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Latin America & Caribbean Faith Leaders Discuss Youth at Risk and Remittances

June 11, 2008

Latin America & Caribbean Dialogue Series: Youth at Risk

June 5th, 2008

The World Bank, Washington, DC

Faith leaders from Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, and Costa Rica joined experts at the World Bank by teleconference to discuss the issue of youth at risk. This dialogue is the first in a dialogue series resulting from the encounter between the World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP), IMF, IADB, and the World Bank in 2007. The session included a presentation from Wendy Cunningham (Labor Economist at the World Bank) on her study âœYouth at Risk in Latin America and the Caribbeanâ, comments from faith leaders on this study, and the experiences of faith leaders in working with at-risk youth.

The dialogue showed that faith communities are frequently key actors in generating approaches to youth development and in delivering services on the ground, especially when government policies were inadequate. Four themes were interwoven throughout the dialogue: perceptions of at-risk youth, youth and violence, educating youth, and faith communities as advocates for youth. Throughout the session, faith leaders advocated empowering youth to become protagonists in their own development and adding a human dimension to the work in development that traditionally focuses on economic aspects. Overall, the dialogue facilitated better understanding of the issue for both parties and encourages future collaboration and conversation.

Latin America & Caribbean Dialogue Series: Remittances and Migration

June 12th, 2008

The World Bank, Washington, DC

Faith leaders from Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, and Costa Rica joined experts at the World Bank by teleconference to discuss the impact of remittances and migration on development. This is the second dialogue in the series initiated by the encounter of the World Bank, IMF, and IADB and the Latin American delegation from the World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP) 2007. The dialogue began with a presentation of a World Bank study on remittances and migration, which examined the positive and negative effects of remittances and concluded that the net effect is positive.

The conversation then turned to the faith leaders. Emergent from the discussion are the following themes: the need to explore the social and cultural impact of remittances in addition to the economic consequences, the importance of faith based organizations in mitigating the negative effects of migration, and the need to address the underlying problems that cause migration, such as the lack of opportunity in the home country. Throughout the dialogue, faith leaders emphasized maximizing the benefits of remittances for the whole country and adding a human dimension to development. Overall, the meeting affirmed the need to further investigate the multifarious consequences of remittances and to continue the dialogue between faith communities and the World Bank.