Dominican President Luis Abinader called on Ibero-American leaders to consider a model of fair, ecological and sustainable development for tourism, given the impact that climate change has on this sector, in addition to the crisis caused by the pandemic.
In his speech at the XXVII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government in Andorra, where the Dominican Republic will take over the pro tempore presidency of this conclave, the Dominican President stressed that the degradation of marine ecosystems and sea level rise destroy our shores.
“Friends, the world has reached a turning point, which forces us to consider another model of development, fair, ecological and sustainable. We will triumph together or we will fail separately, the decision is only ours “, the head of the Dominican state concluded with this speech.
Following Abinader’s full speech at the Ibero-American Summit
President Abinader’s speech for the Ibero-American Summit – Andorra 2020
Dear friends,
At the moment, our region and the world are facing great challenges that can only be addressed through renewed multilateralism. Indeed, in the face of the pandemic, the climate emergency, the technological transformation and the need to articulate a new paradigm for the welfare state, it is necessary to strengthen the unity and cooperation between the Ibero-American peoples.
The Dominican government, like other countries, has made enormous efforts to mitigate the effects of this economic and health crisis by allocating large funds to the most affected sectors of the population so that they are not left unprotected by the loss of income. But, in addition, we used health resources to stop the growth of the contagion and we successfully started the vaccination process.
Before the pandemic, however, in Latin America, a crisis of regionalism was evident in the paralysis of integration mechanisms and in the disintegration that our countries have shown in multilateral fora.
During this period, there was also some economic stagnation, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, which recorded the lowest increase in the period from 2014 to 2019.
Dear colleagues, these are very worrying data that force us to redouble our efforts for regional integration and the strengthening of multilateralism.
To achieve this, there is an urgent need to reorient our public spending priorities and the way we govern our societies. It is necessary to move to a model of development that seeks a fairer distribution of the great wealth that humanity can generate today, the protection of human rights and the environment, as well as the updating of democratic political institutions to new technologies.
This new paradigm must be geared towards the protection of democracy and human rights, above all, in the face of the risks posed by inequality and crises, which, like the current one, place great stress on democratic governance.
As ECLAC stressed: “To deal with the health crisis, political and social pacts will be needed, which are built with the participation of a wide variety of actors, which will make it possible to universalize social protection and health …”.
The universality of the disease and the crisis have strengthened the interconnection in the world. Diversity, equity and solidarity are principles that penetrate more intensely into a more complex, diverse and global social fabric.
The feeling of vulnerability, which we suddenly discover due to the virus, makes our responsibility to the planet more obvious and should lead us to make decisions to reverse the trajectory we have taken so far.
However, and despite the need for a renewed multilateral vision, in the process of distributing vaccines against Covid-19, we have noticed that the richest countries have adopted accumulation policies that refuse, in an unfortunate and unfair way, access to them. in a reduced way. and middle-income countries, contrary to any notion of human solidarity.
To be clear. We do not advocate for humanitarian aid or charitable funds. What we propose is an alliance for development that allows us to move as a region to a new productive and redistributive model.
I cannot conclude this speech without referring to the tourism sector, which has been, for us and other countries, an engine of economic growth for decades. This important sector is extremely affected by the health crisis and, beyond that, in the Caribbean, the effects of climate change are already being felt, as the degradation of marine ecosystems and rising sea levels are destroying our shores.
Friends, the world has reached a turning point, which forces us to consider another model of development, fair, ecological and sustainable. We will succeed together or we will fail separately, the decision is only ours. Thank you.