TIME & LOCATION
Sunday, April 11th, 2021 at 6:30pm EST
Hosted on Zoom - the link will be emailed to you after registration
ABOUT THE EVENT
Within the next three years, the IMF predicts that close to 22 Latin American countries are at risk of default within the next two years, posing potential challenges and monetary restraints for international financial institutions such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), World Bank, and the China Development Bank.
This event, Global Prospects | The Role of Multilateral Actors in Post-Covid Latin America Development is part of the 2021 DPE Symposium and Global Prospects Virtual Series: Leadership and Transformation in Times of Crisis. The series addresses the challenges brought globally and regionally by the COVID-19 pandemic and their political, economic, and cultural effects. This event will promote a high level of discourse regarding the current situation in the region's debt restructuring process and the potential risks of another "lost decade".
In this discussion, we will hear the perspective of Margaret Myers, the Director of the Asia & Latin America Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, Gerardo Berthin, the Director of the Latin America and Caribbean Programs at Freedom House, and Mauricio Silva, the former Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Executive Director for El Salvador, about the implications of the region's economic standing and the role of multilateral actors in promoting investment.
This event is co-sponsored by the Onero Institute, LATAM @ GW, and the Delta Phi Epsilon Professional Foreign Service Fraternity and Sorority at GWU.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Mauricio Silva worked for more than 40 years in public administration in his country El Salvador and internationally. In El Salvador, he was founder, CEO, or president of several nonprofit organizations, undersecretary of planning, advisor to Monseñor Romero and to the mayor of the capital city, as well as manager of the presidential campaign of the latter. He is a columnist for the electronic papers El Faro and Factum. Internationally he worked for more than twenty years in the World Bank and the Inter American Development Bank (IDB). At IDB Silva was director for Central America in its board of directors. He serves on the board of directors of the nonprofit organizations, La Clínica del Pueblo in Washington, D.C., and the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA). He is a professor of Management of Social Programs in the Master of Public Policy Program at the Jesuit University of El Salvador (UCA). Silva has an MPA from Harvard and a Ph.D. (ABD) from MIT.
Margaret Myers is director of the Asia & Latin America Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, where she has published extensively on China’s relations with the Latin America and Caribbean region. The Political Economy of China-Latin America Relations and The Changing Currents of Trans-Pacific Integration: China, the TPP, and Beyond, her co-edited volumes with Dr. Carol Wise and Dr. Adrian Hearn, respectively, were published in 2016. Myers has also recently testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on the China-Latin America relationship and is regularly featured in major domestic and international media. Myers previously worked as a Latin America analyst and China analyst for the US Department of Defense, during which time she was deployed with the US Navy in support of Partnership of the Americas. Myers is a Council on Foreign Relations term member. She was the recipient of a Freeman fellowship for China studies and a Fulbright Specialist grant to research China-Colombia relations in Bogotá. In 2018, she was identified by Global Americans as one of the “new generation of public intellectuals.”
Gerardo Berthin is a political scientist specializing in applied democratic governance policy in areas related to local governance and decentralization, transparency, accountability, anti-corruption, and human rights. He has over two decades of experience as a program officer, director, chief of party, and/or senior technical policy adviser for various large and complex democratic governance policy reform programs. He is the author of two books on political development and democracy, co-author of three books about democratic governance, political parties, and institutional development respectively, and is the author of over 30 articles in specialized peer-reviewed social science journals. He is also an author and co-author of 12 UNDP National Human Development Reports on various democratic governance issues in a number of countries around the world (Bolivia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Moldova). He is the author and co-author of over 130 technical documents covering various democratic governance topics.
Mr. Berthin is currently the Director for Latin America and Caribbean Program at Freedom House in Washington D.C.. Prior to joining Freedom House, he was for 6 years a Senior Advisor on Democratic Governance at Tetra Tech, one of the largest consulting firms in the United States, providing technical and operational advice to projects in Mexico, El Salvador, Peru, and Colombia. For over 5 years, Mr. Berthin served as the Governance and Decentralization Policy Adviser at the UNDP Service Center for Latin America and the Caribbean in Panama, providing technical support to over 20 UNDP Country Offices throughout the region. Mr. Berthin graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in International Politics from George Washington University, he holds two Masters Degrees: one in Political Science from The University of Chicago, the other in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Marcos Nordenstahl is studying at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington. Originally from Argentina, he has since lived in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Singapore, and now resides in Washington, DC. His life spent in cultural intersections has given him a uniquely international and diverse view, which he hopes to use in a future career in law.
