Assistant Secretary of State visited Paraguay

December 20, 2009

Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela; and Ambassador, Liliana Ayalde.

Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, made a short visit to Asuncion. The aim of the visit was to strengthen the long and lasting friendship between Paraguay and the United States, and to support the efforts of the Government of Paraguay in strengthening its democratic institutions, through continued U.S. cooperation.

On Friday, December 18, Arturo Valenzuela, accompanied by U.S. Ambassador, Liliana Ayalde, met with President Fernando Lugo and Foreign Minister Hector Lacognata in Mburuvichá Róga (Paraguayan Presidential Residence), visited the Paraguayan Population Studies Center (CEPEP, for its Spanish Acronyms) an organization receiving support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the area of reproductive health. Assistant Secretary Valenzuela, also held meetings with congressional leaders and representatives of Paraguayan civil society.

Biography

Dr. Arturo Valenzuela assumed responsibilities as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs on November 10, 2009. Dr. Valenzuela was previously Professor of Government and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is a specialist on the origins and consolidation of democracy, the institutional dimensions of democratic governance, Latin American politics, and U.S.-Latin American relations. Prior to joining the Georgetown faculty he was Professor of Political Science and Director of the Council on Latin American Studies at Duke University. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University, the University of Sussex, the University of Florence (Italy) and the Catholic University of Chile.

During the Clinton administration, Dr. Valenzuela served at the White House as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, where his primary responsibility was United States foreign policy towards Mexico. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he has been listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in American Higher Education and has served on the editorial boards of leading academic journals. For his diplomatic contributions he has been honored with the National Order of the Southern Cross by the government of Brazil and the Order of Boyacá by the government of Colombia.

Dr. Valenzuela has served on the board of directors of Drew University, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and the advisory boards of America’s Watch and the Institut des Amériques in Paris. He holds a Doctorate and a Master’s degree in Political Science from Columbia University, and a B.A. summa cum laude in Political Science and Religion from Drew University.