Management and Civil Society

The report we received from yesterday’s roundtable, confirmed by today’s presentations, suggests to all of us that civil society is welcoming this opportunity with as much enthusiasm as my own government and the other governments that participate in and believe in the Summit process. Argentina’s proposal to focus on job creation as the theme for the November Summit speaks for itself. Everyone can appreciate what an important topic it is, and also what a difficult topic it is. There are no easy answers to job creation, no magic solutions, and certainly no job creation by political or presidential declaration. But what I see, on the part of both civil society and governments, is the real desire to tackle this issue, and to make some tangible progress toward creating more and better jobs for more and more people.

What is even more encouraging is that governments and civil society are looking at a lot of the same issues and areas as needing attention, and I want to mention a few of these:

• First, expanding access to credit—this is an area where leaders made a specific commitment at the Special Summit a little more than a year ago in Monterrey, Mexico, and where we need to do more, because access to credit is key to expanding businesses and jobs.
• Second, small and medium-sized enterprises—if we are serious about creating jobs, we have to reduce the barriers that SMEs face because they account for the vast majority of jobs in the hemisphere—80% of economic activity and 60% of jobs in the region. Leaders made a start at the Special Summit last year, and I want to comment the Chilean government in particular for the meeting last fall that brought government agencies and SMEs together to talk about promoting SME issues. But there is more to do.
• Third, decentralization—local governments have an enormously important role to play in creating the conditions for local businesses to create jobs. My government provides substantial support for the Inter-American Network on Decentralization and Local Government, and we will be looking for additional ways that leaders can support local efforts at job creation through the Summit process.
• Fourth, education—we need to continue looking for ways to expand access to education and to improve the quality of education. As you know, this has been a central focus of President Bush’s Administration domestically and in the hemisphere, where USAID is now funding three Centers for Excellence in Teacher Training—one in Jamaica for the Caribbean, one in Honduras for Central America, and one in Peru for the Andes—that have trained almost 7,000 teachers so far. In particular, there is growing recognition that science and technology are key components to a quality education in today’s global economy, and we need to look for ways to promote that aspect of the education process.
• Fifth, competitiveness—this is a huge topic, but at root, it means creating the conditions for the private sector to thrive, through sound macroeconomic policies, more open markets and free trade, government institutions that work, the fight against corruption, and regulations that both protect workers and encourage entrepreneurship. All we need to do is look at the success of developing countries, in Asia for example, to know that competitiveness will be key to the future success of our economies and our efforts to create jobs.
• Of course, there is democratic governance—fighting corruption and advancing transparency. The World Bank has estimated that corruption shaves as much as one percent of GDP off growth in some countries, so this has to remain at the forefront of our agenda.
• Finally, I want to mention inclusiveness—there is not a country in this hemisphere, including the United States of America, that can’t do more to make sure that everyone—regardless of gender, ethnicity, social class—has equal opportunity to pursue a good job. We need to keep this at the forefront as we look for ways to improve the number and quality of jobs.

There is much more I could mention here, and we will shortly be making available, through the OAS web site, our most recent contribution in response to Argentina’s excellent discussion paper on the Summit theme. The last point of common interest between civil society and governments that I want to note today is the need to find concrete, measurable commitments for leaders to consider, with the goal of ensuring that the Summit process leads to real progress and accountability on this theme of job creation. Finding concrete commitments that are also meaningful for 34 countries is a real challenge. But we made a good start at the Special Summit, and my government is counting on help from civil society in doing so again. Let me invite the civil society organizations here to look at the commitments that governments made in Monterrey to achieve by the next Summit, to ask whether we’re implementing them, and to hold us accountable.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, if you will permit me to take advantage of the presence today of our civil society partners, I would like to take a moment to touch on this year’s OAS General Assembly, which the United States will host in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida this June. We are very pleased by the interest from civil society organizations in this year’s General Assembly. There are already proposals for academic conferences, private sector events and civil society meetings, and we are committed to seeing as many of these as possible come to fruition. We are truly honored and excited about hosting the General Assembly, and we think it will be all the more dynamic this year because it will also be a venue for governments and non-governmental participants to look ahead to the Summit in Argentina a few months afterward.

Our goal is for as many as possible to be able to participate in this year’s General Assembly. As a first step, many of you know that the United States has provided $200,000 to the OAS to help promote civil society participation in both the Summit and OAS General Assembly this year. In addition to this funding, I also want to reiterate the request that I know Jorge Sanin made yesterday, for non-governmental organizations to apply to the OAS to participate in the General Assembly no later than April 5. The purpose of this deadline is to ensure that no one is turned down unnecessarily as a participant in the General Assembly, and so I want to encourage the representatives of civil society who are present here today to pass along that information to their colleagues. I also want to encourage all those who are planning to attend from abroad to look right away at U.S. visa requirements for their country. We have an information sheet available today, and there is a lot more information available through the Internet and through our embassies.

Mr. Chairman, 2005 is a very important year for the hemisphere, and this meeting is getting us off to an excellent start. We look forward to continuing this dialogue with civil society over the coming months. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.