Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Sir Ronald Sanders, as Chair of the Inter American Council for Integral Development (CIDI, has called for stronger development cooperation between OAS member states and the Organization’s Permanent Observers.
Sir Ronald made the call at a special meeting that he convened on 9 September as Chair of the Council. The meeting, attended by OAS Secretary General Albert Ramdin, brought together the 32 active OAS member states and Permanent Observers, including the European Union, China, Spain, Italy, France, Morocco and Japan.
His central message was that development should not be treated as secondary to the other principal concerns of the inter-American system. “Development is not the fourth pillar of the inter-American system. It is the foundation of the other three,” he declared.
Sir Ronald said human rights are diminished when people cannot feed their families, obtain health care or educate their children. Democracy loses authority when citizens see no path to decent work or improvement in their lives, while security becomes fragile when the lawful economy offers young people no credible place.
He also linked inadequate development to migration pressures.
“Migration, which commands so much of our collective attention, often begins where hope and opportunity have ended,” he said. “When development fails, the other pillars do not stand untouched. They begin to fracture.”
Sir Ronald acknowledged the valuable support that Permanent Observers from Europe and Asia have given to the OAS in democracy, human rights and security. However, he observed that development had not received comparable attention in the Organization’s external partnerships.
He argued that a more prosperous hemisphere would create stronger markets, more reliable trading partners and wider opportunities for investment and trade. Continued exclusion from economic opportunity, by contrast, would fuel political frustration, insecurity and migration pressures that no border could fully contain.
Sir Ronald also called for greater support for climate-resilient development, particularly for small island states repeatedly forced to borrow to replace infrastructure destroyed by severe storms.
“Development cooperation is not charity at the margins of foreign policy,” Sir Ronald said. “It is an investment at the heart of shared stability and shared prosperity.”
He proposed that the meeting should be the first in a series of practical encounters between CIDI and the Permanent Observers, directed towards building partnerships and producing measurable results.
Source: Antigua News Room Chair of OAS Development Council Calls for Development to Be Placed at the Centre of Hemispheric Stability.