FUNGLODE/GFDD participates in the Tourism Policy Forum
Washington D.C., October 19-10

FUNGLODE/GFDD, represented by its Executive Director Natasha Despotovich, and its Tourism Group Coordinator Hans Dannenberg, participated in the Tourism Policy Forum organized by the George Washington University (GWU) and the World Tourism Organization (WTO). The main topic of the meeting was "Tourism's Potential as a Sustainable Development Strategy". Dominican Republic Minister of Tourism, Mr. Félix Jiménez, also took part in the event.


Ms. Natasha Despotovic with the organizers of the event,
Mr. Geoffrey Lipman, WTO ( left) and Mr. Donald Hawkins, GWU (right)

For the first time, donor agencies, developing countries, and the academic community met together at a high-level international conference to focus specifically on how tourism can help reduce poverty and meet other UN Millennium Development Goals, such as gender equality and environmental sustainability.

The forum attracted 200 participants and more than 200 observers from 52 countries, including 20 tourism ministers or top-level government officials.

The purpose of the forum was to convene educators, knowledge management experts and other informed professionals, together with representative government policy-makers and business leaders to focus on a critical policy issue facing global tourism and to offer recommendations for future directions.

The event was inaugurated by Mr. Stephen J. Trachtenberg, President of The George Washington University; Mr. Enrique Igleasias, President of the Inter-American Development Bank; Mr. James Adams, Vice President of the World Bank Group; and Mr. Francesco Frangialli, Secretary -General of the World Tourism Organization.

In the course of the two-day meetings, panels and conferences, it has been reconfirmed and widely accepted that tourism represents an increasingly important development strategy to positively address poverty reduction, economic growth, biodiversity and conservation in general, as well as the UN Millennium Development Goals specifically. It is important to note that the WTO has recently been designated a United Nations agency.

Two new initiatives were announced. One of them is the STEP Foundation (Sustainable Tourism Eliminating Poverty), a WTO program that will finance new research and development projects that link sustainable tourism to the UN Millennium Development Goals. It will be launched at the beginning of the next year and its headquarters will be located in Seoul, Korea.

The other innovative undertaking is the DANTEI website (Development Assistance Network for Tourism Economic Initiatives), a collaboration project between the GWU and the WTO with the purpose to increase communication and exchange of information about sustainable tourism projects.

The Forum concluded by providing a list of strategic recommendations on priority issues, such as: assessment, planning and implementation of tourism policies; rural development; natural resources and protected area management; cultural heritage preservation; market access and export development; and foreign direct investment and enabling environments, among others.

www.dantei.org/tpf_information.htm