Colombia’s first ever ambassador to Ghana, HE Claudia Tourbay Quintero, minces no words about her country’s determination to engage Ghana in a big way
“Our desire and intention primarily, is to understand the similarities between our two countries with a keen and serious interest in working together with Ghana to develop new ventures together,” she says.
Tourbay believes that the size of her country’s economy, with a 2012 GDP (purchasing power parity) of US$511.1 and GDP per capita of US$11,000, coupled with the economic dynamism of Central America, there are many useful experiences and opportunities to be shared with Ghana, which has also just emerged as a lower middle income country with strong GDP growth rates recorded in recent years.
“Our first objective is to forge strong bilateral relations between Colombia and Ghana and secondly to establish linkages between our two sub-regions, both politically and diplomatically.
“Thirdly, we have very clear economic strategies through the new sub-regional strategic alliance that we have been building, the Pacific Alliance, between Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Peru. It is an alliance that began under the present government, in 2010 and finally formed in April 2011, but it has become a reality so fast and it is integrating our various economies thereby enabling us to go abroad and forge relationships with other regional groupings, in investments and trade partnerships,” Tourbay explained.
The four founding nations of the Pacific Alliance represent about 36% of Latin American GDP. If counted as a single country they would be the sixth largest economy in the world with a purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP of more than US$3 trillion. According to information from the World Trade Organization (WTO), the countries of the Pacific Alliance together exported about $445 billion in 2010, almost 60% more than Mercosur (the other predominant Latin American trade bloc.)
Tourbay is obviously breaking grounds quite fast, for the short period she has been at post, as she has succeeded in getting Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Hanna Tetteh, to attend the Pacific Alliance’s summit in Bogota, this February.
Among the more important agreements that have been reached among the bloc is the creation of joint embassies and consulates that will help provide citizens of Pacific Alliance Members with needed diplomatic services. The Declaration of Cali, in May 23, highlights the importance of the opening of an embassy shared between Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru in Ghana.
“Ghana is recognised as the headquarters of Latin American presence in the West African sub-region and the Pacific Alliance have already, since November 2013, identified an office building in Accra where all four countries of the Alliance will have representation.
“Of course, each of our countries will work bilaterally with the Ghanaian government because each country has its own policy regarding its engagement with West Africa, but we will also in several instances work together; it is a new horizon that presents our various countries and our two regions with great opportunities,” Tourbay explained.
But Colombia, particularly, has many reasons to be in Africa.
The country hosts the third largest population of African descendants in Latin America, totaling some 4.5 million or 10.6% of Colombia’s total population.
“For us in Colombia, we have both a cultural and emotional attachment to Africa, as Afro-Colombians have contributed immensely in the development of our culture and country,” Tourbay says.
African people, she notes, played key roles in the independence struggle against Spain, pointing out that historians have noted that three of every five soldiers in Simon Bolivar’s army were African.
Notable Afro-Colombians include scientists like Raul Castro, writers like Manuel Zapata Olivella and politicians: Pied Cordoba, Paula Marcela Moreno Zapata, and Luis Gilberto Murillo; Miss Colombia 2001 winner and fashion model Vanessa Alexandra Mendoza Bustos, and first Olympic gold medalist for the country, Maria Isabel Urrutia .
“Traditionally, a couple of Latin American countries have maintained strong presence in Ghana, including Cuba, since the late 1960s when Ghana became a Republic and Brazil lately. We admittedly, are coming in late but we’re coming in heavily,” Tourbay says.
That is not an empty boast. Her country and the Pacific Alliance’s interests, that she is spearheading, come with such heavy economic weight.