Eminent personalities gather in Buenos Aires for conference organized by IDB, University of Buenos Aires, Andean Development Corporation, France and Norway
BUENOS AIRES – Inter-American Development Bank President Enrique V. Iglesias today urged Latin America and the Caribbean to address ethical issues and called for reflection on the relationship between ethics and economics.
“Efforts at development and ethics, in both theory and practice, should be integrated,” Iglesias said before 1,700 persons at the opening of an international conference on “The Challenge of Ethics in Development” held Sept. 5 and 6 at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires.
Among the audience of university professors, intellectuals, politicians, private sector executives, representatives of civil society and interested citizens were 750 academics from 88 universities in 17 countries.
“This heavy attendance at the conference indicates that Latin America is paying attention to the debate, held with the participation of business and management schools on strengthening ethical formation,” Iglesias said.
Noting the current economic crises in the Southern Cone nations of South America, Iglesias commented, “We are in difficult times, but we will overcome them. I have confidence in the capacity of society to respond and with its ability to seek new solutions.”
The conference was organized by the Inter-American Initiative on Social Capital, Ethics and Development of the IDB and the University of Buenos Aires. It was supported by the governments of France and Norway and the Andean Development Corporation, as well as by several other national, regional and international organizations.
Participating on the inaugural panel were the Norwegian ambassador to Argentina, Sissel Breie; the President of the University of Buenos Aires, Guillermo Jaime Etcheverry; the dean of the Faculty of Economic Sciences, Carlos Aníbal Degrossi; the president of the Asociación de Facultades de Economía de América Latina, Arturo Díaz Alonso; and the coordinator of the IDB initiative, Bernardo Kliksberg.
Participants in the conference analyzed different innovative aspects of the ethical dimension, such as the relationship between ethics and economics, ethics in the design of development policies, ethical responsibility of the different participants in society, social responsibility of the private sector, enhancement of volunteer service and the promotion of ethical values.
In a special video message to the conference, Nobel Prizewinner Amartya Sen, describing ethical values as part of the productive assets of entrepreneurs and professionals, warned that economic science had lost purpose because of its divorce from ethics.
Sen reiterated the pertinence of ethical issues and the need for institutions and rules of conduct, as demonstrated by the recent scandals of large North American enterprises or by the toll of human lives and economic terror in post-Soviet Russia. He emphasized the need to deepen the debate on ethics and development and to mobilize interest so the debate will have a long-lasting impact.
Commenting on the ideas of Adam Smith, Sen said self-interest and trade are insufficient to achieve ethical conduct. He said institutions to enforce legal measures, monitoring, auditing and accounting are also necessary.
For his part, the dean of the Faculty of Economic Sciences, Carlos Degrossi, urged that “universities take the vanguard to recuperate the relationship between ethics and economics and to actively incorporate in curricula an analysis of the ethical challenges in the different areas of academic formation, especially in economics and management.”
Among the personalities participating in the conference were Edgar Morin, the director of the national center for scientific research in France; the founder of the Centre Sociologie Organisations of France, Michel Crozier; former Costa Rica Vice President Rebeca Grynspan; the director of the Center for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo, Desmond McNeill; economist Ignacy Sachs; the rector of the Catholic University of Venezuela, Luis Ugalde; the rector of the Hurtado University of Chile, Fernando Montes; the president of the Asociación de Bancos de la Argentina, Carlos Heller; and other distinghished representatives of the private sector, academia, the political arena and civil society.
Kliksberg noted that university-level schools of economics and business, with more than 500,000 students, will have a multiplier effect when they promote the importance of social capital and the great ethical issues of development.
“The idea of integrating efforts to develop a culture of ethical values can empower fundamental areas of activity to meet the challenge of widespread poverty and to promote social responsibility by the private sector, community participation and volunteer service,” Kliksberg added.
Workshops were organized during the conference to produce guidelines and recommendations on forming ethical values and social capital that can be applied by economists, managers, accountants, administrators and other professionals linked to the development process. Participants also analyzed ways to promote a national agenda for discussion and action on ethics and development.