The First High-Level Meeting of the Infrastructure and Transportation Network of the Brasilia Consensus was held on December 3 and 4, in Bogotá, Colombia. FONPLATA’s Country Coordinator for Bolivia, Blas Rozada, and Senior Technical Cooperation Specialist, José Lupo, represented de Bank. The main purpose of FONPLATA was to align its integration activities with the guidelines of the Brasilia Consensus and to learn about the needs of its 12 South American countries.

Discussions during the event highlighted the need to balance collaboration and competitiveness in economies, prioritizing safety, accessibility, and connectivity, and handled software coexistence to optimize resources and the dichotomy between large businesses and peripheral areas, underscoring the urgency of integrating environmental aspects and making regulations more flexible.

An Infrastructure Observatory was presented as a strategic tool to promote integration, investment, and business opportunities in the Brasilia Consensus, and the importance of territorial approaches in cultural projects, multimodal logistics for cargo and passengers, and tourism as a driver of integration was highlighted.

In addition, the potential of waterways in Latin America, the need to improve railway infrastructure and interoperability, and the relevance of efficient interregional trade for economic development were analyzed.

During the panel on Financing and international cooperation mechanisms, Blas Rozada, representing FONPLATA, and representatives of the IDB and CAF underscored the need of defining a methodology to determine the projects to be jointly conducted and how they should be articulated. The importance of interinstitutional collaboration for regional integration was emphasized, highlighting the relevance of the 20-year sustained effort of joint work on institutional coordination for regional integration. The participants also recalled the importance of the Alliance for ILAT Development, made up by IDB, CAF and FONPLATA, which provides technical and financial support to integration infrastructure projects.

The commitment of all the three banks to evaluate development opportunities in different areas was reaffirmed, with a focus on effective solutions to meet the demands of each country, as well as the calibration of three-dimensional border integration solutions, to be adapted to their particularities

Finally, the importance of gathering information on the needs of each nation to offer support and collaboration was stressed, nonetheless, leaving the final decisions in the hands of each country.

12/05/2024