A summit meeting is an event where leaders or influential people gather to discuss solutions for a specific issue. They are usually a mix of speeches, panel discussions and workshops that allow attendees to learn from each other, share experiences and think creatively. They can be used by any industry to promote collaboration, create innovative products and advance the field.
A successful summit disrupts old ways of thinking and can generate powerful momentum for change. But it’s crucial to have a strategy and ambassadors in place to keep the new ideas alive and present in your association’s decision-making processes going forward.
When you organize a summit, make sure you have enough time to pull it off. The process of selecting topics, finding speakers and gaining their approval can take longer than expected. Additionally, the energizing conversations that happen at summits are likely to generate lots of ideas and questions, which will require more than a single day to work through.
In order to ensure that the various Summit mandates from Miami and Santiago are implemented, the OAS has appointed responsible coordinators at the international-multilateral level (see the list here) as well as national representatives who have responsibility for implementing individual Summit mandates at the national level (see the list here). The multilateral coordinating organizations involved in executing some Summit issues include the Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Pan American Health Organization and the World Bank.