Ministerial Meetings

HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT MINISTERS OF THE AMERICAS (HEMA) INITIATIVE

The March 2002 meeting of Health and Environment Ministers of the Americas was the result of previous conversations between Health Canada and the Pan American Health Organization, and was proposed at the Meeting of Environment Ministers of the Americas hosted by the Minister Anderson in Montreal in 2001 (see Ministerial Communiqué). A key result of the March 2002 meeting was the agreement to meet every four years, in advance of the Summits of the Americas, to set directions and review progress on health and environment issues. As a result of this agreement, a “HEMA III” Ministerial meeting is planned for June 2005 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, to precede the Summit of the Americas meeting in Argentina in November 2005.

Support for HEMA was further given in January 2004, where the HEMA initiative was recognized in the Special Summit of the Americas Leaders' “ Declaration of Nuevo León ”. In endorsing the initiative the leaders instructed health and environment ministers to “develop a cooperation agenda to prevent and minimize the negative impacts to the environment and human health”.