The Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS), Al­bert Ramdin, has wel­comed the agree­ment to strength­en co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors in the eco­nom­ic, so­cial, and ed­u­ca­tion­al de­vel­op­ment of the re­gion, par­tic­u­lar­ly to sup­port Haiti.

“The sign­ing of this doc­u­ment is a mile­stone for us, and I am pleased that one of the ar­eas of co­op­er­a­tion in­cludes not on­ly fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion, em­ploy­ment, ed­u­ca­tion, and food se­cu­ri­ty, but al­so sup­port for Haiti, “ Ramdin said.

He said he is con­fi­dent that the part­ner­ship  in­volv­ing the Latin Amer­i­can Busi­ness Coun­cil (CEAL) and the OAS “will be the be­gin­ning of a long-stand­ing re­la­tion­ship, not on­ly with re­gard to Haiti but many oth­er places where we will be able to as­sist.”

The OAS said CEAL brings to­geth­er pri­vate busi­ness lead­ers from 19 coun­tries in Latin Amer­i­ca, Puer­to Ri­co, Mi­a­mi, and the Iber­ian Penin­su­la, who are com­mit­ted to a “Bor­der­less Amer­i­ca,” pro­mot­ing the ex­change of ex­pe­ri­ences, the pro­mo­tion of in­vest­ment, and in­te­gra­tion among en­tre­pre­neurs.

It said this part­ner­ship was for­malised fol­low­ing the sign­ing of a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) dur­ing the 36th CEAL Ple­nary As­sem­bly held in Wash­ing­ton last week.

CEAL Pres­i­dent, Rober­to J. Zamo­ra, said, “This agree­ment rep­re­sents a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for a new era amid so many changes tak­ing place in the world: politi­cians can­not solve prob­lems alone, and nei­ther can busi­ness­peo­ple.

“If we come to­geth­er to con­front eco­nom­ic chal­lenges and pro­mote the de­vel­op­ment of our coun­tries, it is a win­ning for­mu­la,” he said.

“Now, the im­por­tant thing is to make this a re­al­i­ty; not to leave it at the sign­ing of a pro­to­col, but to move for­ward on is­sues of in­ter­est for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. And we are go­ing to put it to the test with a very dif­fi­cult task: Haiti.”

Haiti has been fac­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal prob­lems fol­low­ing the as­sas­si­na­tion of its Pres­i­dent, Jovenelle Moi­se in Ju­ly  2021. Since then, ef­forts have been made to try and sta­bilise the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try with the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil re­cent­ly ap­prov­ing a res­o­lu­tion al­low­ing for a Gang Sup­pres­sion Force (GSF), a multi­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty force to com­bat es­ca­lat­ing gang vi­o­lence.

CMC/nk/2025

WASH­ING­TON, Nov 10, CMC –