The University of Miami hosted, on Wednesday July 13 and Thursday July 14, the 2022 edition of the Concordia Americas Summit, a regional event that presented a spectacular agenda, with panels made up of leaders from the public and private sectors, present to discuss , among others, on health, innovation, investment, sustainability, equity and national security.
The two-day event opened with remarks by Carmen Castillo, president and CEO of SDI International Corp, and featured keynotes by Eduardo Padrón, president emeritus of Miami Dade College, Ecuadorian president Guillermo Laso, and Miami mayor Francis Suárez. During this day, the 2022 Concordia Leadership Award was also delivered to the President of Colombia, Iván Duque Márquez.
The panels presented by the event delved into topics such as the situation of migrants and refugees in Latin America, progress in the West in terms of sustainability, the past and present impact of Covid-19, the importance of gender equality in politics , regional cooperation in economic development, the role of sport in educating young people, the mental health crisis, the future of democracy in Latin America, and the influence of China in South America.
Regarding Free Trade Zones, the Concordia Americas Summit held a panel entitled “Regional Dialogue on Free Zones, trade-based money laundering and port security,” moderated by David Luna, executive director at the International Coalition Against Illicit Economies, and the participation of Steve Francis, interim executive deputy director of Homeland Security Investigations (USA); Janio Rosales, Minister of Economy of Guatemala; Chad Wolf, President of Wolf Global Advisors and former Secretary of Homeland Security (USA); Grégoire Verdeaux, SVP of External Affairs at Philip Morris Products SA; Gastón Schulmeister, director of the Department Against Transnational Organized Crime at the OAS; Anthony Zook, Interim Executive Director of Product Integrity at Merck & Co. (MSD); and Ana Linda Solano, an expert in organized crime and corruption, today a consultant at Eurosocial+.
Beyond their focus on Free Trade Zones, the panelists exchanged experiences and opinions on the impact of illicit trade, the need for greater and better cooperation between countries and, at the same time, between the public and private sectors, the role that corruption plays in the scourge and the need to educate buyers about the impact of consuming illegal products.
Minister Rosales highlighted the results obtained in Guatemala after the creation of Coincon (the Inter-institutional Council for the Prevention, Combat of Tax Fraud and Customs Smuggling), but stressed that in order to achieve even more, it is necessary to “work in a more integrated manner with the other Central American countries.
“We have to face these challenges in a more coordinated way,” he said, with plans that go beyond the periods that governments have in power: “Most of our governments have periods of four or five years, but the plans must be 15 years and building trust takes time.
Ana Linda Solano, for her part, called for “understanding” the region, where “the problems we have with the FTZs are not the same” as those in Europe. “The vulnerabilities are different and in our region they exceed the FTZ, they happen in many areas,” she explained.
“The fight is in the entire economic ecosystem around it,” she noted. “We say that all crimes are related, but how can that be translated into a more holistic understanding of the problem? In Latin America we lack, not only analytics, but also the analytical capacity to understand the threat and translate that to a strategic level.”
“We have to share intelligence and as much as we can with the intention of creating, this was always a dream, a transnational working group through which we can work as one,” Ella Solano said.
“If we think about the investigations, Covid-19 brought a number of unique challenges because it led many people to increase their purchases on e-commerce platforms, including for medicines,” said Anthony Zook of Merck. “Many other pharmaceutical companies suffer the same and we share our tactics with our colleagues, because it allows us to consolidate intelligence on bad actors and act as a collective.”
Grégoire Verdeaux shared Philip Morris’s experience: “PMI is very involved in the fight against illicit trade. We have a problem in Latin America in particular and I want to focus on the Colon FTZ. We have to understand the volume of the problem: eight billion illegal cigarettes pass through Panama every year, most of them from China. Many of the economies in the region need those taxes that are evaded.
“The key is enforcement,” Verdeaux stressed. “In Panama you have adopted resolutions, but they were never forced. The private sector needs to take action too, and that’s what we’re doing at PMI by moving away from cigarettes. Innovation is part of the answer, because KPMG reported that in any region where alternatives to cigarettes are growing in double digits, illicit cigarette trade is down.”
