Economic turmoil in Latin America focus of meeting

Economic turmoil in Latin America focus of meeting
…………………………………………………………………

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News Staff

The political
consequences of economic turmoil in Latin America will be
the theme of Americas Project 2002 at the James A. Baker
III Institute for Public Policy Oct. 26-29. This colloquium
also will serve as a forum to present the Baker Institute’s
report on the state of the Latin American political economy.

“Strong
democracies, good governance and economic stability seem
like virtually unachievable goals for many Latin American
countries today,” said Erika de la Garza, program coordinator
for the Americas Project. “While most countries have
adopted the neoliberal economic policies promoted by international
financial institutions, many have yet to realize the promised
economic growth.”

Citing this year’s
presidential elections that resulted in a right-wing government
in Colombia and a left-wing candidate likely to win the
second round of elections in Brazil later this month, and
noting that the people of Argentina and Venezuela are calling
for early elections, de la Garza questioned whether economic
liberalization in the region has come to an end.

The 16 participants
who were invited to the Americas Project will analyze such
changes and their political, economic and social implications.

Established in
1997, the Americas Project creates a leadership forum where
a group of emerging economic, political and cultural pacesetters
throughout the Western Hemisphere can discuss solutions
to some of the most pressing challenges confronting the
nations of the Americas. The participants, or fellows, for
this year’s conference were selected competitively
from countries of the Western Hemisphere by the three coordinators
of the Americas Project: Rice’s Baker Institute, the
Organization of American States (OAS) and the Greater Houston
Partnership.

This year’s
fellows are from Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Brazil,
Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic,
Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru, United States,
Uruguay and Venezuela. They will conduct their discussions
in a private roundtable setting and then write policy recommendations
that will be sent to the OAS member states and Latin American
and North American embassies.

Roger Noriega,
the permanent representative of the United States to the
OAS, and Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogotá,
Colombia, will present keynote addresses. They will be webcast
at <http://bakerinstitute.org>
at 7 p.m. Oct. 27 and 5 p.m. Oct. 28, respectively.

Joe Barnes, a
research fellow at the Baker Institute, will moderate a
panel discussion of the Americas Project theme. Panelists
will be Michael Shifter from the Inter-American Dialogue;
Carlos Zarasaga from the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank; and
Kurt Weyland from The University of Texas at Austin. The
discussion will be webcast at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 27.

Ray Duch of the
University of Houston will present his Baker Institute report,
“State of the Latin American Political Economy,”
to the Americas Project fellows. The report summarizes the
findings of public opinion surveys that the institute has
been conducting this year in Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela
under Duch’s direction. The surveys were designed to
help understand how, and to what extent, economic issues
shape the political opinions and choices of the average
Latin American citizen. The Baker Institute report will
be posted on the Web at <http://bakerinstitute.org>.