Universidad de los Andes Student Wins the “Ideas for the Future” Prize

During what has been challenging time for Latin American countries and for their most vulnerable population, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, María Paula Gutiérrez Hurtado, a college student, won the "Ideas for the Future" Prize for 2021 with an essay that highlights the need for countries to help implement initiatives that address the requirements of the fishing sector.

In her essay entitled “Latin American Countries Must Sit at the Same Table with Artisanal Fishermen” she emphasizes the need to strengthen artisanal fishing over industrial fishing, as being crucial to promoting social and economic development in coastal communities that have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. She also argues that collective action can be promoted and with it, environmental sustainability, by granting collective property rights to small-scale fishermen.

"Integrating the products of those groups into local markets, with all the aforementioned requirements being met, can help fishermen to be less vulnerable to international shocks, such as the pandemic, and can also promote responsible consumption in countries," Gutiérrez Hurtado says in her essay.

During the on-line award ceremony, Carolina España, the CAF representative in Colombia, reiterated that her institution, in alliance with Banco de la República de Colombia, will continue to promote opportunities and venues for discussion on the challenges faced by Latin American countries, such as reconstruction in terms of environmental sustainability, economic reactivation while guaranteeing macroeconomic sustainability, and the building of social protection systems for resilient and inclusive societies.

For his part, Leonardo Villar, Governor of Banco de la República, congratulated the winning students and added: "I would like to thank all the participants for the effort they put into their essays, which is reflected in the quality of their work. I also wish to express my appreciation to CAF for promoting these projects, which generate social interest in understanding the phenomena that occur in our economies.

Also noteworthy was the participation of Martín Velásquez Montoya, a Universidad de Los Andes student who received special mention for his essay  “Offshoring and Outsourcing Digital Services: Two Corporate Practices that Should be Promoted during the Economic and Social Recovery Process in Latin America”.In this essay, Velasquez addresses the need to encourage the creation of new projects for offshore and outsourced digital services in the countryside, through more investment in technological infrastructure and cooperation with academia and industry to help rural inhabitants overcome the crisis caused by the coronavirus through access to better opportunities for jobs and an education. He also says these projects can attract investment and improve job and educational markets in Latin American countries in a way that will contribute to the process of economic recovery.

María Paula Gutiérrez will be among the group of national winners who will move on to the second phase of the contest, where her essay will compete with those from the 19 CAF member countries in Latin America. The winners in Latin America with the three best essays will have an opportunity to present their work at the CAF Conference, scheduled to be held in November 2021.

The third edition of "Ideas for the Future" has brought together more than 4,000 students from across the region. It focuses on opportunities to build stainable recovery aimed at helping to overcome the health, economic and social crisis the region is going through as a result of Covid-19.