office of the Summit Follow-up - OAS


PERMANENT COUNCIL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON INTER-AMERICAN SUMMITS MANAGEMENT

OEA/Ser.G CE/GCI-125/97
7 November 1997
Original: English

THE SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS
(Document presented by the Unit for Environment and Sustainable Development)


OAS Actions Relating to Initiative 23, Partnership for Pollution Prevention, of the Plan of Action of Miami.

On the basis of a recommendation of the Summit of the Americas Environmental Technical Experts Meeting held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 6-8,1995 an Interagency Task Force was created to support governments in their implementation of initiative 23 on the Partnership for Pollution Prevention. The OAS was requested to serve as the technical secretariat for the Interagency Task Force. It chaired a series of meetings during 1996 which resulted in the creation of a series of interagency working groups to support the implementation of particular components of the Partnership for Pollution Prevention. The most successful of these groups coordinated agency and government actions to support the phase out of lead in gasoline effort. Substantial progress on this hemispheric effort is evident, with 10 countries having phased out lead from gasoline by the end of 1996. Several other countries are also pursuing this objective and it is anticipated that by the year 2000 four more countries will have achieved it. This will increase the percentage of lead-free gasoline consumption from 68 to 83 percent. Another interagency working group on water management led to convening of the July 18-20, 1996 Meeting on Water which made substantive contributions to, the preparatory progress for the Bolivia Summit on this topic.

OAS actions relating to the preparation of the Summit Conference on Sustainable Development, Appendix, H. High-Level Meetings, Plan of Action of Miami.

The OAS had a major role in the preparation of the 1996 Summit of the Americas on Sustainable Development, a meeting which had been mandated by the Miami Summit. The documents adopted at the Summit were drafted and negotiated at meetings held at the OAS. The Organization created a Working Group of the Permanent Council which held a series of meetings for the preparation of the Summit. Three Special Sessions of this Working Group, with the participation of high-level government experts, were held in July, September and November of 1996 to discuss and negotiate successive, drafts of the Declaration of Santa Cruz and the Plan of Action for the Sustainable Development of the Americas. The Meeting of Plenipotentiaries to consider and approve the final documents was held at the OAS on November 20 and 21 and the product of this meeting was delivered at the Summit on Sustainable Development held in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, on December 7 and 8, 1996.

The Unit of Sustainable Development and Environment of the OAS had a key role in providing technical and administrative support to all four of these meetings. It also had a major responsibility within the Technical Commission appointed by the Bolivian Government to formulate the technical bases of the Draft Plan of Action. As part of its duties it coordinated work on the topics of Water, Forestry and Public Participation in Sustainable Development and it organized meetings on each of these topics which were attended by high-level experts from the region. The Technical Commission prepared 11 technical background documents for the Summit process, 5 of which were prepared by the Unit of Sustainable Development and Environment.

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