FACT SHEET: President Biden Hosts Inaugural Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity Leaders’ Summit

Today, President Biden hosted the inaugural Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity Leaders’ Summit to establish an enduring forum for bolstering regional competitiveness and mobilizing high-standard investment in our hemisphere.

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

The Americas Partnership will undertake these efforts in the following concrete ways that deliver tangible benefits for our people:

• Leaders directed their Ministers to stand up three distinct tracks – foreign affairs, finance, and trade – to collectively develop and implement a focused set of initiatives and actions;
• Leaders committed to establishing a mechanism for robust consultations with a wide spectrum of stakeholders to help shape and inform the work of the Americas Partnership;
• Ministers will meet yearly to ensure progress along each of the three tracks, with leaders reconvening every two years to update our collective priorities;
• Leaders decided that in the intervening time, the Americas Partnership countries will 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 offered to host the next Americas Partnership Leaders’ Summit in 2025.

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

1. Launching a new investment platform to channel billions of dollars in financing for sustainable infrastructure: The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Invest will establish an innovative joint investment platform that aims to channel billions of dollars in financing for sustainable infrastructure and critical economic sectors in the Americas. The investments of the Americas Partnership Platform will help build the modern ports, clean energy grids, and digital infrastructure necessary for a competitive and resilient economy. By adhering to high quality, labor, and environmental standards, these investments will ensure the benefits of these projects are broadly shared.
   
2. Standing up a new accelerator program to support and steer investment to hundreds of up-and-coming entrepreneurs: The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will establish a multi-year accelerator program that brings together cohorts of up-and-coming entrepreneurs from the Americas. The Americas Partnership Accelerator will help to support these entrepreneurs, providing them with training and connecting them with networks of potential private sector investors. The Accelerator aims to directly benefit hundreds of entrepreneurs, mobilize millions of dollars in additional capital, and showcase the untapped entrepreneurial talent across the region. Today, USAID is committing an initial investment of $5 million to launch this multi-year initiative, with Canada committing an additional CAD 3 million. Additionally, Uruguay has agreed to provide support to the Accelerator and to stand up an Americas Partnership angel investor network 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 IDB to make available a combined $89 million for IDB’s Grant Facility to support countries in the region most impacted by migration. These funds will help to stabilize refugee and migrant-hosting communities by funding infrastructure and social services, such as education, citizen security, and economic opportunities, as part of our shared commitments under the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection and the Americas Partnership. Working with Congress, USAID intends to contribute $25 million to the Facility. Canada is contributing $10 million, in addition to its previous contribution in 2022 resulting in a total Canadian contribution of $16 million to the Grant Facility. The Republic of Korea will contribute $2 million, adding to their previous contribution of $10 million in 2019. Spain will contribute $2 million, resulting in a total Spanish contribution of $7 million to the Grant Facility since 2019. These contributions, joined by $50 million from the IDB, demonstrate our shared commitment to better policies for improved living conditions of migrants in the Western Hemisphere.
   
4. Helping develop a robust regional workforce in the digital technology sectors of the future: The United States Department of State will begin an initiative to help develop a robust regional semiconductor workforce by organizing a series of Americas Partnership Semiconductor Workforce Symposiums. These symposiums will offer a forum for stakeholders, including governments, industry, organized labor, and academia, to identify the region’s workforce development needs and develop educational programming to meet those needs. Kicking off with the first symposium in Costa Rica in February 2024, this programming will directly support the new regional Center of Excellence that the Government of Costa Rica announced today. The Center of Excellence will educate individuals across the Americas to work in the digital technology sectors of the future – including on semiconductors, cybersecurity, 5G, and artificial intelligence – and work with industry and academia to create a pipeline of talent and employment opportunities in these sectors.
   
5. Creating a new fund to catalyze investment in innovative climate financing solutions: The United States Department of State announced plans to establish a new fund at the IDB 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 jobs. Investor demand and interest in nature-based solutions has grown steadily in recent years, as demonstrated by the recent IDB and DFC-facilitated Galápagos Marine Bond. However, many projects fall through because of a shortage of early-stage funding to help design and pilot these complex solutions. To address this bottleneck, the Americas Partnership Fund for Nature will provide capital to support project design, capacity building, and financial analytics that will unlock private sector funding for these climate financing solutions. The Department of State, working with Congress, plans to provide $10 million to launch the fund and the Government of Canada has agreed to coordinate financing with its recently-established Nature Based Solutions Program at the IDB.

The Americas Partnership 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 that end, the United States is providing nearly $485 million through the Department of State and USAID to assist migrants and refugees, hosting communities, and vulnerable populations in the Western Hemisphere.    

Governments alone cannot achieve the goals we have set forward, which is why the Americas Partnership is collaborating with the IDB, a key regional source of multilateral development financing, to help bring those voices to the table. The IDB has already started this work, including by hosting an Americas Partnership Responsible Investment Forum on November 2, which brought together hundreds of regional leaders from business, finance, civil society, international financial institutions, and government to start building more competitive and resilient value chains in the Americas. President Biden is also delivering on a commitment he made at the Summit of the Americas in June 2022 to strengthen the IDB by jointly developing new financing tools and positioning IDB Invest to strategically deploy new funds, after its planned capital increase.

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