Speakers:

• Luis Abinader, President of the Dominican Republic
• Andrés Gluski, Chairman, Americas Society/Council of the Americas; CEO, The AES Corporation (interviewer)
• Eric Farnsworth, Vice President, Americas Society/Council of the Americas (welcome)

“One of the few good things of this pandemic, because of the virtual obligation that we have, is that what was going to take five years to do, now we’re doing in five months,” said Dominican President Luis Abinader in a keynote address as part of the 2020 Washington Conference on the Americas virtual series. As such, technology can help improve educational inclusion, he said. The president, who took office in August, talked with Andrés Gluski about his plans for energy reform and rebooting the Caribbean’s largest economy in the wake of the pandemic. Along with promoting Dominican exports and attracting more foreign direct investment, tourism will be a key driver of the recovery, said Abinader, who noted that at the moment, hotel reservations are at 50 percent of their levels at this point last year, which, all things considered, “is not bad.”

Speakers:

• Amado Alejandro Báez, Executive Director of the Presidential Committee for COVID-19 Response and Public Health Advisor to the president of the Dominican Republic
• Eric Farnsworth, Vice President, Americas Society/Council of the Americas

The Dominican Republic's executive director of the Presidential Committee for COVID-19 response and public health advisor to the president spoke with Eric Farnsworth about the Caribbean response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Báez discussed how, from the beginning of the country's response to the public health crisis, the special task force he leads focused on building public-private partnerships to strengthen ties between healthcare entities, businesses, food distributors, philanthropies, technology, and even funeral services. He also spoke of the efforts towards chronic disease management and freeing up the healthcare system via measures such as preventative medicine distribution.

Another key point Báez made was the importance of working at the local level in these public-private partnerships, reinforcing the effectiveness of of a "bottom-up approach." The public health expert emphasized looking "beyond the now, bearing in mind we will have a second wave." He also covered the challenge between finding public health solutions amid economic solutions, saying "there is a trade-off, as an absolute health orientation will affect the economy, and not favorably...Ultimately, we need to intelligently understand what segments can be opened, whether based on productivity, expansion of essential services, safety, etcetera."