International thought leaders, governmental authorities and representatives from international organizations and stakeholders from the business community will gather at Palacio San Martin, on February 1-2. The meeting will be held to participate in the Inception Workshop: “Vision and Strategies for 2018”, kick-starting the work of the Think 20 (T20) Argentina, the G20 engagement group.

The main purpose of the Inception Workshop is for task forces to have their first face-to-face meeting to begin their work. Pablo Ava and Martín Rapetti, in charge of T20 Public Policies and Research team, will define the framework for the work ahead for this year.

During these two days, the experts will meet in sessions in order to set up priorities and agendas and to coordinate the progress on the research. After this initial meeting, they will start to define the recommendations for public policies. The proposals will be submitted to the G20 presidency during the T20 summit which will be held in Buenos Aires, September 16-18.

During this initial meeting, the Argentine Sherpa for the G20, Pedro Villagra, and the Minister of Treasury, Nicolas Dujovne, will take an official look into the priorities of the presidential summit. Meanwhile, Rodríguez Giavarini, president of CARI and Jorge Mandelbaum, president of CIPPEC Board of Administration, will pose the T20 point of view on the proposals.

The Inception Workshop: Vision and Strategies for 2018 will present two plenary conferences. The lecturer of the first conference will be Jeffrey Sachs, American economist expert in economic development, global macroeconomics and the fight against poverty. Sachs is the director of the Center for Sustainable Development of the University of Columbia, serves as an adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and is a member of the T20 Argentina Advising Committee. The second conference will be presented by Alfonso Vergara, architect, economist and sociologist specialized in city planning and innovation. He is the founder and honorary president of Metrópoli Foundation and member of the Eisenhower Foundation.

Several other plenary sessions will be held on topics of interest for Argentina including the future of work and education in the digital era, climate change and the infrastructure for development, and food safety and sustainable agriculture. Other sessions will cover social cohesion, global governance and the future of politics, a new subject area for the T20 introduced by CIPPEC and CARI. The meeting will conclude with the formal introduction of the affinity groups and with a round table focused on reaching agreements on how to ensure the G-20 process and the G-20 Summit in Argentina are successful.

To get the complete agenda for the Inception Workshop: “Vision and Strategies for 2018” click here.