Each year the OAS Secretary General publishes a proposed Program-Budget for the coming calendar year. The OAS General Assembly meets in a Special Session to approve the Program-Budget. Find these documents from 1998-2013 here.
Each year in April, the OAS Board of External Auditors publishes a report covering the previous calendar year’s financial results. Reports covering 1996-2016 may be found here.
Approximately six weeks after the end of each semester, the OAS publishes a Semiannual Management and Performance Report, which since 2013 includes reporting on programmatic results. The full texts may be found here.
Here you will find data on the Human Resources of the OAS, including its organizational structure, each organizational unit’s staffing, vacant posts, and performance contracts.
The OAS executes a variety of projects funded by donors. Evaluation reports are commissioned by donors. Reports of these evaluations may be found here.
The Inspector General provides the Secretary General with reports on the audits, investigations, and inspections conducted. These reports are made available to the Permanent Council. More information may be found here.
The OAS has discussed for several years the real estate issue, the funding required for maintenance and repairs, as well as the deferred maintenance of its historic buildings. The General Secretariat has provided a series of options for funding it. The most recent document, reflecting the current status of the Strategy, is CP/CAAP-3211/13 rev. 4.
Here you will find information related to the GS/OAS Procurement Operations, including a list of procurement notices for formal bids, links to the performance contract and travel control measure reports, the applicable procurement rules and regulations, and the training and qualifications of its staff.
The OAS Treasurer certifies the financial statements of all funds managed or administered by the GS/OAS. Here you will find the latest general purpose financial reports for the main OAS funds, as well as OAS Quarterly Financial Reports (QFRs).
Every year the GS/OAS publishes the annual operating plans for all areas of the Organization, used to aid in the formulation of the annual budget and as a way to provide follow-up on institutional mandates.
Here you will find information related to the OAS Strategic Plan 2016-2020, including its design, preparation and approval.
OAS MARKS ANNIVERSARY OF COLUMBUS’ HISTORY-CHANGING VOYAGE
October 15, 2003
In wide-ranging reflections on the 511th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas, the representatives of Organization of American States (OAS) member countries on Tuesday underscored how the venture—sponsored by Spain—changed the course of history and human development.
Chairing a protocolary meeting of the Permanent Council to mark Columbus Day, Ambassador Salvador Rodezno of Honduras described the history-making voyage as the “beginning of discovery,” one that held great importance for the Americas and Europe alike because it changed the notions of the existing world. Rodezno hailed relations between Spain and the Americas and commended Spain’s important contributions towards the “fusion of two civilizations” through, among other things, its support for OAS hemispheric development programs.
OAS Secretary General César Gaviria expressed his view of the Organization as reflecting shared beliefs surrounding a common hemispheric destiny. He said that at this juncture in inter-American relations, “the dream of unity, which has suffered so many setbacks in the Americas, is becoming a reality.” The OAS, he added, has become the central forum to discuss the region’s problems and advance its political, economic, social and cultural institutions.
Meanwhile, Ambassador Sofía Leonor Sánchez Baret of the Dominican Republic, recalled the Caribbean region as “the center and point of departure of Western civilization’s expansion into the New World for half a century” – where everything began, “for humanity’s good or to its peril.” She also lamented the fact that although the Spanish conquest of the Caribbean marked the beginning of a great European venture into the Americas, “it left the islands stripped of their indigenous peoples.”
Colombian Ambassador to the OAS Horacio Serpa articulated what he viewed as the paradox of the Western Hemisphere, saying the region possesses the greatest world power but at the same time suffers the greatest needs. “Five hundred years after Columbus arrived, and with him the Encounter of Two Worlds, as citizens of the 21st century who have inherited that symbiosis, we are still discovering ourselves,” Ambassador Serpa declared.
And, in his special presentation to the OAS Council, Spain’s Permanent Observer, Ambassador Eduardo Gutiérrez, reviewed the more than five centuries of his country’s special relationship with the countries of the Americas. He renewed Spain’s firm commitment and its support for a variety of OAS activities, including human rights, anti-narcotics efforts, promotion of democracy and the OAS Fund for Peace to support initiatives to peacefully settle conflicts between or among member states.