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OAS to Support Senate of Paraguay in Institutional Strengthening and Modernization

The Organization of American States (OAS) and the Senate of Paraguay today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the aim of establishing a general framework for cooperation by which the hemispheric Organization will support the upper house of the South American country in its efforts toward institutional strengthening and modernization.

The memorandum signed at the headquarters of the hemispheric Organization in Washington, DC will allow the OAS to support the Paraguayan Senate on a number of projects and activities, including: the provision of advice and technical cooperation; the organization of a permanent space to offer courses and seminars for the continuous education of legislators, aides and officials; facilitating horizontal cooperation activities with legislative bodies of other member states as well as with other international organizations; and support in the implementation of technical cooperation that is currently in the process of approval by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, stressed the willingness of the Paraguayan Senate to engage in institutional strengthening and modernization, from the Senators themselves to their advisers and officials, despite the significant challenge the changes imply for internal management.

He also recalled the good relations that the OAS has with the parliaments of the region, with which "we have done good work on issues such as transparency, good governance, and good administration. Democracy progresses when it modernizes its institutions."

Secretary General Insulza said that often the public believes the world of politics becomes entrenched, causing a rift between the two sides. "It is therefore important to promote effective governance, and this project has the advantage of working together with the Senate of Paraguay to modernize its institutions," he said. "There is a problem with many of our parliaments that the executive branch grows, develops technical skills and then sends a bill to the legislature, and Congress does not have the same capacity and technical knowledge of many subjects," he added.

For his part, the President of the Senate of Paraguay, Blas Antonio Llano, expressed his commitment to improving internal procedures and administering a proper use of social networks and media, so that the Senators, their advisers and officials have better tools which enable them to move ahead in terms of transparency and institutional capacity, and to connect with citizens of the country.

"The agreement we signed is located in the framework of a process of transparency and modernization that our peoples need for our institutions to modernize and meet the objectives for which they were created, therefore it is important to present them with the information and facilitate their access to requests," said the Paraguayan Senator. President Llano acknowledged that promoting the process of transparency is not an easy task, because some sectors are reluctant to engage in it, but nevertheless he expressed his willingness to continue betting on this new way "because it is what our citizens demand."

The agreement will be implemented through the Support to Representative Institutions Section and the the Department of Sustainable Democracy and Special Missions of the Secretariat for Political Affairs of the OAS.

The signing ceremony was attended by the Chair of the Permanent Council and Representative of Trinidad and Tobago, Neil Parsan; the Assistant Secretary General of the OAS, Albert Ramdin; the Chief of Staff of the Secretary General, Hugo de Zela; the OAS Secretary for External Relations, Alfonso Quiñonez; the Permanent Representative of Paraguay, Elisa Ruiz Diaz; the Permanent Representatives of Colombia and Guatemala to the OAS and the US Interim Representative to the OAS.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

The video news of the event will be available here.

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

Reference: E-153/15