The Summit of the Americas: Creating Opportunity

Leaders at the 2001 Third Summit of the Americas and the 2004 Special Summit of the Americas committed to promote growth with equity to reduce poverty, invest in social development, and strengthen democratic governance across our hemisphere. The United States is dedicated to building on these shared commitments at the Fourth Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina from November 4-5, 2005. We see the Fourth Summit as an Opportunity Summit which will take concrete, measurable steps to create decent work and strengthen democratic governance in the region.

Below are some examples of achievements generated by recent Summits. They demonstrate both the relevance of the Summit process and its potential to create still greater opportunities for our citizens.

Economic Growth with Equity to Reduce Poverty
Broad-based economic growth and poverty reduction remain key challenges for our hemisphere. To meet these challenges, all governments must implement sound macroeconomic policies, strengthen the foundations for growth, spur private sector-led development, and work towards the eradication of poverty. The U.S. Government has taken the following steps to implement Summit mandates:

• Advancing Free Trade: The U.S. Government has led the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations process as Co-Chair since 2002, working to bring about a comprehensive agreement that benefits all participating countries. With U.S. leadership, trade ministers agreed in 2002 to establish a Hemispheric Cooperation Program to help ensure that small and developing countries--such as those in the Caribbean--benefit from free trade. In 2004, the U.S. Government devoted $233 million in trade-capacity building assistance in Latin America and the Caribbean. Beyond the FTAA, the U.S. Government is pursuing free trade on multiple fronts. The U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement entered into force in 2004, and already bilateral trade figures have shown remarkable growth. In 2004, U.S. exports to Chile increased by 33 percent compared to 2003 and U.S. imports from Chile increased nearly 28 percent. The United States also recently concluded a free trade agreement (DR-CAFTA) with El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. For the first time in a free trade agreement, the DR-CAFTA includes a Committee on Trade Capacity Building, in recognition of the importance of such assistance in promoting economic growth, reducing poverty, and adjusting to liberalized trade. Negotiations are also underway to conclude free trade agreements with Panama and with the Andean region (Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru).
• Lowering the Cost of Remittances: According to the Inter-American Development Bank's Multilateral Investment Fund, the cost of sending remittances from the U.S. to Latin America has fallen from an average of 12% in 2003 to approximately 8% in 2004. This decline represents progress towards the Summit goal of establishing conditions for a reduction of 50%. The U.S. has led efforts to promote competition, eliminate unnecessary regulatory barriers, and encourage the adoption of new technologies. The cost of sending remittances between the U.S. and Mexico has fallen by 50% in some key corridors since the Partnership for Prosperity program was inaugurated in 2001. The U.S. and Guatemala announced a pilot project partnership in late June 2005 to lower costs by fostering competition, efficiency, and accessibility in the remittance market. The U.S. has also engaged in extensive outreach, including an October 7-8, 2004 conference in Atlanta on "Payments in the Americas." Over 130 participants attended the conference, including officials from multilateral development banks, the commercial banking community, credit unions, and wire transfer operations.
• Reducing the Time and Cost to Start a Business: According to the World Bank, it takes an average of five days to start a business in the United States, and the cost is 0.6% of Gross National Income (GNI). In the 22 Western Hemisphere countries (excluding the U.S. and Canada), the average time of starting a business has been reduced from 71 days in 2004 to 63 days in 2005, and the average cost was reduced from 67 percent of GNI in 2004 to 62 percent of GNI in 2005. The U.S. sponsored a meeting in March 2005 in Paraguay to share country success stories in implementing reform. In October 2004, the U.S. helped organize the Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) Congress of the Americas in Chile, a hemispheric network of SME service providers working together to promote the participation and competitiveness of SMEs in international trade. Over 75 representatives of public, private, and non-profit small business service providers attended from 12 countries, and the meeting included a session on lowering the time and cost of starting a business.
• Facilitating SME Access to Credit: We support the ongoing strong efforts by the Inter-American Development Bank to meet the 2007 deadline for tripling credit through the private banking sector to small businesses.
• Strengthening Property Rights: Our government organized the Inter-American Alliance for Accountability on Property Rights which unites technical experts, academics, and implementing agencies to build momentum for strengthening property rights. Working with its Alliance partners, the U.S. is testing a draft blueprint for monitoring progress in Bolivia. In June 2002, President Bush set a domestic goal of achieving 5.5 million new minority homeowners by 2010. To date, over one million minority families have attained this goal.
• Supporting Development Financing: The U.S. established the Millennium Challenge Account to provide grant development assistance to those countries in the region that rule justly, invest in their people, and encourage economic freedom. The Millennium Challenge Corporation recently signed a $215 million Compact with Honduras and a $175 million Compact with Nicaragua.

Social Development
Overcoming poverty, hunger and social inequality and creating opportunity for all remain important challenges for our hemisphere. To meet these challenges, we seek to implement constructive policies that promote equal opportunity and the eradication of poverty.

• Improving the Quality of Education: In this country, states and school districts have continued to improve and expand mechanisms for reporting student performance and other indicators. The federal "No Child Left Behind" act requires states and school districts to develop and disseminate progress reports to parents and the general public. To improve the quality of education throughout the hemisphere, the U.S. helps fund the three Centers of Excellence for Teacher Training (CETT). These Centers have trained over 12,500 teachers in effective reading methodologies, reaching over 415,000 children in the Latin America and Caribbean region. These centers have helped children read with more understanding and become more expressive and creative.
• Fighting HIV/AIDS: Through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and bilateral initiatives, the U.S. has devoted $235.97 million over the last two years in Latin America and the Caribbean to the fight against HIV/AIDS. About 640,000 individuals living with HIV/AIDS in the region now receive anti-retroviral therapy (ART), exceeding the Nuevo Leon Summit goal of treating 600,000 people by November 2005.
• Enhancing Cultural Diversity through Cultural Preservation: The State Department's Bureau for Educational and Cultural Affairs administers the Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation. This program supports preservation projects for endangered objects, sites, and forms of traditional expression. Since its inception in 2001, it has provided over $1.2 million to back initiatives in 21 countries in the region. The U.S. has also signed cultural property protection agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, and Bolivia; another is pending with Colombia. The intent of these agreements is to reduce the incentive for archaeological and ethnological pillage which causes irreparable damage to heritage and deprives us of information about mankind's development in the hemisphere.
• Eliminating the Worst Forms of Child Labor: Department of Labor funded initiatives have resulted in over 109,000 children being removed from, or prevented from, the worst forms of child labor in the Americas since 1999. In 2004 alone, the Department of Labor's financial commitment to child labor projects in the Americas amounted to nearly $22 million. Additional resources of $16 million were provided in 2005 to continue to help countries combat hazardous child labor in various agricultural and industrial sectors and to support Child Labor Education Initiatives (EI). EI projects improve the accessibility and quality of basic education for children who have been involved in the worst forms of child labor or are at risk of becoming involved.
• Improving Opportunities for Workers: Since 2001, the Department of Labor has provided over $151 million for initiatives in the Americas aimed at strengthening the rule of labor law, building efficient and responsive labor markets, and addressing the impacts of HIV/AIDS in the workplace. In September 2004, the U.S. collaborated with our North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation partner countries to organize a conference for all countries in the hemisphere on "Supporting Economic Growth Through Effective Employment Services."

Democratic Governance
This hemisphere's countries have taken a comprehensive approach to the promotion of democratic governance. On each front, we are actively involved in the development of policies that focus on practical, concrete commitments.