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OAS ASSISTANT SECRETARY CALLS FOR GREATER DIALOGUE ON COOPERATION AT HIGH-LEVEL MEETING IN COLOMBIA

The Specialized Meeting of High-Level Cooperation Authorities in the framework of the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CIDI) was inaugurated today in Bogotá, Colombia. The meeting will discuss the efficacy of hemispheric cooperation and the role that the Organization of American States (OAS) could play as a coordinating agent and forum for hemispheric dialogue in this area, as well as the opportunities to maximize regional cooperation and the mechanisms available for creating linkages and synergies to achieve greater impact.

OAS Assistant Secretary General Albert Ramdin opened the meeting highlighting its relevance and affirming that “the objective of this meeting is an important one. It is indeed timely to continue the dialogue among member states and development cooperation agencies on the structure, substance and delivery of development cooperation in the OAS.”

Ramdin took this opportunity to present some concrete suggestions to improve the dialogue on development cooperation, emphasizing the need for a policy dialogue space in the political organ of the Organization. “Such a dialogue space can be facilitated through the creation of a Permanent Committee on Integral Development,” he said, adding that the principal mandate of this new committee should be “not only to discuss development issues, but also to prepare a hemispheric development cooperation program for the OAS.”

Ramdin invited meeting participants to consider in their debates strategies that are “realistic, concrete, achievable and measurable” so they reach and improve the lives of those in need, and may be used to assess the impact that the development assistance programs have at the community, country and sub-regional level. “Only by showing that the OAS can significantly deliver on its objectives by improving in a meaningful way the life of individual citizens, we will be able to gain the trust of donors, the business community and development foundations and expand our development function and portfolio” Ramdin insisted.

Speaking to about 26 OAS Member State delegations, the Assistant Secretary General called for the establishment of a cooperation framework that “radiates trust and confidence and that is capable to attract substantive financial resources to deliver development services to member states in a timely and effective manner to alleviate poverty and to foster social and economic prosperity.”

Finally, he welcomed the creation of the Inter-American Cooperation Network, an initiative that will be launched during the meeting; and commented that this resource “can potentially be an important mechanism to continue the debate on a more effective hemispheric cooperation structure”.

The Specialized CIDI Meeting of High-Level Cooperation Authorities was also attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Colombia, Jaime Bermudez; the Vice Minister for Multilateral Affairs of that same country, Adriana Meija; the Director for International Cooperation of the Presidential Agency for Social Action and International Cooperation of Colombia, Sandra Alzate Cifuentes; and representatives from international, regional and development-oriented institutions of the hemisphere.

Reference: E-348/09