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OAS and AU in Addis Ababa Strengthen Cooperation to Overcome Common Challenges

The Organization of American States (OAS) and the African Union (AU), the two most important regional institutions in the Americas and Africa, began today a two-day meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in what is the Second Forum held jointly, where they strengthened their intentions to intensify cooperation to overcome common obstacles, since, in the words of Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, “dialogue between the regional systems is essential to continue confronting the pending challenges.”

Addressing the Chairperson of the Commission of the AU, Jean Ping, and representatives of the Member States of the OAS and the AU, Secretary General Insulza said that “the continuation of cooperation between the OAS and the AU in the protection and promotion of human and peoples’ rights will further strengthen each regional system’s capacity to respond more efficiently to the needs of its users.” “We need to continue developing common human rights principles, minimum standards applicable to every human being,” he added.

The meeting between the representatives of the two multilateral institutions, titled, “Challenges and Opportunities in the Promotion and Defense of Democracy and Human Rights in Africa and the Americas,” is being held today and tomorrow in the headquarters of the AU in the Ethiopian capital with the support of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). Its objective is to share perspectives on the challenges for strengthening the two fundamental areas for the two regional organizations, and successfully develop concrete forms of collaboration to face these challenges.

In this sense, the OAS Secretary General asserted that the two institutions already share very good cooperation, recalling the “similar objectives” to which they are committed and the initiatives they have jointly undertaken. He mentioned the Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2009 as well as the technical support the two organizations have shared on matters of human rights, as well as the electoral observation in their respective continents. “By joining our forces we can be even more effective in achieving our objectives and in ensuring that regional integration and inter-regional cooperation will translate into more democracy, more freedom and greater benefits for our people,” he emphasized.

On the pending challenges in the Western Hemisphere, the head of the OAS highlighted poverty and inequality, which he characterized as “the main challenge in the Americas, despite our region being much more democratic than before.” He also mentioned the weakness of institutions, the lack of independence in the judiciary system, the threats to freedom of expression, as well as drug trafficking, organized crime, and the absence of the full exercise of citizenship by women. “The inequalities that persist prevent democracy from being all that it can be to fulfill the aspirations of our citizens,” he commented.

Nevertheless, Secretary General Insulza remarked on the great progress achieved in the Americas on matters of democracy as well as the protection of human rights, thanks to the creation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter ten years ago and the successes of the Inter-American System of Human Rights, which “has contributed to developing and strengthening democratic systems in the Americas by issuing decisions and judgments regarding the rule of law, respect for the rights to life and personal integrity, the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment,” among many others, he said.

For his part, the AU Chairperson, Jean Ping, highlighted four of the challenges that have promoted debate in the last years among African peoples. In particular, he named “what we call the recent regime changes, the capacity to speak with the same voice faced with complex situations, the question of external influences, and the problem of strengthening the legitimacy of regimes that arise from elections.”

He also recalled the contributions of regional systems to the solution of conflicts in the African continent and held that “one of the great contributions of Africa to the defense and strengthening of democracy has been the creation of mechanisms for the eradication of coups d’état in the continent.” In this context, the head of the AU made a call “in favor of the intensification of the exchange of experiences between our regions surrounding said challenges.”

Joining Secretary General Insulza at the OAS-AU meeting were the Chair of the Permanent Council and Representative of Guyana to the OAS, Bayney R. Karran; the Chair of the Permanent Council’s Committee on Political and Juridical Affairs and Permanent Representative of Ecuador to the OAS, María Isabel Salvador; the Permanent Representative of Chile and representative of the ALADI Group, Darío Paya; the Permanent Representative of Dominica and CARICOM, Hubert Charles; the Representative of Guatemala and the SICA Group, Jorge Skinner-Klee; the Alternate Representatives of Canada and Mexico, Pierre Giroux and Karla Tatiana Ornelas Loera; and a specialist from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Oswaldo Ruiz-Chiriboga.

The complete text of Secretary General Insulza’s speech is available here.

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

Reference: E-893/11