Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Heads of Delegation of the OAS Member States, OAS Secretary-General, Mr José Miguel Insulza, OAS Assistant Secretary-General, Ambassador Albert Ramdin, National Authorities, ladies and gentlemen:

It is a great personal satisfaction to be able to open this Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the OAS General Secretariat and representatives of Civil Society, within the framework of the IV Summit of the Americas.

Since the First Summit of the Americas (Miami, 1994), the Heads of State and Government of our Hemisphere have been emphasizing the importance of the participation of Organizations of Civil Society in public matters, as a means of ensuring the strengthening of our democracies.

The Second Summit, (Santiago de Chile, 1998) and Third Summit (Quebec, 2001) represented significant improvements with regard to the incorporation of Civil Society in OAS activities, and specifically in the Summit of the Americas process.

The Monterrey Extraordinary Summit (Mexico, 2004) produced further progress in recognising the importance of Civil Society in the design, execution and assessment of public policies at various different levels of government.

In practice, the Organizations of Civil Society were invited to participate for the first time in a Summit Implementation Review Group public working session at the XXXVIII SIRG, which took place at OAS Headquarters, on 2 April 2003.

After this, the XXXIII OAS General Assembly (Chile, June 2003) offered an appropriate framework for an informal dialogue between Civil Society Organizations, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the OAS Member States and the OAS General Secretariat.

This initiative has worked exceptionally well in the Summit of the Americas process and has also given rise to this meeting, an opportunity which we hope will be useful for the accomplishment of substantial advances towards the goals of increasing the quality of contributions made by Organizations of Civil Society, ensuring the necessary transparency in its discussions and improving the flow of information on the subjects on the hemispheric agenda which are subject to follow-up.

For those reasons, I consider it opportune at this moment to express our recognition and appreciation of all those activities that involve Civil Society organisations in the improvement and consolidation of our public policies.

The subjects addressed at the IV Summit of the Americas have benefited very clearly from the synergy of public sector initiatives with those coming from Civil Society. In this context, the “Recommendations of the Civil Society Regional Forum: Creating Jobs to Fight Poverty and Strengthen Democratic Governance.”
The Forum took place in Buenos Aires on 6-7 September 2005, and produced recommendations that have certainly been considered when preparing the Mar del Plata Declaration and Plan of Action.

To conclude, I would like to say that I am proud to be able to share the responsibility of opening this event with the Secretary General of the OAS, Mr José Miguel Insulza, to whom I extend a very warm welcome and whom I now call upon to speak.

Thank you.