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The OAS Promotes Inter-Institutional Cooperation for Civil Registry along the Borders of Ecuador, Colombia and Peru

The Organization of American States (OAS), through its Universal Civil Identity Program in the Americas (PUICA) today accompanied the national registration authorities of Ecuador, Colombia and Peru in the signing of a cooperation agreement that seeks to combine their efforts to ensure full identification of citizens in the border areas of the three countries.

Representatives of the Main Directorate of Civil Registry, Identification and Certification of Ecuador, the National Registry of Colombia and the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status (RENIEC) of Peru gathered at the OAS headquarters in Washington, DC to formalize the initiative that establishes the mechanisms for cooperation and interoperability that will allow for the gathering of information on the identification of people as well as the creation of opportunities for the exchange of human resources, training and information.

During the signing of the "Inter-Administrative Agreement on Interagency Cooperation " between the three countries, the Secretary for External Relations of the OAS, Ambassador Alfonso Quiñonez, on behalf of the Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza, expressed "the support of the OAS for initiatives like this one, because for us the right to identity is central to democratic governance and for the development of our countries and that is why we have implemented in our Organization several projects in this area for several years."

The OAS representative recalled that in 2008 the Universal Civil Identity Program in the Americas was created with the goal of providing the assistance required by the member states in order to strengthen their civil registration systems, an initiative that has successfully implemented projects in 18 member states.

"What PUICA seeks is to strengthen the state institutions responsible for the legal recognition of people, and to this end, it works with the civil registration authorities in the development of methodologies that are replicable and which allow access for traditionally underserved communities, and on the strengthening of the administrative and technological capacities of registry institutions," said Ambassador Quiñonez. He then stressed that the signing of the agreement "gives form to" the agreements established under the Latin American and Caribbean Council for Civil Registration, Identification and Vital Statistics (CLARCIEV), which in its most recent meeting highlighted the importance of fostering collaboration between countries at the subregional level.

The Director General of Civil Registration, Identification, and Certification of Ecuador, Jorge Montaño Prado, thanked the OAS and the PUICA program for the initiative and reported that the three countries have been working together on the agreement that "will solve a problem that affects several nations in Latin America: double identity registration of our citizens, especially when we have open borders and a lot of mobility between countries.” "This contribution will facilitate work on the borders in particular in the control of under-registration, especially now that we have an international commitment to reduce it to acceptable levels below 5 percent," he added.

The National Registrar of Colombia, Carlos Ariel Sanchez, said that the agreement signed "represents an important step forward, it is an operative agreement that will solve the problems of identification and under-registration." "Without the support of the different areas of the OAS such as the PUICA, and the activities of our fellow citizens of Ecuador and Peru, we would not have reached this result," he said.

The National Chief of the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status of Peru and President of CLARCIEV, Jorge Luis Yrivarren Lazo, praised the willingness of states to achieve interoperability of the three biometrics systems of Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. "We are setting an example for other countries on how to work together to combat the problems that affect us all," he said. From the CLARCIEV’s perspective, he added that this effort "is in line with the strategic direction of the organization and we hope to share this experience for the benefit of the entire region."

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

The B-roll of the event is available here.

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

Reference: E-295/13