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TOWARD AN OAS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Remarks by the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro Lemes, on the occasion of his inauguration

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A region of and for all people of the Americas

In 2020, when my term of office ends, the OAS should be recognized as the political forum of the Hemisphere with equal participation by all countries of the Americas, working in a climate of peace to consolidate democracy, promote and protect human rights, and foster integral development and multidimensional security, thus enabling it to support prosperity with opportunities for progress for all.

Our leitmotif will be More Rights for More People in the Americas

It will come as no surprise if I reiterate that what I do as Secretary General of the OAS from this day forward will be guided by a set of principles that will set the course for the next five years:

● Promotion and protection of human rights
● Promotion and defense of democracy and the OAS Democratic Charter
● Hemispheric and international cooperation and partnership for integral and environmentally sustainable development
● Promotion of hemispheric and cooperative initiatives with countries to ensure citizen and multidimensional security
● Peaceful settlement of disputes
● Promotion and defense of the self-determination of peoples and noninterference in matters under the domestic jurisdiction of other states
● Encouragement of integration and coordination among regional groups

During this five-year period, the OAS will have to undergo a process of change to adapt it to the realities of the twenty-first century. This means that it will have to be inserted into a world different from the one in which it was developed and has grown and operated.

Today’s world is obviously multipolar, with a clear rise of the emerging countries, in addition to situations that, like the present one, may be unfavorable. As we look toward the end of our administration, the urban population, in the world in general and in Asia in particular, will still be expanding and the middle classes in the emerging countries will become a new driving force of the global economy. This increasing urbanization will continue to have an impact on the demand for food, which will pose new challenges, for example, where the environment is concerned.

At the same time, we are living in a world with increasingly interconnected networks, whose use is not neutral. They can be used to pursue noble objectives like those pursued by the OAS and multilateral organizations or to bring about destruction and barbarity, but we cannot be disengaged from them since they represent the world of today and the future.

We are also living in a world of uncertainty in which power is expressed in the most diverse and increasingly less conventional ways, in which we must advance a positive agenda to help the OAS rise to the occasion and prevent the Hemisphere from relapsing into Cold War practices, which we must avoid by every means. To do so, we have to shore up the negotiation, mediation, and consensus-building skills of this OAS, which brings together all countries of the Hemisphere.

As concerns development, there are more than one billion people in the Hemisphere; one in seven people in the world lives in the Americas. The region produces over a quarter of global GDP. We have enormous resources and potential.

In the past decade, the countries of the Hemisphere, primarily those in South America, achieved sound economic growth, expanding their economies at a rate of more than 4 percent per year. This was due to more-favorable terms of trade, mainly for the more competitive raw materials, and to increased domestic consumption. As a result of this trend and of inclusive social policies, over 80 million Latin Americans managed to lift themselves out of poverty and the middle class has expanded as never before.

However, much remains to be done. Inequality persists and the present economic situation, characterized by a decline in global growth and in the prices of commodities that many countries of the Hemisphere export, along with a drop in demand from key countries like China and the weak uptick in demand in the G8, has resulted in a much lower growth rate, both in recent months and prospectively, than the averages over the past decade.

The question of inequality and the creation of opportunities for all citizens, irrespective of their race, gender, place of birth, social condition, or sexual orientation, continue to be a concern today in all our countries, from Canada to Patagonia.

Day after day, thousands of people of the Americas are leaving their countries in search of a better future. They and their families are in an extremely vulnerable situation. Their rights must be safeguarded.

That is why my administration will make the theme “MORE RIGHTS FOR MORE PEOPLE,” its raison d'être, because the Hemisphere has had its fill of exclusion, of political, economic, and social rights for some but not for all; it has grown weary of racism, of persecution, of prejudice, of sterile conflicts.

The Hemisphere is characterized by peace and lives in democracy, although the quality of that peace and democracy may vary. However, I insist that elections must be inclusive and transparent in every country holding an electoral process and that they must be held within constitutionally established time frames.

This being the case, in the area of democratic governance, the OAS must lend a hand to countries that are going through moments of tension and conflict that at times go beyond the levels of civility to which regional democracy should aspire.

For the reason that democratic governance is about more than just elections, one of the key initiatives that my administration will seek to implement will be a school of governance for public servants and civil society in the Hemisphere, as a tool for strengthening the practices of institutional transparency, consensus building to undertake reform, and public accountability.

Probity, ethics, and republican decorum are not mere ideological values; they are essential democratic values whose implementation brings hope to new generations, given that the collusion of politics and money in the public arena simply drives them away from political activity and from participation in the decision-making that shapes their future.

Consequently, we will also focus our efforts on working jointly with the countries on transparency and the fight against corruption, providing OAS support in the areas of training and access to best practices in transparency and accountability.

