Purpose
The North American Forum (NAF) is Co-Chaired by former US Secretary of
State George P. Shultz, former Mexican Secretary of Finance Pedro Aspe
and former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed. Its purpose is to advance a
shared vision of a resilient North America — able to avoid shocks when
possible and to withstand and rebound from shocks when necessary. The
Forum's method is to convene leaders from the public, private and citizen
sectors to identify those steps that can be taken to advance security,
prosperity and quality of life on the continent. The NAF will explore
actions that governments and private actors can take. Invited participants
are selected based on their commitment to these goals and their ability
to effect positive change.
Participants
A core group of participants from Mexico, Canada and the United States
are invited each year, along with experts able to contribute to that year's
agenda. While this core group is comprised of non-governmental actors,
by and large, they have feed-back loops to their respective governments.
Senior representatives of the three governments are among those invited.
Outputs
The Co-Chairs do not intend to make public pronouncements advocating specific
policy approaches on the NAF's behalf. Rather the outputs of the NAF will
be ideas and approaches that are individually pursued by participants at their
own initiative and in their own name.
North American Forum Inaugural Meeting held in Sonoma California, October 2005. From the left, Peter Lougheed, Pedro Aspe, Mayor of Sonoma Larry Barnett, George P. Shultz.
History
The North American Forum is a community of Canadian, Mexican and American
thought leaders, whose purpose is to advance a shared vision of North
America, and to contribute to improved relations among the three neighbors.
They come together annually to explore the interactions among the mutually
reinforcing goals of security, prosperity and enhanced quality of life.
The purpose of the NAF is to create the political and conceptual basis
for both increased cooperation among countries and sectors and better-informed
public policy. The NAF identifies actions that governments and private
actors can take to help build societal resilience so that the three countries
can avoid shocks — be they natural or man-made — when possible,
and withstand and rebound from shocks when necessary. NAF members are
selected based on their commitment to the NAF's goals and their ability
to effect positive change.
Presiding over the forum are three Co-Chairs: former US Secretary of State
George P. Shultz, former Mexican Secretary of Finance Pedro Aspe, and
former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed. They are assisted by a Core Group
of Advisors, comprised of former government officials and leaders of policy
and educational organizations in Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Furthermore, they are supported by a Secretariat, which is housed at the
World Affairs Council of Northern California. The first meeting of the
NAF took place in October 2005 in Sonoma, California, and was followed
by a September 2006 meeting in Banff, Alberta, Canada. The 2007 meeting
will be held in Mexico; in 2008, the meeting will return to the United
States.
The annual meetings draw together by invitation 75 public, private and
non-profit sector leaders with expertise in a broad array of security,
economic, social and foreign policy issues of shared concern. While these
experts are drawn from all sectors, including the media, meetings are
held off-the-record, following the Chatham House rule. The NAF format
provides a safe haven for practitioners, scholars and governmental decision-makers
to explore policy alternatives with their counterparts from neighboring
countries. A heavy emphasis is placed on the role that non-governmental
actors can play to complement official actions. Over time, the NAF seeks
to enhance cooperation and improve relations on the continent.
The annual meetings are meant to build community; to incubate and test
ideas; to serve as action-forcing events that (a) encourage experts to
envisage a regional approach to security, prosperity and improved quality
of life; (b) encourage an approach to conceiving and addressing problems
that crosses disciplinary, sectoral and national boundaries; (c) identify
steps to be taken by private actors, including commercial actors as well
as civil society leaders, to build resilience in the North American continent;
(d) to prompt policymakers to think imaginatively about opportunities
for future cooperation; and (e) to expose both private actors and governmental
policy-makers to the rationale and the opportunities for such cooperation.
The agenda for each meeting is tri-national in scope and design. The inaugural
meeting in California in 2005 set the goal-developing societal resilience
in the face of strategic challenges, focusing on the close linkages among
security, prosperity and quality of life. The 2006 meeting in Canada turned
to more intensive exploration of demographic trends; the relationships
among security, prosperity and migration; and the goal of greater energy
independence. The third annual North American Forum meeting will be held
in Mexico in fall 2007.
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