International Institutions Dialogue on Regional Collaboration at General Assembly

On June 8, 2010, in the context of the 40th OAS General Assembly in Lima, Peru, OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza invited the institutional partners of the Joint Summit Working Group (JSWG), along with other Inter-American and international organizations, to a working lunch in order to share views on the region and discuss ways in which these organizations can further collaborate to meet common goals and objectives. Among those present at the luncheon were the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Barcena, and the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Assistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Heraldo Muñoz, who both shared their views on some of the pressing issues facing the Hemisphere on which institutions could cooperate. The JSWG was also represented by officials from the Inter-American Development Bank, the Pan American Health Organization, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, the Andean Development Corporation, the International Labor Organization, and the International Organization for Migration.

Also attending the meeting were representatives of the Government of Colombia, including Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Clemencia Forero and Ambassador Luis Alfonso Hoyos, Permanent Representative of Colombia to the OAS, in their role as the Host Country of the Sixth Summit of the Americas and Chair of the Summits process.

Vice Minister Forero, as the Summit National Coordinator of the Government of Colombia, took this opportunity to formally request the assistance of the JSWG institutions to provide input into the process of establishing the thematic framework of the Sixth Summit of the Americas. For this, it was requested their support in producing a concise position paper that provides an analysis of the most relevant challenges facing the region, focusing on those areas that will remain relevant through the next Summit in April 2012. It was agreed that these papers will be prepared in the coming months and serve as a topic for discussion at the next meeting of the Summit Implementation Review Group (SRIG) in November 2010.

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