Final 2009 Meeting of the CISC closes an important year of Summits activities

The final meeting of the Committee on Inter-American Summits Management and Civil Society Participation in OAS activities (CISC) for 2009 was held on November 16th at the OAS headquarters.

The CISC is attended by representatives from each Member State. Established by the Permanent Council in July 2001, the CISC meets every one or two months, according to its work plan. The main goal of this committee is to coordinate the work of the Summits of the Americas Process and to foster the participation of Civil Society in OAS activities.

In the final meeting of 2009, the Committee approved the Work Plan for the year 2010, heard reports from the Summits Secretariat and other OAS Departments on the activities held in the framework of Inter-American Ministerial meetings and considered 44 applications received from civil society organizations (CSO) to be registered at the OAS.

The meeting began with a presentation of the Draft Work Plan of CISC for the year 2010 for consideration and approval by member States. This Work Plan, presented by the Chair, Colombian Ambassador Luis Alfonso Hoyos, laid out methodologies for fulfilment of the mandates assigned to the CISC and included a tentative schedule of the meetings.

The approval of the proposed work plan was followed by the report from the director of the Summits of the Americas Secretariat (SAS), David Morris, on the follow-up activities that this Secretariat had undertaken during the six months after the 39th OAS General Assembly (June-November). This report was divided into six sections - SIRG meetings, Joint Summit Working Group, Social Actors and the Summits Virtual Platform, the Communications Network and the Summits of the Americas Follow up System (SISCA) – and highlighted the outcomes of the events that have taken place and the initiatives that are currently underway.

In addition to this presentation, reports were presented on the launching of the Inter-American Social Protection Network (IASPN), held in New York on September 22nd 2009, followed by the XVI Inter-American Conference of Ministers of Labor, held in Argentina on October, 2009, and the VI Meeting of Ministers of Education, held in Ecuador on August, 2009.

After comments from the delegations on each of the reports, the Department of the International Affairs (DIA) presented 44 applications from CSOs of 16 countries of the hemisphere to be registered at the OAS. According to established procedures, the applications are first reviewed by DIA in order to verify compliance with the requirements to be later presented for the consideration of the CISC, which carefully reviews these applications and recommends appropirate consideration by the Permanent Council, which provides a final approval.

All CSOs registered at the OAS have the right to attend meetings of the General Assembly, the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CIDI), and other specific conferences of the OAS. They also have the right to present and receive written documents and contribute to the elaboration of the agenda, among others.

On December 3rd, 2009, the Permanent Council added 41 of these CSOs to the list of non-governmental entities allowed to take part in OAS activities, a list that so far includes 308 organizations.

The list of the 41 newly registered CSOs can be accessed here. The list of the 267 CSOs previously registered can be accessed here. For more information, please visit DIA’s Website: Civil Society Participation in the activities of the OAS.

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