Within the 40th General Assembly of the Organization of the American
States (OAS) held in Lima, Peru, on Monday 7th June the Private Sector
of the Americas (PSA) has handed in a check in the amount of u$s100,000
to José Miguel Insulza, The OAS’s General Secretary. These funds will be
used for rebuilding Haiti and the Pan-American Development Foundation
(PADF) will be the institution responsible for conducting this help.
Julio Ernesto Gutierrez Conte, President at the PSA and owner of
AA2000, has explained the reasons why they decided to cancel the forum
scheduled on an annual basis and use the funds to benefit purposes
instead. “The target of our organization is to generate ideas and
proposals, to reach an agreement with the rest of the social
stakeholders and then to promote welfare of our people through a joint
work. This year the natural disasters have struck countries of our
region seriously such as Haiti, Chile, Guatemala, Honduras and El
Salvador. It is a priority to attend to the urgency of the wounded,
homeless and hungry people. As representatives of the regional business
sector we consider that this is the way our institution must act on an
exception”
During the ceremony at which the donation was given, the following
people were present: The OAS ‘s Assistant Secretary General, Albert
Ramdin, The Haiti´s Permanent Representative for the OAS, Ambassador
Duly Brutus, The PSA’s Deputy Vice-President, Enrique de Obarrio; the
Executive Director at PSA, Mr. Jorge Lukowski and the Director at PADF,
John Sanbrailo.
Ernesto Gutierrez has expressed his conviction on the importance of
being supportive and called the communities of all the countries to
raise their awareness on the situation of the affected countries and he
also added that “The help must be on a continuous basis and we cannot
make efforts go down as time goes by. The emergency condition will be
long and we have to accompany them throughout the long rebuilding period
to come”
Some minutes later the Director at the PSA, Mr. Jorge Lukowski, gave
details on the various actions undertaken by the institution to collect
funds. “We have not only put the fund Collection boxes at the regional
airports but also have collaborated in the arrangements of solidarity
festivals. At the same time we have created an Awareness Raising
Campaign on the size of disasters and the importance of a commitment.
For this cause, renowned international artists have joined this
initiative with great responsibility” the executive commented.
On the other part, on Sunday 6th June, the PSA, through its Deputy
Vice-President, have met with Ministers of the 34 member States of the
OAS, in order to continue with the work being done since five years.
During said meeting, the recommendations drafted by business and
academic people have been submitted; these recommendations are related
to the topics addressed at the 40th General Assembly whose slogan was
“Peace, Security and Cooperation within Americas”
On this respect De Obarrio said that “From the PSA we want to thank
Ministers and the attending Authorities for having listened to us and
accepted our proposals. Both the private and public sector must continue
strengthening our cooperation efforts so that the outcome of this work
reveals in more and better opportunities for our people”
The Private Sector of the Americas is a non-profit Inter-American
institution which links many Business companies, both regional and
national companies as well as private sector companies in order to
facilitate and promote development of a formal and institutionalized
dialogue with the Organization of the American States (OAS) and through
this Organization with its Member States.
