Contributor(s): Luis Almagro | Foreign Minister Almagro will outline the Uruguayan Government's Policies on International Relations, focusing on the Southern Cone sub-region, Latin America and the world. Dr Almagro will highlight the positive outcome already achieved by the current Government, with regard to the country's attractive investor-friendly policies, its strategic geographical location as a financial hub in the Southern Cone, as well as its development in the fields of Science, Technology and Innovation. Luis Almagro was appointed Foreign Minister by President Mujica in March 2010. A career diplomat and trained as a lawyer. He was a supporter of the National Party in his younger days before moving to the Frente Amplio. He joined the MFA in 1987. Diplomatic postings include Ambassador to China (2007 to 2010); Bonn (1998-2003) and Iran (1991-96). In the MFA in Montevideo he worked in the Minister's private office (1997-98) and was Deputy Director for International Economic Affairs in 2005. In 2006 he went to work for then Agriculture Minister José Mujica as head of the Ministry's International Affairs Unit. He is keen to promote commercial diplomacy in the foreign service and improve professionalism.

Contributor(s): Alejandro Poiré | Alejandro Poiré is the National Security Spokesman, Presidencia de la República.

Contributor(s): Pavan Sukhdev | Pavan Sukhdev is Study Leader for the G8+5 commissioned report on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), a hugely influential global study launched in Nagoya in October 2010. He is also Special Advisor and Head of the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) Green Economy Initiative. Prior to his work for TEEB and UNEP, Pavan was Head of Deutsche Bank's Global Markets Business in India and a founding member of the Green Indian States Trust (GIST).

Contributor(s): Ernesto Cordero | Ernesto Cordero is the Mexican Minister of Finance. This event marks the inauguration of Mexico Today Economic Prospects and Public Security, a week long conference of public events.

Contributor(s): Professor Dani Rodrik | Managing globalisation requires that we get the balance between markets and regulation and between the global economy and the nation-state right. A healthy globalisation is one that is not pushed too far. Esteemed economist Dani Rodrik examines the pressure points in the global economy and what can be done about them, and looks at the situation from its seventeenth-century origins through the milestones of the gold standard, the Bretton Woods Agreement, and the Washington Consensus, to the present day. Dani Rodrik is Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy at John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is one of the world's top economists, well known for his original and prescient analyses of globalisation and economic development. The book The Globalization Paradox is published by Oxford University Press this month. Dani Rodrik will be signing copies at the event. Global Policy is an innovative and interdisciplinary journal bringing together world class academics and leading practitioners to analyse both public and private solutions to global problems and issues.

Contributor(s): Lord Malloch Brown | The dramatic shifts underway in global economic, political and social society are leading to new stress points. Both at the global level as a country like China pushes its way to the top of the table and at the national level as power shifts, not just between countries but within countries as rapid wealth creation, and elsewhere destruction, creates new local winners and losers. Again China is a good example. Mark Malloch-Brown will then argue that rather than just obsessing over elusive, usually wrong, predictions about who the global and local winners and losers are, we have to accept change is now a constant and we need flexible new ways of managing our global and national affairs, whoever is up or down, that recognise that much of the old intergovernmental system is breaking down and leaving us dangerously ungoverned as change and global integration accelerates. Mark Malloch-Brown has held a unique set of positions across the heights of the international system. After leaving a career in journalism, he served as a World Bank vice president and as the head of the United Nations Development Program and deputy secretary-general to Secretary General Kofi Annan. Most recently, he was minister for Africa, Asia, and the UN in the government of Gordon Brown. Jeffrey Sachs named him one of Time Magazine's 100 Leaders and Revolutionaries.

Contributor(s): Martin Wolf | The financial crisis was the product of an unstable interaction between ants (excess savers), grasshoppers (excess borrowers) and locusts (the financial sector that intermediated between the two). In view of this history, is the current recovery solidly built? Or do the weaknesses the crisis revealed remain pervasive? Martin Wolf is the associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times.

Contributor(s): David Gilmour, Marco Simoni | Italy today has the seventh largest economy in the world. Yet despite its economic and cultural riches, it has never achieved a successful political system. Does the blame lie with its founders? Was Italy predestined to be a failed nation state? David Gilmour, the author of The Pursuit of Italy, is a much-admired historian whose books include three prize-winning biographies, The Last Leopard: A Life of Giuseppe di Lampedusa, Curzon and The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling. He has written on Italy for numerous publications including the TLS, the New York Review of Books, the Sunday Times and the Spectator. Dr Marco Simoni is a lecturer in European Political Economy and (until August 2011) a British Academy post-doctoral fellow at the European Institute. He received his PhD in Political Economy from the European Institute, LSE in 2006 and his Laurea cum laude in Political Science and Political Economy (Masters degree with distinction) from the Università di Roma “La Sapienza” in 2000. His research interests revolve around topics of comparative capitalism, mostly the role of large organizations, such as trade unions, political parties, as well as their interaction with governments. His research explores both the determinants of their strategies and their impact on different measures of economic performance.

Contributor(s): Stuart Popham | Stuart Popham will discuss many of the changes which he has seen in his 35 year career. Stuart Popham is the senior partner of Clifford Chance LLP, worldwide.

Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Howard Davies, Angel Gurria | Now in its 50th year, the OECD has established itself as the leading international economic organisation for socio-economic analysis, best practice policy based on peer review, benchmarking and internationally comparable indicators and statistics. Its achievements have made a major contribution to both economic development within its membership and global economic issues. Bringing together business, think–tanks, academia, government and the media, the seminar will address the economic challenges facing policy makers working to transition the world economy from crisis to a period of strong, sustainable and balanced growth. The seminar will also foster a debate on future challenges that tomorrow’s economic policy makers will face, as the OECD looks forward to the next 50 years.