Colombia and Concordia’s Americas Summit
The Concordia Summit is a yearly gathering organized by the non-profit Concordia organization based out of New York City. The nonpartisan Concordia organization seeks to build and strengthen public-private partnerships worldwide through a variety of programming. Founded in 2011 by Matthew Swift and Nicholas Logothetis, the first Concordia Summit was convened under the theme of Building Partnerships Against Extremism, as it was the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Since then, the Concordia Summit is held annually in New York City around the same timeframe as the United Nations General Assembly in order to address issues such as governance, democracy, the fight against poverty, and education.
Colombia and Concordia’s Americas Summit
In recent years, the Concordia organization has expanded its outreach, which now features an Americas Summit. Therefore, this year, in addition to the Concordia Summit being held in New York City in September, an Americas Summit was held for the first time in Bogota during July 16 & 17. Discussing a broad set of issues from governance in Latin America and the crisis in Venezuela to combating the transnational drug trade, the Concordia Americas Summit featured high-profile guests such as Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, President-elect Ivan Duque, former US Vice-President Joe Biden, and former Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla.
It should not come as a surprise that Colombia’s capital city of Bogota was chosen as host for this year’s historic Summit given the country’s economic dynamism and positive outlook. Moreover, Bogota’s Concordia Summit was held the same week as Colombia’s national holiday on July 20, which commemorates the signature of the Revolutionary Act of Independence in 1810. Likewise, Friday, July 20, marked the beginning of Colombia’s newest legislator and the swearing in of all members of Congress for the 2018-2022 term.
Located in the northwestern region of South America, Colombia is the only nation in the southern continent with both Pacific and Atlantic coastlines. Currently, Colombia has a total territory of 1.14 million square kilometers, which is almost twice the size of Texas. With a total of 3.208 kilometers of coastline, the country has a varied landscape dominated by the Andes mountain range, highlands, lowlands, and the Amazonian rainforest. Colombia has a total population of 48 million citizens, 81% of which live in an urban setting, notably the capital city of Bogota with 11 million inhabitants. The national annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is about US$713 billion (PPP) and the country has experienced positive economic growth upwards of 1.5% in recent years. The Colombian economy is divided into 8% agriculture, 31% manufacturing, and 61% services. Similarly, it is estimated that the agricultural industry employs 17% of the national labor force, while manufacturing employs 21% and services employ another 62%. Meanwhile, the agriculture industry utilizes 38% of the national territory, while another 54% is forested.
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