Foreign Ministers Summit of the Association of Caribbean States
Panama: December 13, 1999

The Association of Caribbean States invited the Global Academy Institute for Globalization, Human Rights and Leadership to create an educational and dialogue project for their meeting of foreign ministers, timed to coincide with the celebrations of the handover of the Panama Canal.

Participants:
Hana Ayala, Ph.D., consultant, Panama Tourist Planning, U.S.A
Roberto Eisenmann, former publisher of La Prensa, a leading Panamanian newspaper
Walter Link, chairman, Global Academy
John Naisbitt, author, consultant, and entrepreneur
Theodore Panayotou, Ph.D., director of the Environmental and Sustainable Development Program, Center for Internal Development, Harvard University

The group of distinguished experts assembled by the Institute for Globalization, Human Rights and Leadership briefed the foreign ministers of the Association of Caribbean States on the following core issues:
Micro-lending
Corporate and social responsibility
Environmental sustainability
Ecologically and culturally oriented tourism
Corruption
Cooperation between civil society and the business sector

The briefing was so well received that the Ibero-American Summit of Governments asked the Global Academy to design a similar program for its 2000 meeting of Health Ministers.

Biographies of Participants:
Hana Ayala, Ph.D., is president of EcoResorts International and originator of the TCR economic development model which intertwines the growth of tourism and the hotel industry with conservation of natural and cultural resources and the advancements of science into a strategic partnership with the capability to drive sustainable development. Dr. Ayala is acting as a consultant for the TCR Action Plan for Panama. She is a landscape ecologist and former professor at the University of California, Irvine.
Roberto Eisenmann is founding editor and former publisher of La Prensa, a leading Panamanian newspaper. Educated at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and a Neiman Fellow at Harvard, Mr. Eisenmann is a successful businessman and banker. In 1995, he left the paper he founded, but he still writes articles for it. He is president of Transparency International for Panama and chairman of the board of the Latin American Center for Journalism (CELAP)
Walter Link is chairman of the Global Academy, whose work ranges from corporate responsibility and the environment to human rights, education, genetic technology, consciousness, and medicine.
John Naisbitt is the author of such best-sellers as Megatrends and High Tech High Touch and eight other books, is a much sought-after speaker, and advisor to many of the world’s leading corporations and heads of state. Mr. Naisbitt has been an executive with IBM and Eastman Kodak, as well as a successful entrepreneur. He holds 12 honorary doctorates in the humanities and sciences and has been a visiting fellow at Harvard University. He is currently Distinguished International Fellow, Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.
Theodore Panayotou, Ph.D., is the director of the Environmental and Sustainable Development Program at the Center for Internal Development, Harvard University. Dr. Panayotou specializes in natural resource management and environmental economics as they relate to economic development. He has served as a senior economic and environmental advisor to governments in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Central and South America, as well as such international organizations as WHO, UNDP, and OECD. In 1991, Dr. Panayotou received the Society of Conservation Biology’s Distinguished Achievement Award. (top)