President of the Inter-American Commission of Women, Minister Nilcéa Freire,
Members of the Executive Committee,
Distinguished Ministers
Delegates to the Commission,
Distinguished Permanent Representatives and Alternates,
Madame Executive Secretary
Ladies and gentlemen:

Welcome to the Third Regular Session of the CIM Executive Committee. I am happy to share this inaugural session with you and to continue our dialogue, as I promised during the previous Executive Committee meeting.

Madame President, the 2004-2006 period of the CIM Executive Committee is coming to an end, and I would like to congratulate you, Vice-President María José Argaña and the other members of the Committee for a very successful tenure. I am sure that the upcoming Assembly of Delegates in El Salvador will fully recognize the achievements of this particular biennium which has been a period of transformation and great changes for the OAS and the CIM.

We also want to take this opportunity to congratulate the President, Madame Nilcéa Freire for recently receiving a prestigious award in Brazil as one of the top civic leaders in that country. So it is indeed an honor having you as our President of CIM.

I am happy to report that, thanks to the work of the CIM, this organization is slowly but surely mainstreaming gender throughout all of its organs, organisms and agencies. As a result of the CIM/OAS/CIDA project on gender mainstreaming within the OAS, there is a real awareness among our staff of the benefits of “engendering” our work.

My office is fully involved in supporting the second phase of this project, launched in March of this year. At that time, in coordination with the CIM, we hosted a working luncheon for OAS directors and department heads to brief them on how they could support and take advantage of the gender training program and to discuss the process for developing an OAS-wide gender integration strategy and action plan. That meeting initiated an energetic dialogue with senior executives on how the gender integration strategy and action plan should be structured and drew on their collective leadership and experience to further progress on this issue.

We hope that by involving senior management more directly in the project, we will grow the OAS's capacity to embed a gender perspective in our programs, policies and projects and become a model for other multilateral organizations. I will continue to promote this objective so that it can be achieved in the shortest possible time, during my tenure as Assistant Secretary General.

Another example of the growing importance of the gender issue within our Organization is the fact that on March 7, the Permanent Council commemorated International Women’s Day for the first time. We have to recognize this historical initiative and commend the Chair of the Permanent Council, Ambassador Sonia Johnny of Saint Lucia, who convened a Special Meeting of the Permanents Council entitled: “Gender and Development in the Americas: Remembering the Margins.” Various panelists, among them the CIM Executive Secretary, made presentations on issues such as Gender and HIV/AIDS, Gender and Management of Natural Disasters, Gender and Development from the Indigenous Perspective; and Men, Masculinity and the Process of Development. Both the Secretary General and I participated in this Special Meeting, and found it exceptionally rich in information. I am sure that the CIM will be able to use the recommendations from this meeting for its own work, and publicize the proceedings in a booklet.

Also in March, I had the honor of participating in the closing session of the Meeting of National Authorities on Trafficking in Persons, held in Venezuela. We all know that, were it not for the work of the CIM, this issue that demands the utmost attention from the international community, national authorities and society in general would not have become so central to the OAS agenda. Let me thank the CIM for their hard work and leadership in this area.

Trafficking is indeed a multinational security threat, but because it targets women and children so specifically, national machineries must continue to be actively involved in fighting it. This is why I urge you to continue addressing the issue of trafficking in your countries, through interagency cooperation and directly with the OAS.

Also, I would like to express my support for the CIM’s recent decision to address the issue of gender and HIV-AIDS in the Hemisphere. I am grateful to you, Madame President, and to the Executive Committee, for introducing this issue into the CIM agenda. Our Hemisphere, like the rest of the world, is being ravaged by this epidemic. In fact, the Caribbean is the region with the fastest growing HIV/AIDS infection rate after sub-Saharan Africa. By placing this topic front and center, the CIM will once again take the lead within the organization on an issue that is menacing the very future of the women, men and children of our countries. We know that the CIM is well-placed to initiate this work and that it will find the appropriate partners within and outside the OAS to assist in finding the most effective solutions to this pandemic.

In the next two weeks, the OAS will convene the Thirty-Sixth General Assembly in the Dominican Republic that will revolve around the theme “Good Governance and Development in a Knowledge-Based Society.” Knowledge is indeed power and opportunity for progress. Our Americas must begin thinking in new and innovative ways about the way we conceive of development, education, and entrepreneurship. Only by reaching out to all sectors of our populations including marginalized and minority communities can countries fully maximize the potential of their human resource base. This General Assembly will bring fresh perspectives to innovative mechanisms and technologies for improving the lives of the 220 million people in this Hemisphere who live in poverty.

These are challenging times for the countries of the Hemisphere as well as the OAS. Many of our Member States are experiencing economic and political difficulties, and the OAS has severe budgetary limitations. By the end of this year, the countries of our region will have held a total of 22 elections, 10 of them Presidential. This means that national agendas are changing and that new approaches are being implemented to address both old and new issues. All of these changes impact our work and we must be prepared to respond to new hemispheric expectations and challenges.

I know that, as representatives of your governments, you have the disposition, talent and opportunity to continue using the political forum that is the CIM to promote gender equity and equality as a contribution to good governance.

I look forward to the results of your deliberations which, no doubt, will provide clear guidelines and thoughtful direction in furthering the objectives of the CIM. I offer you my full support in your endeavors and I look forward to seeing you again at the Assembly of Delegates.

Thank you.