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Colombia and the OAS Call for a 2012 Summit of the Americas with "Real and Tangible" Results

The Government of Colombia, as host country, and the member states of the Organization of American States (OAS) agreed today to promote that the Summit of the Americas, to be held in 2012 in Cartagena de Indias, produce a “focused declaration with fewer commitments that are realistic, short-term, measurable and enforceable."

At the meeting of the Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG), which brings together national summit coordinators of the hemisphere, the Coordinator for the Sixth Summit and Chairman of SIRG, Ambassador Jaime Girón, said that the declarations from past summits "are of great importance and have a substantial number of mandates which are carefully conceived and designed to meet the priority needs of our people." However, he noted that countries that are part of the process have an "accumulation of commitments that, despite our best wishes, remain practically unattainable because they are beyond our possibilities in size and magnitude."

In that regard, the OAS Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza, shared the proposals and concerns expressed by the representative of the Summit host government and reiterated the need to adopt agreements that have "real and tangible results for the people of our hemisphere." "It is useless to add more mandates to a list if we are not aware of the level of compliance with those that are still pending and why they have not been implemented, as well as the difficulties encountered in implementation. It is useless if we do not know what to expect from the process" he said.

The head of the OAS also noted the need to create alliances with multilateral institutions associated with the process through the Joint Summit Working Group (JSWG) "which can work with Member States in implementing the mandates by providing financial resources and experience." In that sense, the Chairman of SIRG underscored the lack of resources available to ensure mandate implementation and called upon the institutional partners to support countries in their efforts by "decisively helping them to mobilize resources and necessary technical expertise” through continuous dialogue and coordination.

The institutions that are part of the JSWG are; the OAS, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE), the Andean Development Corporation (CAF), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the World Bank (WB), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and United Nations Program for Development (UNDP).

Ambassador Girón, as Chairman of the group, reported that his country expects to have a proposed Summit theme prepared by the end of the year for consideration by the countries. The theme will have two main underlying foundations that "go beyond the present and will remain on the inter-American agenda.” The first one will be selected in the coming weeks and the second at a date closer to the Summit. According to the Colombian representative, the issues currently being considered for the 2012 event are related to technology and innovation for social policy, education, health and public services; reforestation and its role in the preservation of water sources and the environment, and the use of technologies for improving the health and education conditions of rural communities.

Participants in the preparatory meeting, held at OAS headquarters in Washington, DC, also considered issues such as stakeholder participation in the summit process through the virtual platform created for that purpose (http://svc.summit-americas.org/ ) the organizational structure for the Summit process within the Colombian presidency, the work plan (from January to May 2011 the draft declaration will be prepared and the negotiations will take place from July 2011 to March 2012), the proposal for a possible logo for the event, which would include a hummingbird’s image, and the methodology to evaluate mandate implementation from previous Summits.

The Government of Colombia recently announced that the VI summit will be held from April 14 – 16, 2012 at the Convention Center in Cartagena de Indias. The OAS Summits of the Americas Secretariat acts as the technical secretariat and institutional memory of the process, and supports the inclusion and participation of various stakeholders in the preparatory and follow-up Summit process.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

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

Reference: E-479/10