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Toward the Fifth Summit of the Americas
The Summits of
the Americas Process has facilitated the joint work carried out
by Heads of State and Government, multilateral agencies, and
civil society in order to achieve development, peace, and
prosperity in the region. Since the First Summit of the
Americas, held in 1994, until the most recent Fourth Summit of
the Americas, held in 2005, many of the challenges that face the
people of the Americas have been identified and, thanks to the
Summit Process, work plans have been defined to overcome extreme
poverty in the hemisphere. To achieve these
objectives, the Summits of the Americas Secretariat supports and
complements the actions of the Member States in the development,
implementation, dissemination, and follow-up of the mandates,
while working closely with the member institutions of the Joint
Summit Working Group (JSWG) to promote fulfillment of
the inter-American agenda
Since the Fourth
Summit of the Americas, four meetings of the Summit
Implementation Review Group (SIRG) have been held. The first of
these meetings took place on April 18th, 2006, the second on May
23rd, and the later two were convened on June 5th and September
12th. The XLV Ministerial Meeting of the SIRG was held in the
framework of the XXXVI General Assembly of the OAS, held June 5,
2006 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. At that meeting,
Argentina presented a report on the achievements with respect to
the Summit mandates. The Summits Secretariat presented
the publication “Official Documents of the Summits of the
Americas Process 2004-2006, Volume IV,” fulfilling its commitment
to serve as the institutional memory of the Process. In addition,
the JSWG elaborated a report that outlines the advances achieved
through the activities carried out by each of the member
institutions that comprise the Group.
In addition,
the Summits of the Americas Secretariat continues to facilitate
civil society participation. In the framework of the
aforementioned OAS General Assembly, the Summits Secretariat
released the publication “2002-2006 Civil Society
Recommendations”, which compiles civil society proposals to
governments regarding how regional challenges should be confronted.
It
is noteworthy to highlight the XLVI Ministerial Meeting of the
Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG), held September 12th,
2006 at OAS Headquarters in Washington, D.C., at which
the Chairmanship of the Summit Process was officially transferred
from Argentina to Trinidad and Tobago, the future host country of
the Fifth Summit of the Americas. Later, during a September 27th, 2006 visit to Washington D.C., the Honorable Patrick Manning,
Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, highlighted the role of
the OAS as a unique forum in which the Member States must
interact closely in order to deal with issues of democracy, human rights,
hemispheric security, sustainable development, health, matters of
gender, and local government, among other priority issues. In
addition, he explained that the OAS must work toward establishing closer
networks with regional organizations including all the
institutions that comprise the JSWG.
The
Summits of the Americas Secretariat plays an important role in
the Summits of the Americas Process by bringing together key
actors that actively participate in the formulation of new
policies and initiatives, an providing follow-up to the
Summits mandates agreed upon in the Declarations and Plan of
Actions. In this regard, the Secretariat will continue to provide
support to all the actors in the Summits Process, including the
Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG), the Joint Summit
Working Group (JSWG), the ministerial meetings, civil society,
the private sector, and academia. Subsequent to the Fourth
Summit of the Americas, important steps have been taken as a
result of these joint efforts and, thanks to the commitment of
all the aforementioned actors, advances are being made toward the
Fifth Summit of the Americas to be held in Trinidad and Tobago,
2009.
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