SECRETARY BLINKEN: Luis, thank you very much.
Muchas gracias.
It’s again very good to be with all of you today.
Let me just say a few things at the outset before moving on to the agenda of this meeting.
First, Luis, to you, thank you.
Thank you for your leadership.
Thank you for the great work that your team has been doing.
And to my fellow foreign ministers, to our national summit coordinators, to the OAS permanent
representatives, to members of the Joint Summit Working Group: thank you, thank you, thank
you for your partnership since the summit.
I’m also very glad to welcome with us today Ambassador Frank Mora for his first SIRG ministerial
as our permanent representative to the OAS.
Frank, welcome.
A year ago, at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, our leaders made new commitments
to build a more sustainable, a more resilient, and a more equitable region.
Our countries pledged to invest in public health systems, to help communities adapt
to the climate crisis, and accelerate the clean energy transition; to improve digital
access and connectivity; to safeguard our democracies.
Over the last year, we have worked to make these shared goals a reality: meeting in Lima
to set benchmarks and working procedures to guide our collaboration; convening thousands
of representatives from local government, civil society, and the private sector at the
Cities Summit of the Americas in Denver; participating in 11 meetings to hear from a diverse array
of technical experts, business leaders, members of youth and civil society groups from all
across our hemisphere.
As a result of these conversations, we developed an Action Plan on Health and Resilience.
And today, I will ask this group to formally adopt that plan and chart a new course to
strengthen public health in the Americas over the next seven years.
In doing so, we’ll commit to investing more resources in our health care systems and workforce,
improving access to health services from primary care to mental health support, boosting our
emergency preparedness measures, and fighting non-communicable diseases like cancer and
diabetes.
We’re also pledging to incorporate digital tools and new technologies – like artificial
intelligence, into our health care institutions while safeguarding privacy.
With this action plan, our countries will work to strengthen our public health infrastructure
that’s been put under strain by COVID-19 to ensure that it’s more equitable and better
prepared to detect, prevent, and to respond to future public health emergencies.
Later today, in the OAS General Assembly, we’ll have a chance to advance another one
of our shared commitments: our resolve to strengthen democracy.
Together, we can enable our governments to make full use of the Inter-American Democratic
Charter and expand our tools to build resilient democracies, from training young leaders to
ensuring that the OAS electoral observers can operate free from threats, from harassment,
or any other undue pressure.
I’d also like to take a moment to share just a few ways that the United States has
also made progress toward our commitments over the last year.
At the Cities Summit, the United States launched our Cities Forward Initiative, which provides
$5 million to help urban areas in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States advance
sustainability, equity, and climate resilience together.
Under the Americas Health Corps, the United States has also helped train 119,000 regional
health care workers on everything from maternal health to tuberculosis prevention.
And we are well on our way toward our goal of training 500,000 people over five years.
We supported the clean energy transition and we supported the clean energy auction Jamaica
launched last month, through which companies can submit competitive bids to produce enough
energy to power 10 million lightbulbs in homes and schools and in businesses throughout their
country.
And as you all know, at the Second Summit for Democracy, the United States and Costa
Rica gathered our countries to discuss the Inter-American system and implementation of
the Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance – coming together to protect
human rights, the rule of law, greater social inclusion – the foundational building blocks
of every democracy.
In the months to come, we will continue implementing our summit commitments alongside our partners,
including by convening technology experts to discuss strategies for expanding connectivity,
promising open government – promoting, excuse me, open government, strengthening cyber security,
and fostering inclusive growth.
Later during this meeting today, each country will also have a chance to speak about the
work that they’ve done to turn pledges into action.
We are eager to hear from all of you, and as we turn our attention to the Tenth Summit
of the Americas in the Dominican Republic in 2025, I’m looking forward to continuing
the partnership that we’ve built.
With the dedication of this group, we can address the biggest challenges facing our
nations in a way that none of our countries could ever do alone.
By working together, we can build a future that actually delivers concrete results for
our people.
Finally, one personal note.
I would like to thank Kevin O’Reilly, who today completes his service as the U.S. national
coordinator for the summit.
His tireless efforts, alongside your governments and so many colleagues, helped ensure the
success of two major summits in the last year, and we are very glad to have him join our
mission in Nicaragua as our chargé d’affaires.
So, with that, I think we can move to the agenda that we have.
Luis, let me just ask if there are any other initial comments you’d like to make.
Otherwise, we can turn to the agenda.
Very good.
All right.
As I mentioned, our leaders committed to reach consensus on an Action Plan for Health and
Resilience in the Americas in Los Angeles when they met last year.
