Typical street scene in Santa Ana, El Salvador. (Photo: iStock)
IMF Survey : IMF Launches Essay Contest for Latin American Youth
June 3, 2014
- Participants must be university students in Latin America from any discipline
- Competition’s theme is “How to Build a Better Future for Latin America”
- Five finalists will be invited to 2014 IMF Annual Meetings in Washington, D.C.
The International Monetary Fund has launched an essay contest for university students in Latin America. The theme for the competition is “How to Build a Better Future for Latin America.”
In preparation for the 2015 Annual Meetings in Lima, the IMF invites students from Latin American universities to write a 500-word essay (photo: Stringer/Reuters/Newscom)
Road to Lima
The contest is open to undergraduate and graduate university students in Latin America from all disciplines of study. The competition focuses on the challenges that the region’s youth consider pressing for future generations and seeks their views on possible solutions. The official languages for the essay competition are Spanish, English, and Portuguese.
“We hope that we will receive many inspiring essays that will contribute to the debate on public policies to foster better prospects for the people in our region,” said Alejandro Werner, the IMF’s Director for the Western Hemisphere.
The contest is part of a series of “Road to Lima” activities the IMF has planned in the region in the run-up to the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Peru in 2015.
Contest rules
Students are invited to submit a 500-word essay through June 30, 2014. Submissions should be sent to the following email: ConcursoFMI@imf.org
All submitted essays must respond to the three questions stated below and be written in one of the three contest languages:
â— In your opinion, what are the three main challenges facing the region?
â— What is the one issue that concerns you the most about your future?
â— What can you and your generation do now and over the course of the next 10 years to improve the prospects for our region?
An evaluation committee composed of IMF staff and regional partners will select five finalists in July 2014. In reviewing contest essays, the evaluation committee will take into account these requirements, and also consider: the essays’ purposefulness, originality, coherence, structure, and eloquence; the essays’ countries of origin; gender; equal representation of public and private universities; and academic diversity.
All five finalists will be invited to participate in the October 2014 IMF Annual Meetings in Washington, D.C. (the IMF will cover the travel and living expenses for five to seven days).
The winner will be announced in Washington, D.C. during the Annual Meetings and the winner and a runner-up will be invited to join the Annual Meetings Youth Dialogue panel, which will be hosted by a member of IMF senior management and webcast live on the IMF website.