Another big problem for the region is corruption, and Gastón Schulmesiter of the OAS emphasized this: “Organized crime needs corruption and corruption needs organized crime. That’s why it’s so hard to fight it. Organized crime has great power to adapt to new situations, as we saw during the pandemic. Human trafficking, drug trafficking or illegal mining require corruption at different levels. We must work on prevention, promote values in our officers and authorities, but also control, surveillance and monitoring mechanisms.
All panelists agreed that consumer education is critical to minimizing the impact of illicit trade: “We have to be much better, more proactive, in educating the public about illicit trade,” Francis said.
Innovation was the central theme of the panel “Transformation of the industry: a necessity for public-private collaboration in Latin America”, which was held on Thursday with the moderation of Germán Alcayde, executive chairman of Atlantic Business Consulting. Participating on the panel were Grégoire Verdeaux (PMI); H. E. Laura Chinchilla, Vice President of the Club of Madrid of the World Leadership Alliance; and José Ignacio Paliza, administrative minister of the Presidency of the Dominican Republic.
Verdeaux detailed figures on the “necessary” transformation that the tobacco industry must have to provide a healthier product to the 1,000 million smokers who are estimated not to give up nicotine by 2024. “The tobacco industry has to change,” he assured. “There are adults who will not stop smoking, but we can offer them something that is less harmful.”
The Philip Morris executive commented how the multinational has worked to “remove combustion” from nicotine consumption, because “most of the components that cause damage and generate health hazards” come from smoke. “Products that eliminate combustion are better alternatives to continuing to smoke,” he said. “In Japan, the number of cigarette smokers has decreased by 44% over the last 5 years. We are hopeful that combustion in cigarettes will disappear in many countries by 2030.”
Innovation is necessary and requires creativity, as José Ignacio Paliza highlighted, citing as an example the Dominican government’s decision to offer tourists “Covid-19 insurance” during the pandemic: “We were the only country to do that during the pandemic and thus we were able to ensure the health of our people and, at the same time, open our borders and have the main engine of our economy, which is tourism, working.”
The Dominican Republic has become a beacon for the region with a growing economy that is expected to exceed 6% during this 2022. “We are breaking our records and receiving more tourists than ever. This is because we accepted the challenges and we had the capacity to respond successfully with public and private policies,” said the political leader.
The work that private companies do in this research, in this data analysis, was praised by Steve Francis: “We love it when the research is so good that we can accept it as if it came on a silver platter,” joked the member of HomelandSecurity.
“Association between public and private is key to achieving results. The private sector can innovate, provide technology that supports public investigation and prosecution work,” added Chad Wolf.
“If we think about the investigations, Covid-19 brought a number of unique challenges because it led many people to increase their purchases on e-commerce platforms, including for medicines,” said Anthony Zook of Merck. “Many other pharmaceutical companies suffer the same and we share our tactics with our colleagues, because it allows us to consolidate intelligence on bad actors and act as a collective.”
Grégoire Verdeaux shared Philip Morris’s experience: “PMI is very involved in the fight against illicit trade. We have a problem in Latin America in particular and I want to focus on the Colon FTZ. We have to understand the volume of the problem: eight billion illegal cigarettes pass through Panama every year, most of them from China. Many of the economies in the region need those taxes that are evaded.
“The key is enforcement,” Verdeaux stressed. “In Panama you have adopted resolutions, but they were never forced. The private sector needs to take action too, and that’s what we’re doing at PMI by moving away from cigarettes. Innovation is part of the answer, because KPMG reported that in any region where alternatives to cigarettes are growing in double digits, illicit cigarette trade is down.”
Another big problem for the region is corruption, and Gastón Schulmesiter of the OAS emphasized this: “Organized crime needs corruption and corruption needs organized crime. That’s why it’s so hard to fight it. Organized crime has great power to adapt to new situations, as we saw during the pandemic. Human trafficking, drug trafficking or illegal mining require corruption at different levels. We must work on prevention, promote values in our officers and authorities, but also control, surveillance and monitoring mechanisms.
All panelists agreed that consumer education is critical to minimizing the impact of illicit trade: “We have to be much better, more proactive, in educating the public about illicit trade,” Francis said.
Innovation was the central theme of the panel “Transformation of the industry: a necessity for public-private collaboration in Latin America”, which was held on Thursday with the moderation of Germán Alcayde, executive chairman of Atlantic Business Consulting. Participating on the panel were Grégoire Verdeaux (PMI); H. E. Laura Chinchilla, Vice President of the Club of Madrid of the World Leadership Alliance; and José Ignacio Paliza, administrative minister of the Presidency of the Dominican Republic.
