Wise Words from Luis Abinader - Beyond Covid19

Lennox you stated

"The covid19 situation is deteriorating rapidly worldwide with new record totals of cases and deaths daily with no respite in sight and little help from vaccines for most countries

I'm pleased to report the opposite in the UK where where the rates continue to fall on a daily basis with 44m people having been vaccinated.

President Abinader at the Ibero-American Summit: "There is an urgent need for a development model with a fairer distribution of the world's wealth"

https://presidencia.gob.do/noticias/pre … lo-con-una

ANDORRA. - President Luis Abinader raised this Wednesday at the XXVII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government the urgency of moving towards a development model that seeks a fairer distribution of the great wealth generated by humanity.

The Dominican president said that, 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 reinforce unity and cooperation among the Ibero-American peoples.

"This new paradigm must be oriented 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, generate great stress on democratic governance," said the president. Abinader.

He also called for the need to protect human rights and the environment, as well as the updating of democratic political institutions to new technologies.

He cited the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in the sense that “To face the health crisis, political and social pacts will be needed that build with the participation of a wide variety of actors, which allow universal protection social and health… ”.

He insisted that at this time the region and the world are facing great challenges that can only be addressed from a renewed multilateralism.

“The Dominican Government, like that of other countries, has made enormous efforts to alleviate the effects of this health and economic crisis, allocating large funds to the most affected sectors of the population, so that they will not be left unprotected by the loss of income. ”Said the Dominican president.

In addition, he said that he has made a deployment of health resources to stop the increase in contagion and successfully started the vaccination process.

He observed, however, that prior to the pandemic, in Latin America a crisis of regionalism was evident in terms of the paralysis of integration mechanisms and the disintegration that our countries showed in multilateral forums.

In that period, likewise, there was a certain economic stagnation, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, which registered, in the 2014-2019 period, the lowest growth since the 1950s.

"Dear colleagues, these are very worrying data that force us to redouble our efforts for regional integration and the strengthening of multilateralism," he proposed.

To achieve this, he pointed out, a reorientation in public spending priorities and in the way societies are governed is urgently needed.

"Friends, the world has reached a turning point that forces us to consider another model of development, fair, green and sustainable," he also said.

Hoarding developed countries

President Abinader criticized that, despite the need for a renewed multilateral vision, in the process of distribution of vaccines against Covid-19 it has been observed that the most developed countries have adopted hoarding policies that they deny, in a regrettable way and unfair, access to them in low- and middle-income countries, in contradiction with any notion of human solidarity.

"Let it be clear. We are not advocating for humanitarian aid or charitable funds. What we are proposing is an alliance for development that allows us to move as a region to a new productive and redistributive model, ”the president warned.

He understands that the universality of the disease and the crisis have strengthened the interconnection in the world.

He stated that the feeling of vulnerability uncovered by the virus, makes the responsibility to the planet more evident, and to make decisions to reverse the trajectory.

Impact on tourism

President Abinader also referred to the impact of the pandemic on the tourism sector, which has been for the Dominican Republic, and other countries, an engine of economic growth for decades.

And beyond this juncture, he indicated that, in the Caribbean, the effects caused by climate change are already being felt as the degradation of marine ecosystems and the rise in sea level that destroy our coasts.

In the Ibero-American Summit, which concludes today, five countries will participate in person and 17 with virtual presentations.