Fact Sheet: President Biden hosts the inaugural Leaders Summit of the American Partnership for Economic Prosperity

Today, President Biden hosted the inaugural Leaders Summit of the U.S. Partnership for Economic Prosperity to create a lasting forum to advance regional competitiveness and mobilize high-level investment in our hemisphere.

President Biden and the leaders of the other eleven nations of the inaugural Partnership of the Americas – Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay – announced their plan to advance inclusive growth and enhance critical supply. chains, with an initial focus on clean energy, semiconductors and medical supplies.

The Partnership of the Americas will advance these efforts in the following tangible ways that deliver tangible benefits to our people:

• The leaders directed their ministers to focus on three distinct tracks – foreign affairs, finance, and trade – to collectively develop and implement a focused set of initiatives and actions;
• The leaders committed to creating a mechanism for robust consultation with a broad range of stakeholders to help shape and guide the work of the Partnership of the Americas;
• Ministers will meet annually to ensure progress along each of the three tracks, with leaders meeting again every two years to update our collective priorities;
• The leaders decided that, in the interim, the Partnership of the Americas countries would develop a process to invite additional countries in our hemisphere to join and contribute to this initiative, while maintaining our high standards and shared values; And
• Costa Rica has offered to host the next Partnership of the Americas Leaders Summit in 2025.

President Biden also announced a number of initiatives to support the Partnership of the Americas:

1. Launching a new investment platform to direct billions of dollars to finance sustainable infrastructure: The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Invest will create an innovative joint investment platform aimed at directing billions of dollars to finance sustainable infrastructure and critical economic sectors in the Americas. The Partnership of the Americas Platform’s investments will help build modern ports, clean energy grids, and the digital infrastructure needed for a competitive and resilient economy. By adhering to high quality, labor and environmental standards, these investments will ensure that the benefits of these projects are widely shared.
2. Find out about the new accelerator program supports And Direct investment to Hundreds of rising entrepreneurs: The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will create a multi-year accelerator program that brings together groups of rising entrepreneurs from the Americas. The Americas Partnership Accelerator Program will help support these entrepreneurs, by providing them with training and connecting them to networks of potential private sector investors. The accelerator aims to directly benefit hundreds of entrepreneurs, mobilize millions of dollars in additional capital, and highlight untapped entrepreneurial talent across the region. Today, USAID is committing an initial investment of $5 million USD to launch this multi-year initiative, with Canada committing an additional $3 million CAD. In addition, Uruguay has agreed to provide support to the accelerator program and support the Americas Partnership’s network of angel investors to mobilize global sources of venture capital for these entrepreneurs.
3. Providing grants to expand infrastructure and social services for migrants and their host communities: The United States, Canada, the Republic of Korea, and Spain are working with the Islamic Development Bank to provide a total of $89 million to the IDB Grants Facility to support countries in the region most affected by migration. These funds will help stabilize communities hosting refugees and migrants by funding infrastructure and social services, such as education, citizen security and economic opportunity, as part of our shared commitments under the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection and the Partnership of the Americas. Working with Congress, USAID intends to contribute $25 million to this facility. Canada is contributing US$10 million, in addition to its previous contribution in 2022 resulting in a total Canadian contribution of US$16 million to the Grants Facility. The Republic of Korea will contribute US$2 million, in addition to its previous contribution of US$10 million in 2019. Spain will contribute US$2 million, resulting in a total Spanish contribution of US$7 million to the grants facility since 2019. Join This US$50 million contribution from the Islamic Development Bank demonstrates our shared commitment to better policies to improve the living conditions of migrants in the Western Hemisphere.
4. Help develop a strong regional workforce in the digital technology sectors of the future: The US State Department will begin an initiative to help develop a strong regional semiconductor workforce by organizing a series of US Partnership Semiconductor Workforce Seminars. These seminars will provide a forum for stakeholders, including governments, industry, organized labor and academia, to identify the region’s workforce development needs and develop educational programs to meet those needs. This programming will begin with the first symposium in Costa Rica in February 2024, and will directly support the new Regional Center of Excellence announced by the Costa Rican government today. The Center of Excellence will educate individuals across the Americas to work in the digital technology sectors of the future – including semiconductor, cybersecurity, 5G, and artificial intelligence – and work with industry and academia to create a pipeline of talent and career opportunities in these sectors. Sectors.
5. Establishing a new fund to stimulate investment in innovative climate finance solutions: The US State Department announced plans to establish a new fund at the Islamic Development Bank to facilitate investments in innovative and scalable nature-based solutions, such as debt-for-nature swaps and blue/green bonds, to help preserve our hemisphere’s rich biodiversity, reduce carbon emissions, And create good job opportunities. Investor demand and interest in nature-based solutions has been steadily increasing in recent years, as demonstrated by the recent Galapagos Marine Bonds facilitated by the Islamic Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation. However, many projects fail due to a lack of funding in the early stages to help design and pilot these complex solutions. To address this bottleneck, the Americas Partnership for Nature Fund will provide capital to support project design, capacity building, and financial analyzes that will unlock private sector financing for climate finance solutions. The Department of State, in collaboration with Congress, plans to provide $10 million to launch the fund, and the Government of Canada has agreed to coordinate financing with the IDB’s recently established Nature-Based Solutions Program.

The Partnership of the Americas countries collectively host the majority of migrants and refugees in the region, and the United States and our partners believe that investing in these communities can be a catalyst for innovation and growth, while also stabilizing migration flows. To this end, the United States is providing approximately $485 million through the Department of State and USAID to assist migrants, refugees, host communities, and vulnerable populations in the Western Hemisphere.

Governments alone cannot achieve the goals we set, which is why the Partnership of the Americas is collaborating with the Islamic Development Bank, a major regional source of multilateral development financing, to help bring these voices to the negotiating table. The IDB has already begun this work, including by hosting the Responsible Investment Forum for the Partnership of the Americas on November 2, which brought together hundreds of regional leaders from business, finance, civil society, international financial institutions and government to begin building more competitive value. And flexibility. Chains in the Americas. President Biden is also fulfilling the commitment he made at the Summit of the Americas in June 2022 to strengthen the IDB by jointly developing new financing instruments and positioning IDB Invest to strategically deploy new funds, following a planned capital increase.

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