Ottawa, Canada, May 13, 2022. On the occasion of the 11th anniversary of the establishment of the Pacific Alliance, the embassies of Chile, Colombia, Peru and Mexico to Canada hosted a panel discussion entitled “A sustainable and inclusive economic recovery in a time of upheaval: The role of the Pacific Alliance”.

The panel discussion included the participation of Dr. Meredith Lilly, Associate Director of the Masters in International Affairs at Carleton University, Dr. Pablo Heidrich, Associate Professor of International Political Economy at Carleton University, and Adriana Vega, Director of International Banking Communications at Scotiabank, as moderator. 

During the discussion, panelists addressed the priorities of the Pacific Alliance amid Mexico’s pro tempore presidency, including the promotion of digital commerce; streamlining the processes involved in the flow of goods; greater access to goods and services to the benefit of small and medium-sized enterprises – notably those led by women, as they have greater potential to insert themselves in the trade dynamics between the four countries; and how these efforts can be coordinated with our Canadian partners.

This in-person event took place at the Embassy of Mexico in Canada and was joined by representatives in the fields of politics, academia, and business in the Canadian capital, who gained a thorough understanding of the relevance of this successful mechanism of regional integration and the existing opportunities to expand the ties with Canada. The four countries offered samples of their regional refreshments.  

On April 28, 2011, in response to the necessity of integrating a collective effort to address new challenges, both regional and global, and recognizing the importance of dialogue and cooperation to promote a sustainable and sustained economic and social development, the Pacific Alliance is integrated by Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.

Since its creation, the Pacific Alliance has been a global reference in terms of integration; proof of this is the interest that the mechanism has attracted in various regions of the world. As of today, the Pacific Alliance has 61 Observer States and has successfully concluded negotiations with Singapore, which will soon become the mechanism’s first Associate State.

In January 2022, Mexico assumed the responsibility of coordinating the work of the Pacific Alliance as pro tempore presidency, opportunity that Mexico will use to promote innovative schemes and projects that will provide our citizens with useful tools to improve their living conditions and quality of life.

As pro tempore presidency of the Mechanism, Mexico will continue to collaborate with all member countries to make the Pacific Alliance a better integrated mechanism, more global and better connected, that responds decisively and vigorously to the needs of our citizens.

• The free training offer that will be available on the Network for teachers seeks to strengthen the digital skills of professionals from Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru who work in basic or primary education.

• The scope of the platform will be announced in the framework of the conversation “Radical Collaboration for Learning in the 21st Century” that will take place on May 3. It will also address the opportunities and challenges of collaborative work in virtual learning environments in schools.

With the purpose of inviting the teaching community of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, to learn about a new free training offer of high quality and relevance to today’s educational challenges, the Pacific Alliance will present on May 3 its new AP Digital Teaching Network, developed within the framework of the initiative “Strengthening the digital skills of teachers and directors of Basic Education”.

The platform, implemented by Fundación Chile, will offer online courses that aim to generate capacities for pedagogical use in digital technological tools that allow teachers, together with directors of educational institutions that work at the primary or basic school level (students between 6 and 14 years), strengthen their practices and continue with their professional development. In addition, it will provide a virtual meeting space for knowledge.

The training offer was designed considering a diagnosis that identified teaching needs in the context of the pandemic. This consisted of interviews with key actors in each country, a focus group to collect their experiences, perceptions and challenges, and a survey of self-perception of digital skills. In this way, the first three courses will address effective pedagogical practices mediated by technology at different levels of depth.

“This project, financed by the Pacific Alliance Cooperation Fund, was born as a response to the needs that the health pandemic has revealed. In the Pacific Alliance we work to consolidate ourselves as a more integrated citizen mechanism, therefore, the launch of the Digital Teaching Network is an important initiative that will allow the teachers of our countries to respond comprehensively and forcefully to the new reality, strengthening those key skills and updating essential knowledge for an effective educational process for girls, boys and young people”, maintains the block of the Pacific Alliance.

