President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday challenged the Rio Group to broaden its outlook and take on the mantle of regional development and improving the quality of life for its citizens.
Delivering the Chairman’s address at the official opening of the XIX Summit of the Rio Group at the National Cultural Centre, Jagdeo said the regional grouping was at a stage where it must decide whether it was content to continue its traditional role of advocacy and conflict resolution or expand to confront the challenges of development in the region. “I am in favour of an expanded role for the Rio Group,” he said.
Jagdeo also suggested closer collaboration for the reform of the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, as well as responsibilities in matters of diplomacy at the international level for heads of the Rio Group.
Stressing the need for concerted and collective action to tackle the quality of life issues facing the region’s people, he said often when leaders meet their discussions tended to be dominated by the topical issues of the day, such as globalisation, trade, liberalisation, drug trafficking, crime and the region’s vulnerability to natural disasters.
While these are all important, he said he hopes today’s summit, slated for the Guyana International Convention Centre, will focus on some of the issues that would not only improve the quality of life of the people but would also ensure the region’s long-term viability and competitiveness in relation to other parts of the world.
He said one of the two biggest challenges to be tackled is the question of the lack of balance among countries in the region and the second is human and social development.
Jagdeo said while it held the chair Guyana commissioned a study on this lack of balance – the Treatment of Asymmetries in the Context of Regional Cooperation. The study, conducted by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), suggests measures necessary to overcome the constraints to growth and market integration in the region. He recommended the report to the member countries of the Rio Group.
Jagdeo said there has been tremendous progress in terms of human and social development in the region and in individual countries and sectors, but a closer look at the statistics on the state of the region published by various international agencies revealed that 209,000,000 persons or 39.8% of the region’s population live in poverty today. Eighty one million or 15.4% of that number are indigent and 15 million of the indigent are adolescents.
He noted, too that 53 million people are without access to sufficient food, seven per cent of children are underweight; 16% of them have a low weight: age ratio; and 41 million children below the age of twelve are living in extreme poverty.
Today, for the first time in 25 years, the incidence of poverty is similar to the pre-debt crisis figures of the 1980s, he contended.
He said income levels are still highly inequitable and the inequality in Latin America was not only greater than other regions of the world but it also remained unchanged from the 1990s and took a turn for the worse at the start of the current decade.
Entrenched
Poverty and income inequity appear to be structurally entrenched, he said, adding that there must be a redoubling of efforts for full decent and productive employment for all especially for women and youth otherwise social discontent will continue to breed and endanger the stability of the community.
There has been progress in the health sector, nevertheless 100 million citizens in the region lack access to basic health services, 220 million have no form of health insurance, millions more lack adequate sanitation and access to drinking water and protection from curable infectious diseases.
Latin America and the Caribbean, he added, have the highest percentage in the world of babies born to teenage mothers. Child and maternal mortality and diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria rob the region of the human resources needed for economic development.
He said he has no doubt that by enterprise and pooling resources together, the region could provide better health care to its people.
The President noted that the education of children and adults was crucial to ending the cycle of poverty. Seventy-two percent of the region’s children are enrolled in secondary education but the majority, especially from poor families, do not complete their secondary education. An average of nine to 12 years of formal education provides people in the region with the opportunity to get out of poverty but this is not being achieved in many countries. Some 36 million adults do not have basic reading and writing skills.
He also spoke of the need to bridge the digital divide between the developed and the developing world, noting that to delay this was not an option.
The President also announced his intention to propose some ideas of his own on how to deal with these social issues; he expects that in the informal session at today’s summit the leaders of the Rio Group would be able to discuss them more in detail.
Dubbing the last of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) vague and not specific, he said it was not surprising therefore that the international response to the needs of the developing countries has been less than adequate to the extent that meeting the objectives of the MDGs by 2015 was now in jeopardy.
He urged members of the Rio Group not to confine their actions solely to the MDGs but to aggressively advocate changes to the international system and multilateral institutions to become more democratic to the needs of developing countries.
He cited the slow pace of the Doha Development Round of trade negotiations in which the experience so far shows that the developed world was only concerned about preserving its own interests.
Noting, that the Rio Group has already agreed on the necessity to collaborate for the democratization in international relations, he said members should speak with one voice to serve their interests and to persuade others on the validity of common causes.
In the immediate future also, he recommended that the members of the group cooperate more closely to reform the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank grouping to ensure greater democracy in decision making and to further ensure that their polices reflect today’s realities.
The ceremonial opening yesterday was garlanded with rich Guyanese culture and a sprinkling of Brazilian influence, obvious in a cultural presentation by a group of hinterland students.
Prior to the grand opening however the overseas delegations, having received a grand red carpet welcome, were greeted by a group of children from St. Margaret’s Primary school and followed by a Guyana Defence Force colour party which bore the flags of each country.
The heads arrived with their delegations and security personnel and were greeted by President Jagdeo and ministers of government.
Upon the arrival of Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva the media delegation from that country shouted their president’s name and he returned their salutations. Heads and Foreign Ministers were then garlanded by their ushers with indigenous chains.
The cultural programme started off with a group of young men decked out in black suits, which shirts and red ties who sung ‘My Guyana Eldorado’.
An Indian dance followed by an African dance put on by St. Agnes Primary and a piece put together by the Bishops High School choir, captured the attention of everyone in the audience, and came over as a hearty Guyanese welcome.
The rhythmic sensation of drums and dances by the National Dance School also contributed to making the opening ceremony of the Rio Group, one that all Guyanese would be proud of.
“Love and Unity, Peace and harmony,” the words of the song sung by local artiste Eddie Neblet ended off th
e evening’s cultural programme which was put on by the youths of Guyana.
All of the members of the Rio Group are present at the summit, but with representation at various levels. The members are Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, The Dominican Republic, Ecua-dor, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Para-guay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
The summit is expected to hammer out the Declaration of Turkeyen.
