Board members of CIFAL Atlanta traveled to Colombia April 19-21.  Pictured from left to right are Jose Ignacio Gonzalez, executive committee chair; Luz Borrero, CIFAL treasurer; Craig Lesser, board member and Alex Mejia, executive director of CIFAL Atlanta.  Photo courtesy of Mr. Lesser.

Business and government officials from three cities in Colombia are scheduled to come to Atlanta in June after representatives from local United Nations affiliate CIFAL Atlanta met with them during a trip to  Medellin, Colombia, April 19-21.

CIFAL Board members traveled to Medellin to put on the organization's annual City AIDS Americas conference, which brings together government and civil society representatives as well as AIDS patients from municipalities throughout Latin America to discuss best practices in responding to the AIDS epidemic.

While in Colombia,  CIFAL representatives met with business and political officials in Bogota, Cali and Medellin to encourage them to attend a June 11-13 economic forum that the organization is helping to put on in Atlanta.

At the request of the U.S. Department of Commerce, CIFAL is working with the city of Atlanta to organize an Americas Competitiveness Forum in June that is to bring approximately 500 business and political officials from throughout North, Central and South America to Atlanta. The forum is to address  ways Western Hemispheric countries can work together to be more competitive vis-à-vis other regions around the world.

CIFAL is one of 12 U.N.-affiliated centers around the world that organizes best practice-sharing conferences for municipal, civil society and private sector leaders.  The conferences encourage positive social and economic development in rapidly urbanizing areas.

This was the first year the City AIDS Americas conference has been held outside of Atlanta since CIFAL Atlanta started it in 2005.  

Putting on the conference in a Latin American country garnered support from conference attendees, according to CIFAL Executive Director Alex Mejia. He said that Alfredo Palacio, Ecuador’s most recent former president, attended the program and commended Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin for starting the conference and taking a leadership role in the Western Hemisphere.

Ms. Franklin is chair of the board of directors of CIFAL Atlanta and has been actively involved with the organization since its inception in 2004.

CIFAL Board members who traveled to Colombia for the conference were Executive Committee Chair Jose Ignacio Gonzalez, who is also president of consulting group Hemisphere Trade Services; Treasurer Luz Borrero, who is deputy chief operating officer of the city of Atlanta and CIFAL board member Craig Lesser, managing director of law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP’s international public affairs group.

Mr. Mejia said that CIFAL’s next City AIDS conference in the spring of 2008 will again be held in Colombia and is expected to include increased involvement from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which sent one representative this year, as well as the federal government of Colombia.

The Colombian government is planning to offer financial support to the conference for some delegates, according to Mr. Mejia.