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SEMINAR IN PANAMA PROMOTES HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
IN LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN

  December 13, 2004

A seminar that opens in Panama City, Panama, on December 15th will put the spotlight on humanitarian aid in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Regional Seminar for the Promotion of Volunteering for Humanitarian Assistance in Latin America and the Caribbean is sponsored jointly by the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the White Helmets Commission of Argentina, with the support of Panama’s Foreign Affairs Ministry.

The three-day seminar will explore a variety of regional volunteering initiatives and is addressed to Central America and the Caribbean. A similar activity has been carried out in Montevideo, Uruguay on September 9th and 10th, 2004 for South America. It is an initiative of Argentina’s White Helmets Commission and is being conducted under the purview of a Program the Commission undertakes with the IDB and the OAS.

In recent years, the OAS General Assembly has passed a number of resolutions supporting a hemispheric White Helmets Initiative, to foster the pooling of volunteer efforts by member countries.

The White Helmets Initiative that originated in Argentina and was joined by Uruguay and Paraguay is intended to consolidate a regional volunteer body—bringing together various actors from the countries of the Americas to handle appeals from international organizations to combat hunger and poverty, handle emergencies, and prevent crises and conflicts that emerge from natural disasters.


Reference: E-232/04