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OAS CIDI Discussed Labor, Competitiveness, and Work Force Development

The Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CIDI) of the Organization of American States (OAS) today heard officials from four member states of the institution on the support for micro enterprise and innovative entrepreneurship, at a regular meeting held at OAS headquarters in Washington, DC, in which Belize was also elected Chair of the Working Group to review mandates on integral development.

The Minister of Labour and Small- and Medium-Enterprise Development of Trinidad and Tobago, Errol McLeod, highlighted the role of the OAS in building hemispheric partnerships for promoting decent work. In this regard, he noted that work is a key element to growth with inclusion and inequality reduction, which makes it necessary to ensure equal opportunity of access and conditions for the different sectors of the population.

In the same vein, Minister McLeod explained the various instruments available in Trinidad and Tobago to encourage and promote micro and small enterprises, which he considers the driving force of his country’s economy. Among the challenges to be faced, he said, is the need for training entrepreneurs, for funding, and for equal opportunities in business participation. In that sense, he said, one of the measures implemented was to encourage the transition from business informality to formality.

The Director of the Department of Entrepreneurship Capital of the National Entrepreneurship Institute of Mexico (INADEM), Liliana Reyes, referred to her country’s experience in promoting innovative high-impact talent, pointing in particular to the development of technology, mainly led by young people as potential creators of large companies. To that end, the Mexican Government has implemented political and economic reforms aimed at increasing productivity and improving the conditions of democracy and freedom for Mexicans. These measures include the sectors of energy, telecommunications, finance, economic competition, and public finance and aim to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

From Argentina, via video conference, the National Coordinator on Technological Linkages of the National Institute for Agricultural Technology, Adolfo Luis Cerioni, presented a successful case of public and private sectors’ cooperation in his country in the area of technology transfer, to recover the competitiveness of cotton farming, a flagship sector of its agriculture.

For his part, Thomas Guevara, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Regional Affairs for the United States Department of Commerce, referred to the various challenges that his country faces in order to remain one of the largest economies in the world. On this subject, he said that it is now necessary to also invest in creating knowledge-sharing networks and a culture of dialogue in order to reduce frictions between parties involved in economic development.

Belize Chaired the Ad-Hoc Working Group to Review Mandates on Integral Development

At the same meeting, CIDI elected the Alternate Representative of Belize, Kendall Belisle, to chair the CIDI’s Working Group that will be responsible for the review of the mandates on integral development. This review is part of the process of reorganizing the priorities of the OAS, known as the "Strategic Vision.”

The members of the Council received, also via video conference, the verbal report of the Minister of Tourism and International Transport of Barbados, Richard Sealy, on the Twenty-Second Inter-American Congress of Ministers and High Authorities of Tourism that took place recently in the Caribbean country. During his presentation, Minister Sealy said that the meeting served to bridge the gap between English-speaking and Spanish-speaking countries in the Hemisphere on cooperation in tourism.

CIDI’s meeting also approved the draft order of business of the Fourth Regular Meeting of the Inter-American Committee on Sustainable Development (CIDS) to be held this month in Washington, DC, which will review the current Inter-American Program for Sustainable Development and will draw a roadmap for negotiating a new program in preparation of the inter-ministerial meeting that will take place in Honduras in 2015.

During the presentations, the permanent representatives of Mexico, Belize, Guyana, the United States, Barbados, Paraguay, El Salvador, Bolivia, Peru, Honduras, Ecuador, and Dominica took the floor.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-417/14