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 and IDB join efforts to increase access to justice in Latin America
Investment in new technologies to modernize information systems of law schools that offer free legal assistance.
September 12, 2011
The Executive Secretariat for Integral Development of the Organization of American States (OAS) jointly with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) implemented a pilot project to improve access to legal services provided by universities in Uruguay, El Salvador and Guatemala to vulnerable groups.
With financing from both institutions, this partnership supported the design and creation of an electronic management, monitoring and communication system for administrative and judicial cases at the Legal Aid Center of the Universidad de la República Oriental’s Law School in Uruguay. The system was also replicated in the Universidad de El Salvador and the Mariano Galvez and Rafael Landivar universities in Guatemala.
This initiative is very important for Latin America because a growing number of legal aid centers at the region’s law schools have started to provide free legal assistance to vulnerable groups in the past decade. It is expected that this project will help showcase the impact that new technologies may have in increasing and transforming the access to legal services, especially by those citizens from marginal groups in society.
The “Management and Follow-up of Cases System” (SIGESSCA in Spanish) is an online service platform that will be operational as of the third quarter of 2011. It is estimated that, in Uruguay, for example, the new system will help manage more than 5,000 cases per year.
Among the expected results of SIGESSCA are: increased access to legal aid center’s services and better follow-up of cases through a new website; on-line access to dissemination of citizens’ right services; support to vulnerable groups through service delivery in decentralized centers; legal notices to the center’s users via e-mail or SMS; and an automatic control of the expiration of judicial terms.
At the OAS, the partnership was implemented under the “Project to Promote the Access to Justice and Legal Assistance to Vulnerable Groups through Universities’ Legal Aid Centers,” whose objective is to improve access to justice to most vulnerable groups, through the strengthening of university legal assistance.
This partnership was done, at the IDB, through the project “Effective Justice: The Impact of New Technologies in Judicial Sector Reform,” implemented by the Institutional Capacity of the State division. This project aims at improving and systematizing the knowledge and existing information regarding the impact that new technological tools can have in the modernization of justice services.
USAID and Pact World donated the software that was used to design the SIGESSCA system implemented in the region.
For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.