Part II
CDDA and IQLatino had the honor to attend the Spain-United States Forum on July 7th and 8th, 2021. This session dealt with the topic of joint collaboration between the US and Spain, specifically in the area of COVID-19 and future pandemics. The challenges facing our societies and how a partnership should work, including Latin America as a major player in it. “America is back” means that the US is back as a major international player and back to effective multilateralism, improving its relations in the international economic community. Exploring new economic and technological measures. “Despite what public opinion says, US relations with Spain are in better shape than ever”. Public-private partnership and international collaboration were set as priorities for the optimal development of nations.
Main Speakers
Xavier Becerra – US Secretary Department of Health and Human Services, said, “We have a job to do with the European Union and the private sector. With President Biden we are dealing with them as equals. We are working to deal not only with COVID-19, but with future pandemics.” He reaffirmed the state of health relations between USA and Spain as “great public partners”. “It is important to establish a good relationship and understand the need for vaccination not only in the US but also in Spain and Latin America. This is a key factor for the proper development and long-term stability of our nations”. Quoting President Biden “to have a healthy economy we need to have healthy people“.
Nadia Calviño, Second Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation: Declared that Health and economy go hand in hand, “Vaccination is the crucial change. We can clearly see it in the improvement of Spain in this last period. If we hope to optimize the current international conditions, we must understand our own vulnerability in society in the face of globalization”. Everything is more interconnected. “This brings benefits but at the same time many challenges to overcome, as many more things have to be taken into account. This is why vaccination is the best economic policy”. Fear of health today is one of the challenges that our scheme presents. Misinformation and media manipulation have made our work more difficult. “Vaccine skepticism-misinformation and over-information is creating a phenomenon of uncertainty. They trust people close to them more than health experts. There is a need to create an information system that everyone understands”.
“Prevention is easier than care”. In crises, the GDP falls and as a consequence there is a hard unemployment like the one suffered by Spain. Protecting the productive fabric and jobs is the key to optimizing the economy and therefore our society. “We must protect the economic and social basis of our systems”. The important thing is that all this is able to happen because of internal and international cooperation. “Through public-private partnership is the only way to achieve this”. One of the most important points to be addressed by the minister was the COVID-19 Recovery Plan: 70 billion euros channeling a volume of EU transfers. “Recovery, transformation and resilience are the principles with which Spain plans to act between 2021 and 2023 from European funds”. Undoubtedly, the most ambitious economic plan Spain has ever had. It presents as objectives to form the basis for future generations and for a better, more sustainable, more productive and social country. This is an amount that is aimed at a process of improving the structure. The Minister estimates that we will recover the pre-pandemic GDP in 2022 and the improvement of the economy in 2023.
“The transformation of Spain’s assembly plants is imminent. Spain’s industrial fabric needs to become the largest green structures in Europe. We aim to attract startups and high-innovation foreign investment, which will have access to all the information with the aim of making it inclusive”. The chips created a relocation of investment in Europe and the world. Today, inputs are necessary for our management of society. This is what the Spanish action plan will focus on. Moving this way towards European and world economic leadership.
Joaquin Duato, Johnson & Johnson – Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee: Mentioned the priority of giving and manufacturing vaccines to developing countries. The Importance to maintain the international connection between our countries for improvement in 2022 and structure for future pandemic. This is besides the fact that we are going to see a privatization of health phenomena all over the world. “The study of data to analyze science is key to making better business decisions and efficient anticipation of negative impact on the health sector. Also to calculate better clinical questions for prevention. The pandemic has set light on our insufficiency in health equity. Until we don’t get everyone protected there is always risk to relapse again and to have the reemergence of the new variant”. One of the major challenges the health objective faces is skepticism. “Many people believe that we are putting a chip in the vaccine. This is why we are trying to maintain vaccine production locally”. Mr Duato also highlighted the importance of business continuity and how the pharmaceutical supply chain has to be built from scratch. “We don’t have the capacity right now but it is an ongoing target”. It is necessary to bear in mind the Importance of a controlled Cybersecurity scheme.
Helena Herrera, Managing Director, HP Southern Europe Market:“The COVID-19 has changed us. Technology has become a priority at the level of health, communication, education, and commerce”. There is now a flexible hybrid work model. Technology serves as a catalyst for what we were used to but were not necessary. Digitization is a reinvention of any Modus Operandi of government and independent companies. Mrs Herrera endorsed the importance of sustainability and described it as “how we manage the things we work on. The one that can be done at a specific time”.
“Technology is an enabler, but the one who transforms society is people.” This affirmation confirms that a transformation of businesses and skills is important. The citizen has the task and responsibility to adapt, prepare and commit to the necessary changes. Technology is an important enabler, but not an absolute one as it is driven by people.
Mrs Herrera argued that globally, there is a moment of opportunity we must know how to take advantage of it in order to have an impact. Long life learning. “We must learn to unlearn and learn”. Thus, we generate a supply chain that is based on cost and not on resilience, as it should be.