Gustavo Petro: "If we want peace and brotherhood, there must be a dialogue between civilizations"

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, inaugurated the CAF Forum in Panama together with six other heads of state, and called for the creation of a regional pact to face the challenges of our times.

During the opening of the meeting, the Colombian president called for the strengthening of dialogue among civilizations as a basis for peace building, highlighting human brotherhood, freedom and the defense of life as essential principles for the development of the region.

"If we want peace and brotherhood, there must be a dialogue among civilizations. Only from human brotherhood is freedom possible, and without integral freedom and the defense of life, we do not fully exist as human beings," said President Petro.

In his speech, the president also stressed the need to move towards a regional pact that places life and freedom at the center as fundamental axes of cooperation and integration in Latin America and the Caribbean.

"The pact that our region needs is a pact for life and liberty. Without life and liberty there is no civilization possible, nor future for our peoples," said Petro.

The inaugural session of the Forum was led by Sergio Díaz-Granados, CAF's Executive President, together with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil; Rodrigo Paz, President of Bolivia; Daniel Noboa, President of Ecuador; Bernardo Arévalo, President of Guatemala; Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia; Andrew Holness, Prime Minister of Jamaica; and the President-elect of Chile, José Antonio Kast.

During his speech, Sergio Díaz-Granados, CAF's executive president, underscored the historic nature of the meeting and the need to strengthen regional integration in the face of global challenges. "This Forum was created to think about how we can give our nations the necessary coordination capabilities and how we can strengthen our region, integrating among ourselves and with the rest of the world. In the midst of fragmentation, we need broad, bold and high-impact spaces for reflection to align positions, add geopolitical protagonism, and provide the region with its own voice to contribute concrete solutions and courses of action".

Díaz-Granados also highlighted CAF's role in supporting countries in solving regional problems and its expansion plans for the next 5 years: "We have the foundations to achieve exponential growth of our portfolio: we aspire to expand the bank by at least 70% by 2031, which means close to USD 100 billion in new approvals, and at least 20% of them for the private sector".