Trade, Transparency and Vitamins? A snapshot of a busy week in a bilateral relationship

It has been all go between Guatemala and the UK this week. On Monday the Guatemalan Foreign Minister was in the UK attending the Parliamentary Conference on Drugs Policy Reform. He met the president of the Open Society Foundation, George Soros and with Norman Baker, Home Office Minister for State for Crime Prevention so that they could talk about international drugs policy.

At the same time back in Guatemala we received a trade mission organised by the Central American Business Council  of British companies who specialize in clean energy and related technologies.  In a packed two days they met companies, government authorities and other organisations to discuss possible deals. The meetings were so productive that some of them already made plans to return. This coincided with the World Bank announcing that Guatemala has improved 14 Places in their global Doing Business report.

Also at the same time the UK participated in the Guatemalan national security convention. This gave the opportunity to talk to British companies already operating in Guatemala and prepare for Guatemalan delegation to attend maritime and security trade fairs in the UK.

Meanwhile we also went to the Nutritional Recovery Centre in Purulha to accompany the Drogueria Italiana, who distribute Vitabiotics products  in Guatemala, and were donating vitamins and iron supplements  to the children and pregnant mothers who attend the centre. We also wanted to see how the money raised by the breakfast to celebrate the Birth of Prince George had been put to use in helping kit out the baby unit amongst other things. The visit was organised by the Guatemalan government’s Secretary for food security and nutrition who recently was awarded  the 2013 Transform Nutrition Champion Award in Scaling up Nutrition, from DFID in New York.

Back in London a Guatemalan delegation attended the Open Government Partnership Summit to talk about transparency.  This included Accion Ciudadana, the local affiliate of Transparency International, reaffirming the important role that civil society play in improving issues of transparency.  The Guatemalan embassy in London will announce its government’s commitment on information access for women and the use of electronic government. This was the first time that the UK has hosted the conference and the turnout was tremendous, with over 1000 delegates from more than 60 countries attending. Despite it being nearly the General Election in Honduras we were very pleased that they too were able to field a delegation to this conference.

So, all in all a busy week, I hope our friends in Guatemala and Honduras enjoy Dia de Todos los Santos on 1 November.