This Tuesday at the Nicanor Parra Library the presentation of the “Palancas in Chile” project took place. The initiative, developed in collaboration between the Felipe González Foundation, CAF – development bank of Latin America and the Caribbean -, and the Diego Portales University (UDP), aims to propose small, simple and concrete reforms that can improve people’s quality of life. In this way, Chile joins other countries such as Spain, Ecuador, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, where the program is already being implemented.
Within the framework of the inauguration, prominent personalities from the political field met at the UDP to discuss highly relevant issues that require a short, medium and long-term vision. The activity included a conversation panel between the President of the Government of Spain (1982-1996), Felipe González; Christian Asinelli, Corporate Vice President of Strategic Programming CAF-development bank of Latin America and the Caribbean-; and Patricio Fernandez, director of UDP Democracy. Meanwhile, moderation was in charge of Rocío Martínez-Sampereexecutive director of the Felipe González Foundation.
The day began with words from the moderator, who highlighted that the project seeks to bring together people with “very transversal profiles, both professional and ideological, to discuss specific public policies. Although we call it the revolution of small things, in the end they are concrete because they can have high impacts. “What we have observed is that when different people get together to discuss something specific, they tend to agree.”
Next, it was the turn of the Corporate Vice President of Strategic Programming of CAF-development bank of Latin America and the Caribbean-, Christian Asinelli, who pointed out: “As a development bank, which is interested not only in investment issues, development also has to do with improving state capacities and public leadership, strengthen the networks and connections between those who have a vocation to carry out public policies, and it seems super pertinent to be able to do so by accompanying a project like Palancas, which already has a lot of experience, which is proven, which has fruits and that has improved many public policies”.
Along the same lines, Asinelli delved into the fact that the project “changes the hearts, changes the heads and changes the way of thinking of our leaders.” The CAF representative closed his speech by thanking the UDP for “sharing with us this space of co-creation, I am convinced, I am certain, that we will be able to achieve a qualitative leap.”
Patricio Fernández, director of UDP Democracy – a new project of the university that seeks to be a place of meeting and reflection on democracy and who will be involved in Palancas Chile -, stated that the initiative speaks closely with what happened in the constituent processes in the country, of which he actively participated.
“After the experiences we have had in Chile, certainly unsuccessful, one can conclude that modesty is required. In the times of great dispersion that we are living in, where there are neither large ideologies that unite, nor large political institutions that can give order or construction to these processes, Palancas invites us to do some of that. They are no longer the gigantic answers. So let’s go back to the beginning. To form small conversation groups, looking for ideas, whether small or concrete,” he commented.
In this direction, he pointed out that the project seeks “small or concrete answers to problems that are very own, but I would say that it also has the curiosity of discovering dialogues that are not necessarily what we have in a political world, increasingly distant from the world we live in. It seems to me that curiosity is one of the most brotherly values of democracy, because it precisely implies being aware that we need others and what we do not know to find viable answers or a better coexistence.”
Then came the turn of the President of the Government of Spain (1982-1996), Felipe González, who addressed the different themes that have been worked on through Palancas, as well as the importance of generating policies and discourses on a smaller scale to address complex issues. “The levers are the politics of small things; We have tried many actions and reached extraordinary conclusions (…). In totally different circumstances there are elements that are common, but not because there is an ideological prejudice, but because one analyzes reality, which is what Palancas tries to do, with an absolute vocation for transversality,” he said.
“This program means changing political literature so that people understand it. “It is a project that motivates me, and it motivates me because it has an extraordinary local and national dimension and a more general dimension that can allow us to move forward,” he added.
You can relive the complete presentation of Palancas Chile in the following link.
