The upcoming Rio Summit could expect some South American Heads of Government but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not know how many would be coming to the March 3 event in Georgetown.
To date the Guyana government has allocated $60 million to cover the cost of the summit. The sum has been allocated in two tranches.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Rudy Insanally, however, told the media last week that all member states of the Rio Group would be represented; some at the level of Heads of State but owing to their many competing demands, he did not know how many would be coming. Some states would be represented at the level of vice presidents and ministers of foreign affairs.
Among those specially invited are the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, the Executive Director of the Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Joe Luis Mchinea, and the Secretary General of the Organisation of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza who has been encouraging heads to take part in the event.
At the Rio Summit which would be held on March 3 at the International Convention Centre at Turkeyen, Insanally expects that the conference would ‘piggyback’ on some of the facilities, infrastructure and systems in place for the Cricket World Cup 2007 series of matches which would start in Guyana towards the end of March.
According to him it would be a dry run for the CWC, testing among other features the accommodation facilities, transportation and security systems in place. He noted that Prime Minister Sam Hinds heads a sub-committee that has a check list to ensure that all systems are operational and effective given the fact that the summit would be held within a 48-hour period.
Noting the limited human and other resources available for hosting the continental summit, he said that a number of entities have chipped in to assist, including the United Nations Development Programme, UNESCO, the Pan American Health Organisation, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Chilean Government which has made the necessary arrangements for interpreting and translation of documents from and into English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Apart from consultation and coordination of political issues which was the initial objective of the group, Insanally said that its objective has expanded to a number of other areas like integration, migration, transportation and communication.
He said that Haiti has been on the agenda and was a concern of the Rio group in terms of cooperating with Caricom. He said that if the international community does not live up to its promises, there is a real fear that Haiti could return to a state of anarchy.
Social issues that now affect the region, including poverty, lack of basic social services, such as health and education, and trade issues are also expected to find their way onto the agenda.
He said that even though Guyana’s term of chairmanship would be up at the end of the summit, this country would remain a member of the troika for another term.
He feels that Guyana has made some headway in terms of opening the Caribbean region to South America in the same manner as Belize has done with Central America.
