Seminar “Determinants of Central America’s development within the framework of the regional integration process and the Association Agreement with the EU”.

Between October and November 2020, the cycle of webinars of the High Level Seminar on the determinants of development in Central America within the framework of the Central American integration process and the EU-CA Association Agreement was held. The Seminar took place within the framework of the initiative Living Integration from the Academy of the ATEPECA project – Technical Assistance Program for the Strategic Participation of Central America, financed by the European Union and developed by the ETEA Foundation, Institute of Development of Loyola University.

The objective of this initiative is to bring the parameters of the debate on the future of the region between governments and the bodies and institutions of SICA closer to the terms of the debate that takes place in academia and research centers.

To this end, this initiative seeks to promote a relevant and useful reflection that fulfills two objectives. On the one hand, to link the academic research agenda with the priorities of the regional development agenda of the SICA countries. On the other hand, to systematize the contribution that academia and research centers are making to a pragmatic framework of analysis with a regional approach to the environment and the medium and long term challenges of the region and its integration process.

The webinars have covered the Central American reality from the perspective of a regional approach to its development, beyond the regional integration process itself, which has not been the subject of the seminar’s analysis. The route of the analysis began with the factors that determine the region’s development (webinar 1) and the future axes of the development agenda (webinar 2). It placed the region’s agenda within the framework of its foreign relations and the global scenario of the 21st century (webinar 3). It ended by analyzing the patterns of economic development in the region (webinar 4) and with a joint reflection of all the elements of the debate from which a document of conclusions is derived.

The forum was aimed at channeling the debate of researchers of recognized prestige from think-tanks, research centers, universities and international organizations in the field of Central American integration. A total of 50 researchers from all over the region were invited to participate in the series of webinars. The average attendance at each webinar was 30 participants.

The conclusions of the seminar -in Spanish and English- are available in the following documents:

Systematization report and conclusions of the Seminar “Determinants of Central America’s development within the framework of the regional integration process and the Association Agreement with the EU”.
Systematisation report and conclusions of the Seminar “Determinants of development in Central America within the framework of regional integration and the Association Agreement with the EU”.

Recordings of the sessions are available at the following links: