"While U.S.-Latin America relations are not bad, they have deteriorated.  The relative importance of the United States in Latin America has declined.  The challenge for the United States is how to revitalize that relationship."

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hat's CAF President (and IOA Board member) Enrique García’s executive summary of U.S.-Latin American relations.  Enrique not only described the challenge for the United States, but the task of the Institute of the Americas.

The IOA Board met in La Jolla on January 16-17.  Board members came from Argentina, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and the United States.  Their time, energy and dedication to the Institute reflect that of Ted Gildred when he founded the Institute 29 years ago. Their guidance has been invaluable for me over the past three months.  Welcome and special thanks to new board members Alberto Vollmer, George Liparidis and Javade Chaudhri.   And we bid a very special farewell to Darcel Hulse, who has been on our Board for 12 years.  His advice and counsel have been extraordinary.

The Board honored my predecessor Jeffery Davidow for his eight years at the helm by donating generously to the Davidow Initiative to provide continuing funding for the programs Jeff initiated, including our community outreach program, our journalism training program and the science camp for Latin American high school science prodigies.

The Board took a break to tour the Calit2 facilities here at UCSD.  Calit2 brings together cutting-edge technologies that can enable advances across multiple sectors and industries.  It is the marriage of huge bandwidth, linked computers, extraordinary video technology real time linkages to researchers around the world.   Calit2 Director Larry Smarr is working to link Mexico into this network. 

We also put the Board members to work.  Paulo Sotero, Director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in D.C., provided his analysis of President Dilma Rousseff's presidency at a session for students and friends of the Institute.  Venezuelan business executive and TED Talk veteran Alberto Vollmer explained "Project Alcatraz" which reaches gang members through restorative justice, employment and rugby.  Vollmer also met with the executive director of USA Rugby to share ideas.

2012 will be an exciting one for the hemisphere politically with the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, in mid-April and presidential elections in the Dominican Republic (May 10), Mexico (July 1), Venezuela (October 7), and of course, the United States (November 6). 

The next few will also be busy for the Institute.  I am writing this note after two excellent programs yesterday:  Malin Burnham and James Clark spoke on their vision for the San Diego-Tijuana border.  Then University of Havana professor Carlos Alzugaray spoke on the process of economic and political change in Cuba.

We have a seminar here on “Women: From Poverty to Power” on February 6-10 and an Energy Roundtable in Bogota on February 9. Dr. Yuan Peng, the Assistant President of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing, will speak at the Institute on February 14. Financial analyst Luis Maizel will talk about the impact of the economic crisis on Latin America on February 15.   We are finalizing the details for U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Mexico and Canada Matt Rooney on February 23.  Jeremy Martin and I head to Calgary at the end of the month to talk to energy companies about the Institute and the May 21-23 La Jolla Energy Conference. 

Join the conversation on the Americas.  I am on Twitter @ioa_shapiro.   The Institute’s Twitter feed is @iamericas.   

Finally I wish to welcome aboard our newest Institute staff members Denisse Fernandez and Juan Carlos Posadas in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

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t the Academy Awards, a lifetime achievement award is given to an actor who is not long for this world.  Needless to say, I was a bit concerned when I received a lifetime achievement award in early December from the U.S. Department of State.

Acting Director General -- that’s what State calls its top HR guy -- Steve Browning was generous in his remarks.  I invite you to read his speech so you can see for yourself that I am not making this up.  He noted some of the things I have been lucky enough to work on:

-- The 2009 Summit of the Americas (“one of the most successful”),

-- Ambassador to Venezuela (“professionalism, enthusiasm, and dignity”) and 

-- The U.S.-Peru free trade agreement (he was kind enough to omit that we were unable to get the Colombia and Panama agreements passed in 2007).

One of the things he mentioned that I was most proud of was my role as mentor. (“On the final day of the Summit, he called a junior officer’s mother and started the conversation with ‘Ma’am this is Ambassador Shapiro, and I want to let you know what your daughter did for the President of the United States here in Trinidad this week.’”)

Here is a large excerpt of what Ambassador Browning said about financial inclusion -- a theme I would like to build a program around at the Institute.

“Many of his colleagues say that Ambassador Shapiro is a visionary.  Two years ago, he began to enthusiastically promote ‘Secured Transaction Reform’ - a concept that few understood at the time.  The idea behind Secured Transaction Reform is to establish systems that facilitate better access to credit, which allows more people to acquire assets, expand their businesses, and create jobs.  This in turn enables them to educate their children strengthen their families, and improve the quality of their lives.  . . . . Through his work, Ambassador Shapiro shifted the Bureau’s (and the Department’s) understanding of the economic power of the poor.  By the time he left, many in the Department referred to him as our Ambassador at Large for Financial Inclusion.”

Financial inclusion is an issue to which I am deeply committed.  Despite the “lifetime achievement award,” I plan to get some work done in the time I have remaining.  I hope you and your businesses will help me build a strong financial inclusion program at the Institute, one that will bring about real change in the lives of the working poor in Latin America.

And while I am pitching you, please help our work at the Institute by becoming a member and by giving gift memberships to your loved ones for the holidays.  Between now and Three Kings Day, we’ll donate $25 to Casa Familiar, a San Diego non-profit assisting low income families, for every new membership.