IAPH development director for the Central and South America region Guimara Tuñón Guerra represented the association at a port-hinterland-community interaction session at TOC Americas 2025 in Panama City last month. During a 22 October panel discussion on the topic – titled ‘Beyond the Gateway: Strategic Alignment between Port Growth and Hinterland Development’ – Guimara gave a presentation in which she reframed the future of port competitiveness around institutional synergy and social value creation. She underscored IAPH’s growing role in Latin America’s integration into global port-governance networks, particularly through collaborative programs with CIP–OAS, UNCTAD, and national port authorities; she emphasized that ports must function as strategic development hubs, aligning infrastructure, governance, and human capital to generate territorial cohesion. Guimara also highlighted the Smart Public Port Partnership (SP3) initiative as a modern concession framework that links private investment with local innovation and community benefit.