I think one of the things that we’ve all seen and that all of our leaders have seen
are weaknesses that the experience with the pandemic revealed – in our societies, in
our healthcare systems, in our ability to respond.
And they recognized the need to work together to try to strengthen health systems for everyone,
and prepare for future health emergencies.
In response, the SIRG and the Joint Summit Working Group worked diligently in a series
of ad hoc technical group meetings to put together a concrete action plan.
This effort chaired by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, supported by
governments from across our hemisphere, brought us together to chart a course to invest in
health systems that work for all, that leverage technology appropriately, that prepare us
for the next health emergency.
To ensure that this action plan meets the needs of people in the Americas, the United
States incorporated young people, the private sector, civil society in the actual drafting
and negotiation process to make sure that we had their recommendations and insights
on the takeoff – not just the landing, and to ensure that our level of ambition actually
meets the needs of people across the hemisphere.
Adopting the plan takes us one step closer to a more resilient and more equitable hemisphere.
So I would now like to put forward the Action Plan on Health and Resilience in the Americas
for your consideration and for your approval.
The question before us is: Can we adopt the action plan?
(Applause.)
Thank you.
So, I am pleased to confirm the foreign ministers at the Summit of the Americas hereby adopt
the Action Plan on Health and Resilience in the Americas.
(Applause.)
It’s always good when it takes very little work to confirm a lot of work that’s been
done, so thank you, everyone.
Next, I would like to turn to another item, because in addition to chairing development
of the Action Plan on Health and Resilience, we have also supported implementation of the
other four political commitments that leaders adopted at the Ninth Summit of the Americas
in Los Angeles.
Since chairing the Ministerial Meeting of the SIRG on the margins of the OAS General
Assembly last October, the United States, as I mentioned, has convened 11 meetings of
ad hoc technical groups to advance implementation of leaders’ summit commitments, and also
to get feedback from our stakeholders.
These included two meetings on leaders – Our Sustainable Green Future commitment and one
on the Accelerating the Clean, Sustainable, Renewable, and Just Energy Transition commitment,
two on the Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, and six on the Action Plan on
Health and Resilience in the Americas.
These in-person and virtual meetings have brought together literally hundreds of experts
from more than 25 countries to strengthen production – protections, excuse me – for
environmental defenders, to promote green shipping, to strengthen coastal ecosystems,
to encourage conditions to attract clean energy investment, to share best practices for delivering
democracy to our people and advancing their human rights.
In April the State Department and the city of Denver hosted the first city summit of
the Americas following a commitment that President Biden and I made during the Ninth Summit of
the Americas.
And I have to say for those who were able to participate, this was – in my judgment,
a remarkable and incredibly productive gathering.
The summit brought together more than 2,500 people, including 250 mayors from across our
hemisphere, to empower stakeholders and discuss how to best implement the commitments the
leaders adopted at the ninth summit, recognizing that the greatest responsibility for action
and the greatest impact on these issues typically takes place at the local level.
Working with city networks, international organizations, and other partners, we provided
a platform for underrepresented voices to discuss issues like climate adaptation and,
also, migration, on the same stage as prominent figures like the president of the Inter-American
Development Bank and the head of the government of Mexico City – reflecting our commitments
to strengthen inclusive democratic governance.
The summit allowed participants to have direct and substantive engagements with one another,
and prioritize practical solutions to our shared challenges.
I have to say that when you see this in action, when you see people coming together from the
municipal level, from the local level, particularly mayors, who genuinely are, in all of our countries,
problem-solvers – where political differences, ideology, are secondary if not irrelevant
because the responsibility of these officials is to find ways to solve practical problems
faced by their constituents.
This is a very powerful dynamic.
And the more we are engaged at these different levels across our hemisphere, the more we’re
sharing experiences and best practices, I think the greater effect we’re going to
have on actually making real and practical change.
Given, from our perspective, the success of the first city summit, it certainly should
not be the last.
And so, we encourage the sub-national conversation to continue, and we’d like to see the city
summit institutionalized as part of the greater Summit of the Americas process.
We had – as I said, three days or so of remarkable gathering, but what really matters
is what happens in the 300 and other 62 days of the year.
And my hope and expectation is that many of the contacts were made, many of the networks
that were created, many of the dynamics that we helped energize at the summit, are going
to continue every day – and that we will find ways to bring people back together in
this format going forward.
So that’s the report on the city summit, and I think we’re now going to, first of
all, turn it over to you, Brian, and also open the floor to comments from delegations.
Assistant Secretary Nichols.