Special Committee on Inter-American Summits Management

• Welcome to ambassadors, alternate representatives, missions, representatives from the OAS, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pan American Health Organization, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and those of you from other organizations and institutions that have made the time to join us today.

• This is the second open meeting of this committee; the first one was held October 12,1999;

• That meeting was vice-chaired by my colleagues from Chile, Ambassador Carlos Portales, and the United States, Ambassador Victor Marrero. As many of you are aware, Ambassador Marrero has since moved on, and the first order of business is to elect a second vice president;

• Not standing on too much ceremony, the tradition in this committee has been to have the hosts of past present and future summit, the so-called troika, act as chair and vice chairs.

• In this vein, 1 would like to put forward the candidacy of my distinguished colleague from the united states, Ambassador Luis Lauredo, Ambassador of the United States to the OAS and also National Coordinator of the United States for the Summit of the Americas, as Vice-Chair of this Committee

• There being no objections, Ambassador Lauredo is elected by consensus.

• The first meeting we held of this committee last October covered six of the Santiago themes; women, strengthening of municipal and regional administrations, micro-enterprises, strengthening confidence and security between states; regional energy cooperation, and science and technology

• Following the discussions at that meeting, I prepared a chairman's summary and forwarded it to all 33 other national summit coordinators;

• National summit coordinators met in November to review implementation of these same six items, and the contributions made at our open meeting helped national coordinators to frame their own discussions;

• Today, we are examining the last five items to be reviewed by the Summit Implementation Review Group. These five items are human rights and democracy, migrant workers, property registration, indigenous populations and financial markets.

• As with the last meeting, I will put together the views expressed today into a chairman's summary and circulate it to national coordinators for their consideration prior to the next SIRG, which will take place early this spring.

• The governments of the Americas, in partnership with the OAS and the other affiliated organizations have been very active in these five areas since the Santiago Summit.

• I would encourage you all to consult regularly the institutional memory of the process, the OAS Office of Summit Follow-up site http://www.summit-americas.org, where updates on actions taken under these mandates are posted every Friday.

• Before we start with the first presentation I want to emphasize that our goal here today is discussion and dialogue. I would be grateful if remarks could be kept to five minutes or less, in order to allow all participants a chance to speak and respond.

• Those organizations that have requested an opportunity to speak to a specific agenda item are seated here at the table with delegations today. Others who indicated that they wanted to observe the proceedings and perhaps ask questions are seated in the back.

• Stand microphones are available in the back row and you are encouraged to use them.

• I would also be grateful if documents that you would like distributed be handed first to the Secretariat; which will be in charge of distribution and also ensuring that relevant materials get posted on the website for consultation by national coordinators;

• Lastly, I would like to highlight to those organizations of civil society that are present today at the invitation of the Chair, that the OAS Permanent Council approved, last December, guidelines for the participation of civil society in the OAS.

• We will be circulating a pamphlet, developed by the OAS Office of Summit Follow-up, that explains the guidelines and provides you with information on registration;

• I encourage you to register through these guidelines and to become more active in the work of this Organization, not only in this Committee but in others as well. If you have any questions on registration I would encourage you to speak with Mr. Jaime Aparicio, whose office is handling the registration process at this time.

• Before starting with our first speaker, I would like to turn the floor over to my two Vice-Chairs for a few opening remarks: Ambassador Portales of Chile and Ambassador Lauredo of the United States...

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