Verdeaux detailed figures on the “necessary” transformation that the tobacco industry must have to provide a healthier product to the 1,000 million smokers who are estimated not to give up nicotine by 2024. “The tobacco industry has to change,” he assured. “There are adults who will not stop smoking, but we can offer them something that is less harmful.”
The Philip Morris executive commented how the multinational has worked to “remove combustion” from nicotine consumption, because “most of the components that cause damage and generate health hazards” come from smoke. “Products that eliminate combustion are better alternatives to continuing to smoke,” he said. “In Japan, the number of cigarette smokers has decreased by 44% over the last 5 years. We are hopeful that combustion in cigarettes will disappear in many countries by 2030.”
Innovation is necessary and requires creativity, as José Ignacio Paliza highlighted, citing as an example the Dominican government’s decision to offer tourists “Covid-19 insurance” during the pandemic: “We were the only country to do that during the pandemic and thus we were able to ensure the health of our people and, at the same time, open our borders and have the main engine of our economy, which is tourism, working.”
The Dominican Republic has become a beacon for the region with a growing economy that is expected to exceed 6% during this 2022. “We are breaking our records and receiving more tourists than ever. This is because we accepted the challenges and we had the capacity to respond successfully with public and private policies,” said the political leader.
Regarding challenges, Laura Chinchilla pointed out that the region must establish priorities, in the short and long term, strategic lines inspired by the government, but in consultation with the private sector. “Pragmatism must be important, we must put aside ideological concerns and act as the Dominican Republic, Panama, Uruguay and Chile have done, to name a few countries where we find good examples,” she said.
Chinchilla lamented the impact of the pandemic on the education of children in the region – “40% of children in Latin America were totally disconnected from our schools,” he explained – and assured that there are three gaps that Latin America must seek to close: the economic, the technological and the gender.
Another prominent panel on the second day of the event focused on the role of women as leaders and mentors. Dr. Kari Kammel, Assistant Director of A-CAPP, Michigan State University’s Center for Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection, moderated the panel titled “Women in Homeland Security: Contributions to Security in the Public, Private, and Security Sectors.” civil society”. Participants included Ana Linda Solano, Heather Fischer, senior advisor on Human Rights Crimes at Thomson Reuters Special Services; and Cecilia Pérez Rivas, Minister Adviser on Security Affairs to the Presidency of Paraguay.
The panel worked on two axes: the obstacles that society puts in front of women to achieve leadership roles in matters of national security and the need for those who achieve it to work for the growth of the next generations of women leaders.
“Many times having a woman is considered something that is mandatory, but that does not mean that all women’s perspectives are represented,” Solano explained. “We live in a world that is designed considering that the male voice is the neutral one. We do not consider the needs of women. And this applies to national security. The numbers don’t lie: peace treaties that have women as mediators achieve results for longer. It makes no sense that it is more successful to have women in your work groups, but that this does not happen anymore.».
“What matters is the quality of the representation. We need access, we need to get there, but when we get there, we need it to be a quality role, to be heard,” she added.
“The question we get asked is always whether these roles are scary. Yes, they are scary, but it also happens to men and no one asks them. They are difficult positions, designed for men, but because they are scary, it does not mean that they paralyze us”, agreed Cecilia Pérez.
On the role that women leaders should have, Heather Fischer assured that there are social impositions that hinder what should be the norm: sisterhood. “There is a mentality that there is only one place at the table for women leaders and this has generated enormous damage in the relationships between women, who feel that someone else will take that place away from them,” she lamented. “This is changing and must change. Secretary [Madeleine] Albright said it well: ‘There is a special place for women who don’t support other women.'”
“In Colombia you have women in positions of power and decision-making; I am very proud of what many of them have achieved,” said Solano. “But it’s like we have an extra tax to show that we’re good enough to get to those positions. That extra step shows us that we have not reached the place we should in society.
“Sorority is something very important, especially in Latin America where it is difficult to reach these places of leadership,” Pérez said.
In addition to the panels, the event allowed networking stages and talks in round tables that expanded on the topics discussed by the leaders present in Miami.
Brands Protection News
brandsprotectionnews.com