Beckham: Dynamism generated by border region is a source of value for both US and Mexico

It’s great pleasure to give you a very warm and hearty welcome from NADBank here in San Antonio. It’s really gratifying.

I’ve been a part of the NADBank for three and a half years, and this is the first time I’m hosting the summit as managing director, which has been a privilege and an honor and a responsibility I take very seriously, as does everyone at the NADBank team.

We’re 100 and some people strong. We live, work and breathe the border region, the binational relationship, and we’re committed to working with everyone here in local communities to make this thriving and unique zone better and prosperous and sustainable for the future.

It’s really great to see all you here. Many of you we’ve already met, gotten to know each other personally, and so that’s very gratifying that we can continue the conversation and relationship.

I also want to take a special opportunity, a special mention, to recognize and thank our gold sponsors who helped make this event possible.

Why are we all here? That’s a question I ask myself frequently. And I thought it was a great place to start. Many of us live in the border region. Some of us work in the border region. Some of us invest in the border region. I think all of us care about the environment. We believe in the opportunity for a sustainable economy. We believe in the importance of a US-Mexico, collaboration, and relationship.

I hope our institutional video that you just saw helps you visualize how we are a valuable partner to all these efforts, to invest in the border’s environment and sustainability. NADBank has been a part of the border region and binational relationship for the last 30 years, when we were founded as part of the US-Mexico collaboration embodied in NAFTA.

Over time any relationship has its ups and downs. Political winds change and blow with different intensity. Through all of this, the bank’s vision remains unchanged: to lead binational cooperation, catalyzing environmental infrastructure investments to achieve sustainable development in the communities it serves to exemplary and innovative, financial, technical and environmental solutions of the highest standards.

Through all the cycles of the last 30 years, I think the relationship in the border region have come a long way. A few stats to illustrate.

On the economic side, as you saw, trade is over $800 billion between Mexico and United States. In 1994 that figure was about 100 billion.

Laredo-Nuevo Laredo facilitates over $300 billion in trade and is the largest port of entry in North America.

People have done well in the border as well. In the last 10 years, US border states’ population has grown by 1.2 percent on average, versus less than 1% on national average. The same is true in the Mexican side and the Mexican border states. They’ve grown at an average of about 1.7 percent over the last ten years, versus 1.3 (percent) nationally.

Since NAFTA, the US border states have created 12.8 million jobs. The Mexican border states have created over 5 million jobs. And most importantly of all, people have better access to water. They have better communities. The access to water is now at 99 percent in the US border region, and it’s 97 percent in the Mexican border region. Comparable figures 30 years ago were about 89 percent and 85 percent respectively.

Cross border collaboration has increased since NAFTA and is represented also by regular border crossings. Currently it is about 7.3 million trucks in the United States versus three million 30 years ago. Thirty-nine million pedestrians walk across the border, versus 34 million 30 years ago. Seventy-six million personal vehicles are transporting 135 million passengers now. That was 62 million 30 years ago.

These numbers demonstrate a dynamic and creative relationship based on a collaboration and work ethic. The dynamism generated by the border is the source of the value for both US and Mexico. It also is opening new opportunities. It merits ongoing investment and care for a sustainable future.

These opportunities provide the context for this Summit’s theme, Innovation for Sustainability. Our binational board of directors approved a five-year strategy at the end of 2023. It has three pillars to support the innovation and investment in environmental infrastructure that border needs and deserves.

One is water, our traditional core. We will continue to invest in infrastructure for clean, reliable quality water treatment, as well as water potable deliveries to all communities. But we’re also finding new needs to diversify water resources throughout the region. We can no longer depend on surface water as we have historically. That also includes water efficiency, water conservation and working with agriculture producers on how they can use and optimize their water.

The second pillar is clean energy. As the video sort of stated, we’ve been a pioneer in solar and wind power generation. But we’re also now moving into battery storage for that clean and renewable energy. We believe there’s need for greater transmission to take what is an abundant natural resource in the border region and take it to where the demand is.

And the third pillar is a greener economy. And simply put, that’s an economy that wastes less. And less waste means you’re actually more efficient. I think all investors, public or private, can understand that. How are we going to try to do this at the bank? We want to finance the infrastructure, and the processes needed for less waste and less contamination and using less natural resources, especially energy and water. And the second part of what we want to work on is mobility that consumes less time and emits less pollution. Wait times are a time tax that I think our communities don’t need.

By action at the bank, what do I mean? We want to bring together partners like we’re doing today. We want to have these conversations. We want to create and disseminate knowledge, whether we had a part in making it, or whether you all had a part making it, we want to share it with others. We want to share our experiences. What worked as expected, what worked but maybe not as expected, and what did not work. We want to scale what we can do and not do what did not work.

And lastly, by action, we mean providing grants and technical assistance that catalyze the environmental infrastructure. After all, we are a bank.

What we at the bank hope happens over the next two days? We hope that by engaging with this summit and the participants here, everyone will help the bank better respond to its mission and the needs of the border region. We would like to listen to candid discussions and what we each know and are seeing in the region.

We want to make new connections, cultivate established ones. We want to share knowledge and experience, and ideally at the end, we want to identify common goals, both for the near-term and the long-term.

I look forward to a rich discussion over the next several days. So, thank you again for participating and joining us here at the NADBank Summit.

Editor’s Note: The above commentary was provided by John Beckham, managing director of the North American Development Bank, as the opening remarks for the NADBank Summit 2024. The summit was held Aug. 29th and 30th in San Antonio. The theme of the summit was Innovation for Sustainability in the US-Mexico Border Region.

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