Believing in Colombia, Pedro Medina discusses his home country

By: Kevin Afshari.

Colombia has high potential for development, according to Pedro Medina, an entrepreneur and non-profit organizer who visited McGill on Thursday. A Harvard graduate who brought the first McDonald's restuarant to Colombia, Medina addressed students to help dispell some widely-held misconceptions.

"There are many mixed images of what Colombia is like," said Medina. "Most think about what they see on the news-the warfare, the drugs, and the crime."

Although he acknowledges the many problems in his country, Medina discussed several of Colombia's commonly overlooked strengths. He cited the country's rich culture, pointing to author and Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez.

"We have had 70 years of steady economic growth, with only one economic collapse in 1999," said Medina, noting Colombia's stable economy as well as its position as the oldest democracy in Latin America.

Despite Colombia's strengths, the grim reality of the drug trade and national corruption still exists. Medina explored these problems, saying that Colombia produces 80 per cent of the world's cocaine.

Medina said that the country's natural resources are creating opportunities in biodiversity, biotechnology and ecotourism. There have also been serious anti-corruption movements at the grassroots level as well as a top-down approach on the part of the federal government. As a result, Colombia, once considered the third most corrupt nation in the world, is now ranked 74th.

Medina stressed the importance of the role of the developed world in Colombia's growth.

"The developed world needs to take cooperative initiatives rather than the paternalistic approach in Colombia," he said.

Medina addressed the crisis of credibility in government as well as explaining how government and philanthropic efforts tend to fall short in Colombia. The speaker called for social entrepreneurship as a chance for a positive change in his homeland. His non-profit organization, Yo Creo en Colombia, is one of these positive changes, he said. Carolina Torres, one of the organizers of the talk, said that she thought the depiction of Colombia was accurate.

"I hope that people change the way they're negatively thinking about Colombia," said Torres, "and that they start to think that they are part of a change."

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