The Summits of the Americas Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS), with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the complementary resources of the Open Society Institute (OSI), organized and executed the Roundtable with Civil Society and Special Session of the Committee on Inter-American Summits Management and Civil Society Participation in OAS Activities (CISC): “Creating Jobs to Confront Poverty and Strengthen Democratic Governance,” held on January 24-25, 2005 at OAS Headquarters in Washington, DC. 

This Roundtable with Civil Society and Special Session of the CISC were part of an initiative developed by the Summits of the Americas Secretariat and the OAS Member States to increase the involvement of civil society in monitoring and implementing summit mandates, improve the channels of communication and information among the Summit stakeholders and deepen the debate on the Summits of the Americas. The conference was attended by 131 participants from civil society, governmental agencies and international organizations.

The Roundtable was organized in four sessions on the issues: Creating Employment in the Americas, Creating Employment to Confront Poverty, Creating Employment to Strengthen Democratic Governance, and Conclusions and Recommendations from Civil Society.

The Summary of Recommendations from Civil Society Representatives of this Roundtable will be presented to the National Summit Coordinators in the next Summit Implementation review Group (SIRG) meeting on March 10, 2005 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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A Dialogue between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the Heads of Member State delegations and civil society representatives will be held in the framework of the XXXV Regular Session of the OAS General Assembly, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States on June 5-7, 2005.

This Dialogue, that has been institutionalized and has taken place in the previous General Assemblies, will focus on the topic, “Delivering the Benefits of Democracy”.  The dialogue will last two (2) hours and will take place at the General Assembly headquarters on Sunday, June 5, 2005.  The purpose of this dialogue is to exchange experiences and generate recommendations for the consideration of the Heads of the Delegations and the General Secretariat during their discussions at the XXXV General Assembly.  In addition, civil society will share their ideas about the Fourth Summit of the Americas to be held in Mar del Plata, Argentina in November of this year. 

The Dialogue between governments and civil society is being organized by the government of the United States and the Summits of the Americas Secretariat. To prepare for this Dialogue a Regional Forum with Civil Society will be held on April 11-12, 2005 in Washington, DC.  The recommendations generated in this Forum will be presented to the Permanent Council of the OAS and their General Commission preparing the agenda for the General Assembly.

To participate in the Dialogue, civil society organizations must indicate their interest to participate to the Secretary General, 60 days before the General Assembly, therefore no later than April 5, 2005.  Those organizations not registered to the OAS must send a letter by this date directed to the General Secretary of the OAS with a copy to the Summit of the Americas Secretariat.  The letter requesting to participate must be accompanied by the following documents: charter or constitution, statutes, most recent annual report, and institutional mission statement.  For more information on the participation requirements, please visit the civil society webpage of the Summits of the Americas Secretariat www.civil-society.oas.org.  For additional information, please contact Jorge Sanín, Civil Society Coordinator via e-mail at: [email protected].

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At the Third Summit of the Americas held in Quebec, Canada in 2001, the Heads of State and Government of the Americas agreed to continue working on issues related to globalization which affects employment and labor, with the goal of creating better employment opportunities and improving worker’s qualifications and labor conditions throughout the Hemisphere.

The Inter-American Conference of Ministers of Labor will be held in Mexico City, on September 26 - 27, 2005. This hemispheric forum has continued approaching these topics and confronting current challenges such as the high levels of unemployment in the region, the need to modernize labor conditions, increase labor stability and improve workers' quality of life.

On January 31 and February 1st, 2005 a Planning Meeting for the XIV IAMCL was held at the OAS headquarters in Washington D.C. Participants included: Conference’s Working Groups authorities, representatives from the Trade Union Advisory Counsil (COSATE); from the Business Technical Advisory Committee on Labor Matters (CEATAL), and from the international organizations committed to the process including: the Organization of American States (OAS), the International Labor Organization (ILO), and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO).

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The V Meeting of Negotiations in the Quest for Points of Consensus and IV Special Session of the Working Group to Elaborate the Draft American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples took place from February 7-11, 2005 at the OAS Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

In this meeting, Member States and the indigenous representatives negotiated Article XVIII: Right to Environmental Protection and continued with Section Five: Social, Economic, and Property Rights; and Article XXIV: traditional forms of property and cultural survival, right to land, territory, and resources. This negotiation finished with a reception hosted by the Permanent Mission of the United States to the OAS and the Smithsonian Institution at the National Museum of the American Indian.

