Civil Society Input into the OAS Summit Processes

On October 30-31, 2008, 140 civil society representatives from the Caribbean convened at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago to formulate recommendations in preparation for the Fifth Summit of the Americas, “Securing Our Citizens' Future by Promoting Human Prosperity, Energy Security and Environmental Sustainability” to be held in Trinidad and Tobago in April 2009. This Forum was hosted by the National Secretariat for the Fifth Summit of the Americas, with the support of the Summits of the Americas Secretariat and the Department of International Affairs of the Organization of American States (OAS), and in collaboration with the civil society organizations Canadian Foundation for the Americas (FOCAL) and the Network of NGOs of Trinidad and Tobago for the Advancement of Women.

During two days of deliberation, five open dialogues were held that addressed all of the themes presented in the Declaration of Commitment of Port of Spain, including promoting human prosperity, environmental sustainability and energy security, and strengthening democratic governance, public security, and the Summits of the Americas Process.

The recommendations that arose out of these meetings refer to articles of the Draft Declaration of Commitment of Port of Spain.
The list of the participants of the Caribbean Sub Regional Civil Society Forum is included as an Annex to the report.

The organisations from Guyana who were represented are :-
National Youth Development Network (Bevon Currie )
Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD)(Vidyaratha Kissoon)
Young Americas Business Trust (YABT) -Guyana Inc. (Shawn Benn)
Youth Challenge Guyana (Dimitri Nicholson, Dwayne Mitchell) who participated in the specific Youth consultations.

Opportunities for civil society in Guyana
The organisations who participated are pleased to share the recommendations from the Caribbean Civil society forum and to welcome feedback on these recommendations. These recommendations will be sent back to the Civil society secretariat in Trinidad & Tobago.

Mechanisms to give your feedback are :-

• Use the Comment feature
• Send an email to sasod_guyana@yahoo.com or Shawn Benn at pabwe2002@yahoo.com or Bevon Currie at bevon_currie@yahoo.com
• Participation in an interaction on Saturday 21st February, the venue to be confirmed.

There is also the thematic Virtual OAS Forum which is open until February 13th, 2009