The 2021 Latin America Liberty Forum featured several speakers from throughout the region, including two sitting presidents: the Hon. Guillermo Lasso of Ecuador and the Hon. Luis Lacalle Pou. The editor of the Spanish-language weekly briefing Mirada Sur, Martín Aguirre, facilitated a 30-minute interview with President Lacalle Pou to close out the forum. Lacalle Pou touched on many issues, including Uruguay’s “responsible liberty” approach to combatting the pandemic that avoided lockdowns, the rise of China’s geopolitical influence in Latin America, the Biden administration’s lack of leadership in countering it, and much more. You can watch all the sessions here, or read about the highlights here.
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The top 10 happenings around the world in the global freedom movement featuring the work of Atlas Network partners. |
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Presented at each Regional Liberty Forum, the 2021 Regional Liberty Forums went to several promising campaigns around the world. Winners received $7,000 in prizes, while runners-up each received $1,500. Liberty Sparks won the Africa Liberty Award for their “Wezesha Biashara” (“Improving Business”) project to write and promote a more business-friendly regulatory framework in Tanzania. India’s Centre for Civil Society won the Asia Liberty Award for their “Doing Business on the Street” campaign to improve the lives and livelihoods of street vendors through advocacy, education, and litigation. Piotr Markielau and Students For Liberty Belarus won Europe’s $7,000 prize for their “Free Belarus” effort to bring attention to the Lukashenko dictatorship. Fundación Eléutera won the Latin America Liberty Award for their work to open Honduras’ electricity sector to the free market.
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The 2021 Asia Liberty Forum featured discussions on improving institutions, the roots of liberalism in Indian history, and womens’ rights throughout Asia. The opening panel analyzed governments’ extreme responses to COVID-19, which often included using military assets to ensure compliance. The Big Ideas session offered solutions for streamlining and improving government operations, often by involving the private sector. Atlas Network’s Tarun Vats interviewed renowned author Gurchuran Das on liberal responses to crises, as well as liberal philosophical traditions in Asia. Watch your favorite session again here, or catch up on the highlights here.
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The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent government overreaches have changed the way people around the world interact with governments and the way democracy functions. What is liberalism’s place in this new paradigm? Atlas Network CEO Brad Lips sets out to explore that very question in his new book Liberalism and the Free Society in 2021. Set to release on July 14, this book looks at how the institutions central to our freedoms are being eroded in the U.S. and abroad—and what is being done about it. Be sure to get your copy here once the book launches. Lips will be speaking and conducting a book signing at FreedomFest in South Dakota next week, where you can see other Atlas Network leaders Lyall Swim, Patricia Hohlbein, and Antonella Marty deliver engaging talks on messaging, the future of liberalism, and the process of reform. Marty will conduct a book signing for the recently released Capitalism: An Antidote to Poverty book.
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The 2021 Europe Liberty Forum examined at-length efforts to strengthen liberalism as a xxxxxx against encroaching authoritarianism from the left and right throughout the continent. As Dr. Tom Palmer interviewed famed economist Anders Åslund on the state of post-Soviet economies and the European Union’s failure to adequately respond to COVID-19, panelists in the opening session demonstrated how classical liberal organizations have leveraged the context of the pandemic to call attention to long-standing problems in government. Watch all sessions here, or just catch the highlights here. |
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At #ForoLibertad21, Álvaro Vargas Llosa announced the launch of a joint initiative to foster thought and creativity among promising young journalists in the effort to develop stories, editorials, and narratives on the principles of liberty. The award program, called the Atlas Network-Cátedra Vargas Llosa Young Journalism Prize 2021, will have a selection committee presided by Carlos Alberto Montaner, and the winner of the US$10,000 prize of this annual contest will be announced at Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner, held December 13–14, in Miami, Florida. Click here for more information on the Atlas Network-Cátedra Vargas Llosa Prize. |
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The 2021 Africa Liberty Forum emphasized renewing Africa from the bottom up and the inside out. Speakers at the Big Ideas panel discussed how Africa can be a global player and grow beyond the stifling influence of China and other powerful nations. Magatte Wade interviewed William Kamkwamba of “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” on how business regulations hold back African entrepreneurs and perpetuate many of the continent’s problems. The event closed with a discussion on remaking institutions so that they actually protect human rights, something post-colonial governments have often failed to do. You can watch all the sessions here, and you can read the highlights here.
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Across four regions, contestants pitched their organizations’ projects to panels of judges with the hope of winning each region’s $10,000 prize. Rejoice Ngwenya of Coalition for Market and Liberal Solutions in Zimbabwe won the African competition for his presentation of their #MyTitle4Life project to provide title deeds to inner-city Zimbabweans. The European winner, Aneta Vaine of Lithuanian Free Market Institute, pitched the “Better Laws for Better Lives'' campaign to improve lawmaking in Lithuania. Bernardo Vidigal of Students For Liberty Brasil won the Latin American Think Tank Shark Tank for his “Property Rights in the Favelas” project to promote private property as a solution for many of the problems in Brazil’s favela neighborhoods. Sathya Karunarathne of Advocata Institute won the Asia Think Tank Shark Tank for “Economic Freedom for Her,” an effort to advance womens’ economic and property rights in Sri Lanka.
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Atlas Network is once again teaming up with Devex—an organization that helps global development groups network and coordinate—for a thought leadership conversation against the backdrop of the United Nations Food Systems Summit. Atlas Network is sponsoring a session featuring Felippa Amanta of the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies (CIPS) and Matt Warner, where they will discuss CIPS’ Templeton Freedom Award-winning work to facilitate trade in Indonesia’s food sector. Register for the event here. |
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Atlas Network placed two important op-eds in the last month—one on Ukraine’s opening of its land market and one on free-market solutions to the wave of immigrants seeking asylum in the United States. In the first, AJ Skiera writes for the Atlantic Council about recent reforms finally allowing Ukrainian landowners the right to sell their land—a right the government had denied them for almost twenty years. In the second, Juan José Daboub and Gonzalo Schwarz of Atlas Network’s Center for Latin America write for RealClearPolicy on how a lack of economic opportunity has driven many Central Americans to the United States’ southern border. Investment in Central American economies that provides economic stability and a feasible pathway to improving one’s lot in life could remove a lot of the pressure some families are facing in the region.
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