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The IV Summit of the Americas was held in Mar del Plata,
Argentina on November 4 – 5, 2005. The leaders of the region
got together to discuss the theme: “Creating Jobs to Confront
Poverty and Strengthen Democratic Governance.”
The Summits of the Americas Process, since its creation in 1994,
has promoted the dialogue and hemispheric consensus about key
issues of the region. The IV Summit’s results revealed that
governments recognized the importance of advancing the collective
action necessary to design programs and define financial
mechanisms to confront the needs of our people.
In 2004, the
government of Argentina took the leadership of the IV Summit and
proposed the central theme. Since then, the Summit National
Coordinators of the 34 countries that are part of the Summit
Process, debated the content of the
Declaration
and
Plan of Action
of Mar del
Plata and a set of
communiqués,
which became the official documents of the IV Summit.
The Declaration of Mar del Plata presents the views of the 34
governments on how to address the region’s greater challenges of
employment generation and strengthening of democracy. The
initiatives reflected in the Declaration refer to: growth with
employment; jobs to fight poverty; training the labor force;
micro, small and medium-sized enterprises as an engine of job
growth; developing a framework for creating decent work; and
strengthening democratic governance.
The Plan of Action, for its part, considers each of the areas of
the Declaration from three perspectives: national commitments,
hemispheric cooperation, and international organizations. The
Heads of State and Government defined specific actions; to
promote development through generation of employment, increase
citizen participation in the employment sphere, encourage
cooperation among governments, foster inclusive social dialogue,
and stimulate investment in key areas for the creation of
employment.
Some of the commitments adopted by the leaders, gathered in Mar
del Plata include: the initiative to continue the implementation
of sound macro economic policies to stimulate income growth and
protect workers’ rights. Likewise, they encouraged active
policies to generate decent work, and to fight gender
discrimination, racism, intolerance, and forced labor. The
governments also agreed to ensure equal opportunities to
employment for all, protect migrants and children from economic
exploitation, and to cooperate in the struggle against chronic
diseases as well as emerging and reemerging diseases.
The small, micro, and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) had a
special mention in the Summit documents. In this regard, some of
the initiatives adopted were: to facilitate the participation of
SMEs in domestic markets and international trade, to foster the
development of entrepreneurial skills and technical competence of
SMEs and to support the efforts that the multilateral development
banks make to strengthen such enterprises. Government officials
highlighted the important role of the private sector as a
fundamental component for economic growth and intensify their
efforts toward attaining the goals agreed to at the Millennium
Summit.
Another aspect considered at the Summit was the creation of a
framework for creating decent work, which covers fiscal policies
that foster equitable growth, a business climate that attracts
investment, fosters new enterprise creation, and promotes
competition, a regulatory framework that seeks to incorporate the
informal sector into the formal sector, and the consideration of
public policies for integral and sustainable development.
In the area of strengthening democratic governance, leaders of
the hemisphere reiterated their commitment to the OAS Charter,
the Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Declaration of
Florida. At the same time, they encouraged increased citizens’
participation, committed their efforts to the fight against
corruption and terrorism and emphasized the need to continue the
process of strengthening and enhancing the Inter-American human
rights system.
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