Fifth Summit of the Americas and Follow-Up

FOCAL is committed to ensuring that civil society has a voice in the Summits of the Americas process, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American system as a whole. There is another opportunity for the hemisphere's civil society to have their voices heard at the upcoming Fifth Summit of the Americas on April 17-19, 2009 in Trinidad and Tobago.

FOCAL and its civil society partners remain at the forefront of efforts to push the OAS and governments to do more, to be more transparent, inclusive and efficient on Summit follow-up. FOCAL continues to dedicate substantial effort to track and inform our networks in Canada and throughout the region of developments relating to the Summit. We do this because we understand that the Summit is not a one-off event, and because we believe that the agenda and action plans of the Summits can make a significant contribution to improving the quality of the lives of the citizens of this hemisphere.

FOCAL will be organizing with partners across Canada discussions on the Fifth Summit of the Americas. This effort will be the next step in FOCAL's efforts as part of the Active Democracy Network to monitor the implementation of past mandates at the Summit of the Americas.

FOCAL is a coordinator of the Active Democracy Network which is composed of leading civil society organizations (CSOs) from 23 countries across the Americas. FOCAL will be working with partners across Canada to meet with Canadians and bring their ideas forward to the hemisphere's governments at the Americas. The end of the Summit is the beginning of follow-up and CSOs and citizens can play their part by demanding their governments comply with their Summit commitments.

For more information about FOCAL's past work:

FOCAL y la Cumbre de las Américas (PDF)

Active Democracy: Citizen Network for the Implementation of Summit Mandates