The IV Special Session of the Working Group to elaborate the Draft American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples took place on February 10 and 11, 2005. This Special Session reviewed the status of the process and assessment of the level of consensus reached and debated the consideration of a possible date for the conclusion of the final phase of negotiations for adoption of the Draft Declaration. The session of February 10, 2005 included a presentation on the preparations for the Second Indigenous Peoples Summit of the Americas to be held in October in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The presentation was made by Mr. Darrel Mcleod of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) of Canada and Mr. Víctor Capitán of the Organización de Naciones y Pueblos Indígenas en Argentina (ONPIA).

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The Fifth Regular Session of the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE), of the Organization of American States (OAS), was held on February 16-18, 2005 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The purpose of this meeting was to analyze the progress in the fight of terrorism and to examine hemispheric strategies to strengthen cooperation in this subject. Also, Member States renewed their commitment to prevent, combat, and eliminate terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, whatever its origin or motivation.

Member States reported on the progress made in antiterrorism legislations, identification of potential threats, financial assistance and strengthening border controls. Additionally, countries informed about the cooperation with other nations in security issues and made reference to terrorism as a method to destabilize democracy and affect economic development in the countries. The special condition of the Caribbean countries as transit nations was also addressed at this meeting.  

On this occasion, the “Declaration of Port-of-Spain on Strengthening Cooperation on Strategies to Sustain and Advance the Hemispheric Fight against Terrorism” was approved. Some of the topics discussed included strengthening border controls and money movements; discussions on transportation threats (ports and airports) and the cyber-security issue. Furthermore, States committed to keep under surveillance their borders and to control their financial systems to avoid transfer of funds to terrorist groups.

In addition, Member States indicated that the threat of terrorism is very serious because of the connections that exist between terrorism and money laundering, illicit drugs trafficking and weapons, as well as other forms of transnational organized crime.

The Sixth Regular Session of the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism –CICTE- will be held in Bogotá, Colombia in February, 2006.

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In the framework of the XXXVII meeting of the Summit Implementation Review Group that will be held on March 9 and 10, 2005 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the OAS Office of Education Science and Technology is organizing the workshop “Innovation and Decent Work” on March 7 and 8.  This workshop is directed to the representatives of the Trade Union Technical Advisory Council (COSATE), and Business Technical Advisory Committee on Labor Matters (CEATAL), which gather the main unions and employer organizations of the Hemisphere. 

The meeting’s main goal is to consider and evaluate recommendations on the issue of “Innovation and Decent Work” so that they can be presented to SIRG authorities on March 10 as an input to the preparatory discussions for the IV Summit of the Americas. 

Workshop participants include: Ambassador Jorge Taiana, Secretary of Foreign Relations of Argentina, Dr. Carlos Alfonso Tomada, Minister of Labor, Employment and Social Security of Argentina; and representatives of the Secretariat of Technical Programming and Labor Studies of the Ministry of Labor of Argentina, the Organization of American States (OAS), the International Labor Organization (ILO), and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The workshop’s agenda includes issues such as: the gender dimension at the work site, competitiveness, productivity and social dialogue; social responsibility of companies and organizations of employers; among others.

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• By 2002, 20 out of 34 countries in the Hemisphere matched or exceeded the United Nation’s fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG) which set the goal to reduce child mortality rates by two thirds between 1990 and 2015. (A)

• Almost 80% of the indigenous women in Latin America die as a result of preventable diseases. (B)

• In 2002, Latin America and the Caribbean was the only developing region that had higher literacy rates for women ages 15-24 than male literacy rates. (C)

• In 2002, Latin America and the Caribbean had 221 million people living in poverty, 44% of the population, and 97 million or 19.4% living in extreme poverty. (D)

• In Latin America, 2.9 out of every 100 thousand adolescents and 16.9 out of every thousand adults die as a result of HIV-AIDS. (D)

• Between 1999 and 2002, the number of Internet users has increased from 10.2 million users to 41.8 million users. (E)

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