AG/RES. 1913 (XXXIII-O/03)

STRENGTHENING OF PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT 

(Resolution adopted at the fourth plenary session, held on June 10, 2003) 

            THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 

CONSIDERING: 

            That resolution AG/RES. 1686 (XXIX-O/99) approved the establishment of the Inter-American Agency for Cooperation and Development (IACD) as a subsidiary body of the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CIDI) for the purpose of promoting, coordinating, managing, and facilitating the planning and execution of programs, projects, and activities within the framework of the Strategic Plan; 

            That partnership for development takes place at two strategic levels: the political level, intended to strengthen dialogue, agreements, and institutional mechanisms in order to identify priority areas to ensure targeted implementation, and the technical cooperation level, aimed at implementing priorities and political decisions through cooperation activities, programs, and projects, within the framework of the Strategic Plan for Partnership for Development 2002-2005; 

            That effective attention to the priority areas identified by the Summits of the Americas, the General Assembly, and the Strategic Plan for Partnership for Development requires coordination of the General Secretariat’s technical cooperation activities, particularly in the areas of project development and execution and resource mobilization and especially when those activities can be pursued concurrently or on a complementary basis by the areas of the General Secretariat; 

            That there is an urgent need to give renewed impetus to partnership for development and to invest the inter-American system’s cooperation structure with greater coherence, by promoting more active participation by international agencies and the units of the General Secretariat in formulating policies and in designing and executing the priority cooperation programs, projects, and activities of the OAS member states; and 

            That the Monterrey Consensus identified, as one of its objectives, mobilizing and increasing the effective use of financial resources and achieving the national and international economic conditions needed to fulfill internationally agreed development goals, in particular those contained in the Millennium Declaration, to eliminate poverty, improve social conditions and raise living standards, and protect the environment; and 

BEARING IN MIND: 

            That Article 19 of the Statutes of the IACD provides that, four years after the entry into force of those Statutes, CIDI is to conduct a comprehensive review of the functioning, operations, and financing of the IACD and to present its recommendations thereon to the General Assembly; and 

            That CIDI serves as the main inter-American forum for dialogue on matters of economic and social development, and that it should create mechanisms for strengthening partnership for development and act as a catalyst in mobilizing human, technical, and financial resources and as a coordinator in implementing the mandates arising from the Summits of the Americas process, in its areas of competence, 

RESOLVES: 

            1.         To restate the member states’ commitment to partnership for development, which entails the full participation of all member states, irrespective of their levels of development, in designing and executing horizontal and multilateral partnership-for-development activities in support of the steps taken by countries to attain integral development and, in particular, to fight poverty. 

            2.         To instruct the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CIDI) to conduct a review of its structure and mechanisms in order to: 

-           Promote closer coordination among the different organs, agencies, and entities of the inter-American system that are involved in cooperation matters; 

-           Promote greater participation by international agencies in the definition of policies and priorities and in the design and execution of sectoral programs, projects, and activities; 

-           Ensure that the design and execution of cooperation programs, projects, and activities respond to political decisions; 

-           Take advantage of the multilateral nature of the OAS, in which countries with different levels of development and experience participate and where political dialogue and technical cooperation come together; 

-           Take full advantage of the capabilities and experience of the units and areas of the OAS General Secretariat with regard to cooperation, taking into consideration the appropriate recommendations of the Management Study; and 

-           Define more clearly the composition, representation, nature, and purpose of CIDI’s regular and special meetings and its relation to the Permanent Executive Committee of the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CEPCIDI). 

            3.         To instruct CIDI to conduct, within the framework of the previous operative paragraph and in accordance with Article 19 of the Statutes of the Inter-American Agency for Cooperation and Development (IACD), a comprehensive study of the functioning, operations, and financing of the IACD and to submit its conclusions and recommendations to the General Assembly at its next regular session. 

            4.         To instruct CIDI to present its proposals and recommendations on the implementation of this resolution to the General Assembly at its thirty-fourth regular session.