Speeches 2007

June 26, 2007

Ambassador Eaton at the Panama International Forum, El Panama Hotel

Thank you for inviting me to be here today.

I would first like to congratulate the organizers and participants of the 2007 Panama International Forum for the time and effort they have put into organizing this event.

Regardless of whether you pursue a career in public service or the private sector, these types of fora offer valuable opportunities to research, debate, and seek consensus on challenging issues. The skills you learn here will undoubtedly help prepare you for any future career.

You have definitely chosen an impressive range of topics to discuss and debate. Indeed you are addressing some of today’s most vexing issues, such as trade, illegal immigration, peace and security in the Middle East, weapons proliferation, the rights of children and women, and development.

In fact, many of these topics are part of the daily diplomatic discourse between Panama and the United States, especially now that Panama sits on the U.N. Security Council. Let me give you a couple of examples of how the subjects of your committees are directly relevant to real life diplomacy.

First, I understand that your “UN ECOSOC” committee will address health-related development, such as reducing child mortality and improving maternal health. Earlier this month we inaugurated a Regional Healthcare Professional Training Center in Panama that will help all of Central America do just that. This center will enable nurses, technicians, midwives, and other health care workers to bring better care to people in rural communities.

Our “medical diplomacy” also includes activities such as medical clinics and our recent New Horizons Exercise in Bocas del Toro. During New Horizons alone, our doctors saw more than 12,000 patients. We even had a staff of veterinarians who gave vaccines and medical care to more than 6,000 animals.

We had the opportunity to help a small child who was bitten by a snake and would not have been able to get the proper care she needed if one of our helicopters had not been available to transport her to a hospital.

In addition, the U.S. Navy Hospital ship, “USNS Comfort,” will be visiting Latin America and the Caribbean. The Comfort will visit Panama in July. Its U.S. doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals expect to treat thousands of patients and conduct hundreds of surgeries. The Comfort will also partner with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on a new initiative to provide oral care to the region’s poor. These are just two examples of how the U.S. is working with our partners in the region to advance our shared goals for development.

Those of you discussing the rights of children might be interested to learn about ways we are helping to eradicate child labor. For example, the U.S. Department of Labor has provided over 3 million dollars to support the DESTINO project. DESTINO targets children in Panama’s indigenous communities and central provinces who work on family or commercial farms to help their parents make ends meet. Long work hours and seasonal harvests cause these children to miss school, prompting many to drop out altogether.

To combat these effects, since 2004 the DESTINO project has teamed with two Panamanian organizations — Casa Esperanza and Fundación Tierra Nueva — to provide non-formal and flexible education opportunities for nearly 6,700 child laborers.

A third NGO, Centro de Capacitación y Desarrollo Integral, will assist indigenous women to generate income that will free their children from work so they remain in school.

These types of public-private partnerships are increasingly vital to meeting development challenges around the world.

The Embassy’s “People to People” Coordinator works to establish these partnerships between organizations in the United States and organizations in Panama. One of the many important linkages she has established is with Hogar Mi Milagro which offers a home to sexually abused children who need a safe place to live after living through traumatic experiences. Through donations from private American citizens as well as organizations like Panama Missions we have been able to better these children’s lives.

Likewise, partnerships between and among governments and international organizations are key to finding solutions to the various issues you all are addressing at this year’s conference. Regardless of the career path you choose, you will find that your success is directly linked to your ability to forge partnerships.

So, I hope that you will look at your discussions over the next week as much more than mere abstractions. You have a chance to grapple with real world issues that have direct consequences for the lives of your fellow citizens.

You also have a chance to see how it might be possible to reach consensus, form partnerships, and find practical solutions to some of today’s toughest challenges.

I also hope that you might draw from your experiences during this forum and pursue a career in public service. You represent tomorrow’s leaders.  We and future generations are counting on you to make a difference in your country and in the world around you. There is a lot of talent in this room, and some of you may well be just the agents of change that the UN and other international organizations need.

Once again, thank you for this opportunity to join you, and I wish you all the best of luck during the forum.