hemisphere’s collective responsibility in providing humanitarian assistance; the Caribbean’s extreme vulnerability to climate change; and the role of Latin America and the Caribbean in addressing the global challenges of the 21st century.
The three new set of papers will complement the group’s first round of recommendations released in April 2018, laying out members’ consensus opinions on: economic integration and trade; combating organized crime and narcotics trafficking; greater U.S.-Latin America collaboration on anti-corruption; expanding and improving education exchanges in the Americas; and the rising influence of extra-hemispheric actors.
The group, that comprises over 50 former policymakers, academics, civil society and business leaders from across 10 countries, engaged in bipartisan dialogue for over 12 months to provide tactical and long-term consensus solutions to these three issues, deemed by the group as the region’s most urgent challenges.
Co-chaired by Mr. Enrique García (Bolivia), Ambassador Maria Ángela Holguín (Colombia), Dame Billie Miller (Barbados), Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan (Mexico) and Ambassador Alexander Watson (United States), the one-year project’s goal was to develop non-partisan and regional recommendations to help the governments of the Americas build and improve on the achievements of the past two decades of inter-American relations, and to build upon the previous set of recommendations released in 2018. The group also calls for greater involvement of the private sector, civil society and academia in identifying and creating spaces for joint collaboration over the long-term.
According to Ambassador Alexander Watson, co-chair and former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs under President Bill Clinton, the group “looks beyond the swirl of current events to identify important issues that seriously affect many countries in the Western Hemisphere, and that can and must be addressed by collaborative efforts that need not be inhibited by political partisanship.”
During the coming months, the co-chairs and working group representatives will meet with key decision makers in Washington, D.C. and abroad to present the delegation’s recommendations under a unified and strong voice. “Our commitment is to produce high level recommendations to keep pushing the conversation in D.C. and abroad. While the challenges we address have become charged political issues, we believe the countries of the Americas can—and must—come together to produce a more secure, resilient and prosperous hemisphere for the benefit of its citizens and future generations across borders” says Arturo Sarukhan, co-chair and former Mexico Ambassador to the United States.
“The group’s recommendations bring attention to and provide solutions to issues at the local and regional level in a unique and feasible way” mentions Dame Billie Miller, co-chair and former Deputy Prime Minister of Barbados. In the case of the Caribbean’s extreme vulnerability to climate change—an issue the co-chair has been advocating for during the past years—the group’s recommendations provide a practical pathway that allows state, civil and private actors to build a resilience agenda to mobilize against the trickle-down effects of climate change in a fast, but coordinated way.
All working group’s recommendations for both the 2018 and 2019 policy papers are available to the public on the Global Americans website.
