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News : International : Organization of American States (OAS) Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM


OAS Secretary General remarks at 3rd Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC)
By OAS
Jan 28, 2015 - 4:35:42 PM

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I would like to thank you first of all, Mr. President, for the hospitality that The Republic of Costa Rica has once again offered us, and for the opportunity to be here again, in this generous land that for many in our region, in our world, is a symbol of peace, democracy tolerance, and justice.

I would also like to thank you for the opportunity to attend this latest meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. In the years that have elapsed since it was founded, CELAC has established itself as an indispensable frame of reference for developing shared policies and our region's role in the world.

I have been privy to that process from the start and have pointed out on numerous occasions that our organizations have complemented each other's work by jointly addressing, on the basis of the values we share, the paramount issues of peace, democracy, sustainable development, integration, and security.
Following a very positive decade for our region, today we face new challenges.

The first is to maintain or recover the economic growth rates we achieved over the past 10 years. Many of the commercial and financial factors prompting that expansion are no longer present in the global economy. Latin America and the Caribbean must be in a position to offset their absence with greater integration and expansion of their domestic markets, more effective savings and investment policies, higher quality education, development of their infrastructure, and enhanced technical and scientific capacity.

The slowdown many of our countries are experiencing today poses a threat to the progress we made with reducing poverty and inequality. The many millions of men, women and young people who emerged from poverty over the past decade and the many still living in poverty in our region expect their governments to be capable of crafting and coordinating effective public policies for overcoming those risks.

For that reason, prosperity and equity are the two leitmotivs of our next Summit of the Americas: a historic event which will be attended, for the first time, by all the Heads of State and Government of the 35 independent States of the Americas. I am sure that the discussions you will have here will serve to establish common ground for confronting the huge challenge of achieving sustainable rates of growth in the new global economic environment, much more significant integration in trade and production, and a fairer distribution of the fruits of that growth.

Today, many of our countries are beset by the scourges of violence, drugs, and organized crime, all of which conspire against the deeper democracy we all yearn for. We have made headway in our quest for alternative approaches to dealing with those issues, convinced that repression is not enough and that what we need is a public health perspective, less imprisonment and more prevention, and more flexible administration of justice. Above all, we need to address the problems of exclusion that underlie much of the criminal behavior we endure.

Equally important is the need to overcome those obstacles while preserving and expanding the democratic processes now thriving in our region, as never before. That process, as we well know, is still fragile and can suffer setbacks. Democratic elections, the rule of law, the separation of powers, political pluralism, respect for human rights and freedom of expression, gender equality, and nondiscrimination are values we all proclaim but which still need to be greatly reinforced in our day-to-day lives.

Our region needs to be able to come to grips with these core concerns of our times. Our countries should also strive to present a common front at major upcoming international meetings, such as: the formulation of a new round of post-2015 sustainable development goals and targets at the United Nations; the Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015; and the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on the World Drug Problem. All these meetings are about to take place and afford an opportunity for Latin America and the Caribbean to speak with one voice. I sincerely hope that this Summit will bring us closer to that goal.

Thank you

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