CAF Forum: Latin America and the Caribbean claim a global space of their own

In a global context marked by geopolitical fragmentation, bilateralism and uncertainty in international trade, Latin America and the Caribbean raised its voice on the first day of the International Economic Forum, organized by CAF -development bank of Latin America and the Caribbean.

With the participation of the heads of state of Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala and Jamaica, the president-elect of Chile and more than 6,500 experts and global political and business leaders, the forum left the consensus that the region must and can leave behind its condition of "continent of lost opportunities" to emerge as a space for solutions.

This is an unprecedented meeting, both in terms of the number of heads of state and global leaders and the representation of all ideological positions, which also vindicates multilateralism in Latin America and the Caribbean. The 2026 International Economic Forum aims to be the place to ask uncomfortable questions, examine successes and failures, and listen to profound approaches.

CAF's executive president, Sergio Díaz-Granados, said that "the global panorama offers us an unprecedented scenario: we are experiencing a schism in the rules-based system. An imperfect system, but one that provided a floor of certainty, today faces another centered on interests and disputes for the control of essential elements for the digital and energy transitions".

The call for unity and integration also came from the other presidents. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, defended multilateralism and cooperation as inalienable pillars. "To remain divided makes us all more fragile," he told the plenary. "In a context of the breakdown of the liberal order, the resurgence of protectionism and unilateralism, Latin America and the Caribbean need to act with pragmatism and assume that possible integration is based on plurality, cooperation and concrete results".

For his part, Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia, stressed during his speech the importance of promoting dialogue among civilizations as a basis for building peace, as well as the value of human brotherhood as an essential condition for freedom and the defense of life. "If we want peace and brotherhood, there must be a dialogue between civilizations. Only from human brotherhood is freedom possible, and without integral freedom and without the defense of life, we do not fully exist as human beings."

The President of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, stressed the importance of privileging dialogue and regional cooperation. "Our peoples ask us to work more on coincidences than on differences. Panama is not a competitor of the countries, but a complement to their economies and the canal is at the service of Latin America and the Caribbean," he said. The president also thanked CAF and the leaders present for their joint efforts to promote a shared regional agenda.

Rodrigo Paz, President of Bolivia, said that Latin America must once again begin to build its destiny with truth; a truth based on the culture of verifiable trust between countries, governments and societies." Paz also questioned the ideological approaches that hold back productive development and said that employment, education and economic integration must be at the center of the regional agenda.

The discussion also tackled head-on the internal challenges that limit regional potential. The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, focused his message on the intrinsic relationship between economic stability, citizen security and social welfare. He made an explicit call to armor nations against the scourge of drug trafficking and to broaden the metrics of progress beyond Gross Domestic Product.

This view was reinforced by Chile's president-elect, José Antonio Kast, who warned that "without security, democracy is a fiction." Kast stressed that the advance of transnational organized crime represents an existential threat to democratic institutions and that confronting it requires "tough, effective and uncomplicated" regional cooperation.

"For too long, our region has been described primarily through the language of vulnerability," said Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness. "But vulnerability is not destiny. We are not peripheral to the global system; we are central to its stability, sustainability and future growth."

The President of Guatemala, Bernardo Arevalo, agreed on the urgency of a clear and coordinated course. "We need more unity, more integration, coordination and interconnection, as well as a renewed commitment to an international system based on law and peace and solid and sustainable financing for development," he said. His intervention emphasized the need to translate the principles into financial and governance mechanisms that materialize cooperation.

The leaders converged on the idea that global dilemmas -from energy transition to inequality- and regional challenges -such as inequality, insecurity and the need for industrialization- need collective responses .

The first day of the CAF Forum in Panama laid the groundwork for an agenda for collective action. The region not only claims a global space of its own, but demonstrates, through dialogue and the identification of priorities, that it can build it. For two days, the CAF Forum in Panama will discuss how to generate political consensus on concrete projects for physical, digital, trade and security integration, with the aim of positioning Latin America and the Caribbean as an indispensable bloc for the future of global development.

The agenda includes key issues such as economic growth, regional integration, sustainability, investment, inclusion and competitiveness, with the aim of building, from dialogue, concrete solutions that promote the development of the region.