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OAS Inter-American Council for Integral Development to Convene a Ministerial Meeting on Science and Technology in Guatemala in March 2015

The Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CIDI) of the Organization of American States (OAS) today resolved to convene the Fourth Meeting of Ministers and High-level Authorities of Science and Technology of the region in Guatemala in March 2015, during a regular meeting held at the hemispheric institution’s headquarters in Washington, DC. At the meeting, participants heard a report from the OAS Executive Secretary for Integral Development (SEDI), Sherry Tross, as well as a message from the Minister of Culture of Haiti, Monique Rocourt.

The Chair of the Council and Permanent Representative of Trinidad and Tobago, Neil Parsan, announced the decision to accept the offer of the Government of Guatemala to hold the Fourth Meeting of Ministers and High-level Authorities of Science and Technology within the framework of CIDI, and to convene such meeting in Guatemala City, from March 10 to 11, 2015.

On another point of the agenda, the Council noted the Delegation of Panama’s offer to hold the next Meeting of Ministers of Education in February 2015 and resolved to convoke the Sixth Regular Meeting of the Inter-American Committee on Education from October 14 to 15, 2014, at OAS headquarters in Washington, DC.

In addition, the Council watched a video message from the Minister of Culture of Haiti, Monique Rocourt, who thanked the member states for their support to the Meeting of Ministers of Culture held in Haiti during the second week of August. “During the meeting, we explored mechanisms aimed at bringing culture to our neighboring peoples,” said Minister Rocourt, emphasizing that “we analyzed issues of concern to us all, and the possibility of mutual cooperation among OAS states was demonstrated”.

For his part, the OAS Executive Secretary for Integral Development, Sherry Tross, presented SEDI’s updated Work Plan for June 2014 to May 2015, in compliance with a mandate arising from the OAS General Assembly, which took place in Paraguay last June. In her presentation, Executive Secretary Tross noted activities carried out over the past two months, including the Sixth Meeting of Ministers and High-level Authorities of Culture, held in Haiti from August 12 to 13, in which countries agreed to the “exchanges of experiences to support public policies that encourage cultural entrepreneurship,” and to encourage “the design of cultural programs that contribute to the development of local communities with social inclusion and innovation”.

Executive Secretary Tross also noted the holding of the 22nd Meeting of Ministers and High-level Authorities of Tourism in Barbados from September 3 to 4, in which “ministers committed to promoting competitiveness and sustainability in the development of the tourism sector” of the Hemisphere. In addition, SEDI’s Executive Secretary mentioned the Meeting of the Inter-American Commission on Ports, held at OAS headquarters from June 18 to 20, and recalled that last July the First Ethanol Plant was inaugurated in the East of Honduras, an initiative carried out with the technical support of SEDI and the support of the governments of the United States and Brazil.

For his part, the Chair of the Council, Ambassador Neil Parsan, presented a report on the CIDI’s objectives for the second semester of 2014 “in order to strengthen the pillar of development in compliance with a mandate from the General Assembly,” among which he underscored the holding of the VIII Forum on Competitiveness, which will take place in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, from October 8 to 10, 2014. In his intervention, Ambassador Parsan also recalled the holding of ministerial meetings on Culture in Haiti and of Tourism in Barbados during the current semester. Furthermore, he reported that the delegations of Barbados and Paraguay expressed interest in hosting the ministerial meetings on Culture in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

During the meeting, the Delegations of Paraguay, Guyana, Canada, Haiti, El Salvador, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Suriname, and Panama took the floor.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

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

Reference: E-363/14