For her part, the  director of Learning for the Future of Fundación Chile, Andrea Osorio , refers to the seal of the new training offer that will be available from April 22: “The educational challenges of the region, exacerbated by the health crisis , require the construction of new methods for learning, and in this, technology and collaboration are tools that we seek to promote with the development of flexible courses, in tune with daily practices and from an innovative and transforming perspective of our educational systems. ”

The presentation of the AP Digital Teaching Network will take place in the virtual colloquium  “Pacific Alliance Digital Teaching Network: Radical collaboration for 21st century learning”.  The activity will feature the participation of  Valeria Kelly, consultant for the ICT Program at IIEP UNESCO , office for Latin America, who has specialized in educational technology, new literacies and distance education. Also participating will be Libertad Manzo, coordinator of Instructional Design for Learning for the Future of Fundación Chile , who led the development of the courses that will be announced.

To participate in the virtual colloquium and future webinars, interested persons must register at the following link:  https://webinardocenciadigitalap.vcongrez.com/

To enroll in the courses of the AP Digital Teaching Network, teachers must join the new platform starting April 22:  https://www.reddocenciadigitalap.net/

August 18, 2021.- For the first time in history, the Pacific Alliance participated in the framework of Arendalsuka, the most important political and business meeting in Norway. On this occasion, the ambassadors of the Pacific Alliance presented the event: “10 years of The Pacific Alliance: education, culture, and business opportunities”, with the purpose of making known the opportunities and benefits that this bloc composed of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru has to offer to Norwegian entrepreneurs and investors.

During the interventions, the ambassadors indicated that the Pacific Alliance works to strengthen regional integration, with the clear objective of progressively moving towards the free circulation of goods, services, capital and people in the region.

The presence of the Pacific Alliance at Arendalsuka was considered fundamental by the participants of the event. This year there was a greater relevance, taking into account that on September 13,2021 parliamentary elections will be held to define the government that will lead this Nordic country for the next four years. Norway, in addition to being an observer state of the Alliance, has companies such as Yara International, which has a presence in the four countries of the bloc, and BAMA, a company that imports agricultural products from the four member states of the PA to Norway.

The event was well attended, including key players in the Norwegian political arena, such as the State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Norway, Jens Frølich Holte, the media, the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Kingdom of Norway and members of academia.

The event generated interest among the attendees, who recognized the importance of the bloc, as well as the potential for future growth and thus promote Norwegian investment in our respective countries.

PACIFIC ALLIANCE PPT COMMUNICATIONS

August 10, 2021.- The official launch of the Pacific Alliance Regional Labor Observatory, supported by the Technical Labor Group of the PA, was held this Tuesday. Its objective will be to contribute to the analysis of the dynamics of the labor market in order to adapt university training programs and facilitate the labor market insertion of university graduates in the Pacific Alliance.

The event, held virtually, had the participation of Adela Maestre, director of Regional Coordination and Integration Mechanisms of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia, representing the pro tempore presidency, and Janet Ortega, coordinator of the Technical Labor Group of the PA.

“This observatory will facilitate and strengthen the incorporation of our citizens into the labor market, while promoting the exchange of experiences and opening the space for dialogue to provide approaches that enrich our public policies in this matter,” said Adela Maestre.

During its four-year duration, the project, financed by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union (EU), will propose a package of activities that will allow the homogenization of methodologies and tools used in the PA countries to measure and control variables related to employment, the labor market and the insertion of professionals into the real sector in areas of knowledge specific to their training.

In addition, the implementation of the labour observatory in Higher Education Institutions will offer students and professionals a reliable system of information on existing opportunities in the region’s industries and will allow them to find work abroad more easily.

“Our accompaniment in this task is given since the Technical Education Group had an approach with the Technical Labor Group in order to present the EMPLE-AP project, which is financed by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union and in which 14 Universities of the 4 member countries of the Alliance, as well as Universities of the European Union participate,” said Janet Ortega.

The Higher Education Institutions that are part of the EMPLE-AP consortium are: Universidade do Porto -U. PORTO-, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria –ULPGC, Universidad César Vallejo -UCV-, Universidad Continental -UC-, Instituto Profesional Providencia -IPP-, Universidad de Valparaíso -UV-, Universidad Autónoma del Noreste -UANE-, Universidad de Siena -UNISI-, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla -BUAP-, Ilumno -ILUMNO-, University of Bordeaux (U-BORDEAUX), Universidad de Antioquia (UDEA), Corporación Universitaria Unitec and Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, general coordinator of the project in Latin America.

Thanks to the management of the Technical Labor Group, support for this observatory was included in the Lima Declaration of December 2019 under this guideline: establish a working group with the Coordinators of the Project “Observatory for Labor Market Insertion and Strengthening Employability in Pacific Alliance countries EMPLE-AP”.