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Sixth Summit of the Americas concludes with five mandates

FeaturesSixth Summit of the Americas concludes with five mandates

Belizean officials, Deputy Prime Minister Gaspar Vega and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wilfred Elrington, were among the delegates from 34 nations in the hemisphere—all minus Cuba—who attended the 6th Summit of the Americas, held every three years, and held this year, 2012, under the central theme, “Connecting the Americas: Partners for Prosperity.”

Summit organizers said that the event focused on the role of physical integration and regional cooperation, and particularly on key areas such as poverty and inequalities, citizen security, disasters and access to technologies.

In a statement issued from Cartagena de Indias, Colombia on Sunday, April 15, at the conclusion of the two-day summit, the president of the host country, Juan Manuel Santos Calderon, said: “The spirit of this Summit was one of building bridges and connecting with one another, in order to turn economic prosperity into social prosperity. People should always come first…. We want one America, an America more united and more prosperous.”

Santos Calderon outlined five mandates which, he said, came out of the summit:

(1) Natural disasters: “We agreed to mitigate their social, economic, and environmental impact by allocating resources and designing strategies geared to adaptation, risk management, and the creation of efficient prevention and response mechanisms.”

(2) Citizen security: “This is a matter of priority for ensuring the quality of life of all citizens in the Americas. We agreed to strengthen cooperation and coordination as fundamental tools for combating violence, corruption, and transnational organized crime in all its forms.”

(3) Integration of physical infrastructure: “This is a critical priority for advancing the development and well-being of our peoples. The execution of projects with a view to establishing hemisphere-wide road, rail, and electrical networks will make the Americas a pole of global development and growth.”

(4) Use of information and communication technologies: “We agreed to promote education, share educational materials, and empower each student in their education and in overcoming social and economic barriers.

“We adopted the goal of designing and deepening public policies that would enable us to apply ICTs to education, healthcare, innovation, entrepreneurship, productivity, competitiveness, and the rise of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises.”

(5) Poverty eradication, inequality, and the search for equity: “This is the most important mandate of all. Everything we do to improve infrastructure, education, security, and disaster prevention underpins poverty elimination policies.

“Establishing inclusive social policies that foster decent, dignified, and productive employment will be the priority for the region.

“Implementing the mandates will require regular dialogue with the inter-American institutions and agencies that support the Summits of the Americas process.”

Two major points of interest at the summit were Cuba’s exclusion and the drug crisis.

On the drug crisis, the Colombian leader, who disagrees with Guatemala’s recently publicized drug decriminalization proposal, relayed that: “We, the region’s leaders, held an invaluable discussion on the global drug problem. We agreed on the need to analyze the results of the current policy in the Americas and to explore new approaches to strengthen this struggle and to become more effective. We have issued the OAS a mandate to that end.”

An International Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Heads of Specialized National Agencies on the World Drug Problem, is set to be held in Lima, Peru, on June 25 and 26, 2012.

On Cuba’s continued exclusion from the Summit, Santos Calderon reported: “Most countries are in favor of Cuba’s participation in the Summits of the Americas process and vowed to make that goal a reality as of the next summit.”

The US, supported by Canada, expressed opposition to Cuba’s inclusion, citing democratic and human rights concerns. However, some Latin American countries have said they would boycott the next summit if Cuba is not allowed to participate.

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