Head of state, experts from the private and public sectors, and representatives of civil society will be among the speakers and participants in three seminars on environmental concerns to be held in New Orleans March 25-26 during the Annual Meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank.
The forums will identify new strategies for Latin America and the Caribbean to meet the challenges of natural disasters, environmental protection, and the processes of climate change.
Forum on natural disasters
Heads of state and government from the countries of Central America and the Caribbean will be among those addressing a two-day seminar, March 25-26, that will analyze ways to reduce the vulnerabilities of countries in their region from the threat of natural disasters.
The seminar, to be held in the Morial Convention Center, will be inaugurated by IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias and will feature senior government decision-makers, experts from the public and private sectors, and representatives of civil society in the region. The participants will identify new mechanisms to prevent and mitigate disasters.
Among those participating will be the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, G.O.P. Obasi; the secretary general of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), José Antonio Ocampo; the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, James Lee Witt; the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, J. Brady Anderson; and the chief of the Japanese Disaster Prevention Bureau, National Land Agency, Akio Shimada.
The seminar, co-hosted by ECLAC and sponsored by the governments of Finland and Sweden, will explore the identification of ways to improve reaction capacity and strengthen institutions and sectors in infrastructure, housing, productive activities, organization, and early warning systems.
Representatives of Argentina, Central America and the Caribbean, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and the United States will participate in workshops on planning and building national and regional prevention systems.
Other panels will analyze international cooperation, transparency in the administration of resources, the role of the private sector and community participation and local alliances. Among the participants will be experts from the Pan American Health Organization, the United Nations Development Program, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the universities of New Orleans and Tulane.
At the close of the meeting IDB President Iglesias will present a new action plan of the Bank for preventing natural disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean that will represent the views of experts from the Bank and from the various sectors of the region involved in natural disasters.
The IDB has financial assistance to borrowing member countries suffering natural disasters and is chair of the Consultative Group for the Reconstruction and Transformation of Central America, a group of international donors that plays a vital role in mobilizing resources to counteract the devastation of Hurricane Mitch.
Forum on private sector and environment protection
Business leaders and innovative public officials concerned about environmental protection will participate in a forum on March 25 to identify challenges and investment opportunities for the private sector and to formulate a new vision to assure sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean.
President Iglesias will inaugurate the session and the keynote speaker will be Eugenio Clariond Reyes, the president and CEO of Grupo IMSA of Mexico and chairman of the Business Council for Sustainable Development-Latin America.
The seminar will bake place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Morial Convention Center.
A panel of experts from the public and private sectors from Colombia, United States, Japan and Peru will analyze a new perspective on business efficiency and environmental opportunities.
Participating in a panel on growing opportunities for investment in the environmental area are Eduardo Bitran Colodro, president of Fundación Chile; John Forgach, managing partner, Banco Axial, Brazil; and Roberto Artavia, president of the Incae university institute of Costa Rica.
Donald Terry, manager of the Multilateral Investment Fund _ a member of the IDB Group that promotes private sector growth, especially small business and microenterprise _ will close the seminar with a presentation on a new environmental strategy of the institution.
Forum on climate change
The issues of climate change, business opportunities in the environmental sector, and mitigating effects of natural disasters will also be addressed in a seminar at Tulane University from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. March 25 that is titled, "Responding to Climate Change: A Proposed Framework for Action."
The A.B. Freeman School of Business and the Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer are supporting the event.
A representative of the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will provide a vision of the convention and a report on progress in ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.
Ambassador Raul Estrada-Oyuela, who presided over the Plenary Committee of an environmental conference in Buenos Aires in 1997, will participate in a panel on business opportunities in confronting the challenge of climate change.
Presentations on steps taken to mobilize resources to mitigate the effect of global warming will be made by the Autonomous University of Mexico; a U.S.-Brazilian consortium on commercializing efficient technologies in Brazil, of the Aspen Institute; and The Nature Conservancy, on a forestry project in Bolivia.
The central themes of the seminar will be climate change, energy efficiency, renewable energy, sustainable transportation, carbon accumulation and sustainable development.
The three forums will be part of a series of 11 seminars programmed for March 23-29 in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the IDB in New Orleans. To obtain data on the seminars visit the Website of the IDB at: http://www.iadb.org . Click on Annual Meeting.
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