These values are part of an agenda that is also expressed regionally and internationally and of which former-president José Mujica is a clear proponent.

In one of his last appearances at an international forum, Mujica said “the true innovation in politics is to live the way one thinks; otherwise, one runs the risk of ending up thinking the way one lives.” These are simple but wise words in today’s hemispheric context.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Summit of the Americas, held last month in Panama, was a turning point in our Hemisphere. The inclusion of Cuba together with renewed bilateral relations with the United States opens up an array of beneficial détente possibilities for the region as a whole.

We will work to enable Cuba to become fully integrated into the OAS, obviously taking into account the need to make allowance for time frames and processes that are not under our control.

Emerging from the Summit’s interaction and dialogue were shared objectives and concerns, which we consider to be consistent with several of the initiatives that we have put forward in recent months and that will be at the center of our efforts.

• Citizen security, which is among the top two or three concerns in all the countries of the Hemisphere. We will work alongside multilateral organizations on a hemispheric initiative, adopting a holistic approach to the problem.
• School of Governance, which I already mentioned.
• Prevention of social conflicts. We will facilitate dialogue between investors, from both outside and within the region, states, and communities in key productive sectors that generate wealth and conflicts about how that wealth is distributed.
• Natural disaster prevention and management in the Caribbean and Central America. We will develop a coordinated network of best practices with the United Nations and multilateral organizations.
• Interconnectivity in the Caribbean. This will be an initiative to overcome digital connectivity divides and develop more-even commercial use of rivers and air traffic, so as to attract investment to the region and boost progress and jobs for young people.
• Pan American Education System. This initiative will enable us to progress from achievements in enhancing access to education to achievements in enhancing the impact of education at higher levels.

Friends,

Two months ago, in this very chamber, when by the will of the member states I was elected Secretary General, I said:

I am not interested in administering the crisis in the OAS. I am bent on facilitating the emergence of a revitalized OAS.

Following a period of transition, in which we started to come to terms with the dimension of the challenges to be addressed, I would like to affirm it once again with clarity.

We have noticed early on that there are likely areas in which we can achieve greater alignment and efficiencies. To cite some examples:

• The strategic vision is not aligned with the current organizational structure of the OAS.
• There are clear opportunities for bringing the demand for services that the countries need from the OAS more closely into line with what the Organization can offer.
• It is crucial to improve interaction and cohesion among the three vital parts of the OAS: its staff; its owners or, in other words, the governments and the organs that represent it; and the General Secretariat, so that the measures taken by the Organization enjoy everyone’s support.
• The transition team has held meetings with all stakeholders and, at the same time, a two-way dialogue was initiated with OAS staff members, sponsored by the transition team and the Staff Association. The results will undoubtedly be helpful in directing our efforts and I am very grateful for everyone’s participation. In the near future, we will organize a Town Hall Meeting with all the staff.
• As regards organizational, financial, and administrative management, we will reorient processes toward results-based management to ensure alignment with the strategic vision.
• There also exist clear opportunities for improving interaction between the different parts of the inter-American system and other regional integration organizations that have emerged in the region in the past decade.
• There is great potential if we are able to coordinate the different actors from the OAS and from the inter-American system and its partners.
• There is also much to be done in the context of civil society, social networks, and communication to bring the OAS closer to the people of the Americas. We want an OAS that is close to the people.


We have given an overview of the challenges faced by the Hemisphere and also of how we hope to adapt the Organization from within to enable it to respond effectively.

We will have the opportunity to address all these matters in greater depth at the General Assembly session to be held next month, in June.

IN CLOSING, AND AT THIS TIME OF CHANGE IN THE OAS, I WOULD LIKE TO APPEAL TO THE GOVERNMENTS, THEIR REPRESENTATIVES IN THE PERMANENT COUNCIL, THE OAS STAFF, ALL PARTS OF THE INTER-AMERICAN SYSTEM, AND THE PARTNERS OF THE OAS, TO WORK TOGETHER WITH THE GENERAL SECRETARIAT FROM TODAY ONWARD TO BRING THE ORGANIZATION’S ACTIVITIES INTO LINE WITH THE VISION OF AN OAS THAT IS EVER CLOSER TO THE PEOPLE, MORE EFFICIENT, LESS BUREAUCRATIC, AND THAT HELPS SOLVE THE PROBLEMS OF OUR HEMISPHERE AND ITS CITIZENS.

TOGETHER, IN DIVERSITY, WITH RESPECT, TOLERANCE, AND DIALOGUE, WE WILL BE ABLE TO SECURE MORE RIGHTS FOR MORE PEOPLE IN THE AMERICAS!

Reference: S-009/15