The Georgetown Americas Institute’s Central America in Focus series will host three conversations about the policy, financial, and civil society dimensions of the challenges facing the region. The series will bring together stakeholders from the public, private, multilateral, and academic sectors as well as experts and practitioners from within and outside the region. The first event in the series, “Rethinking the Northern Triangle,” convened leading experts to address the linked economic, human rights, and migration policy challenges facing Central America, with a focus on El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Alejandro Werner, who will join the Georgetown Americas Institute as founding director in January 2022, moderated the discussion.
Featuring
Dr. Alejandro Werner (moderator) will join the Georgetown Americas Institute as founding director in January 2022 and is a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute. He recently completed almost nine years as director of the Western Hemisphere Department at the International Monetary Fund.
Katharine M. Donato is the Donald G. Herzberg Professor of International Migration and Director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She has examined many research questions related to migration, including the economic consequences of U.S. immigration policy; health consequences of migration; immigrant parent involvement in schools in New York, Chicago, and Nashville; deportation and its effects for immigrants; the great recession and its consequences for Mexican workers; U.S. legal visa system; and refugee and migrant integration.
Seynabou Sakho is the director of strategy and operations for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank. Sakho was most recently the country director for Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama). In her position, she oversaw the programs, research, and funding of the six nations. Sakho, who is from Senegal, joined the World Bank in 2004 and has held several positions, including as economist for Brazil, Jamaica, and Bolivia; economic advisor to the Operations Policy and Country Services Unit; and advisor to the Managing Director’s Office. Most recently, she served as manager of Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management for East and Central Africa. She earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in finance and economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has also authored and co-authored several publications on economic growth, private-sector development, and the effect of financial restrictions on small and medium-sized enterprises.
José Miguel Vivanco is director of Human Rights Watch's Americas division and a general expert on Latin America. Before joining Human Rights Watch, Vivanco worked as an attorney for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights at the Organization of American States (OAS). In 1990, he founded the Center for Justice and International Law, an NGO that files complaints before international human rights bodies. Vivanco has also been an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law and the School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University. He has published articles in leading American and Latin American newspapers and is interviewed regularly for television news. A Chilean, Vivanco studied law at the University of Chile and Salamanca Law School in Spain and holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School.
