Officials from Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama, at a meeting with civil society leaders organized by the Inter-American Development Bank in Merida, Mexico, agreed to boost social sector programs under the Puebla-Panama Plan, the IDB said today.
Delegates from the eight countries in the Puebla-Panama Plan, who took part in the Friday, June 28 meeting, said they would give priority to regional programs involving education, health, natural disaster prevention, sustainable development and indigenous communities.
The meeting between government representatives and civil society leaders was held as part of last week’s Mesoamerican presidential summit, which marked the first anniversary of the Puebla-Panama Plan’s launching.
The plan seeks to foster economic and social development and integration in the Mesoamerican region, which includes the seven Central American nations and Mexico’s southern and southeastern states.
Nicaragua’s Puebla-Panama Plan Commissioner and pro tempore president of the plan’s Executive Commission, Ernesto Leal, noted that the progress achieved over the past year in the regional infrastructure projects should now be matched in the plan’s social initiatives.
“The time has come to build Mesoamerica’s social highways,” Leal said.
IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias underscored the need to reach out to civil society and international donors to attract support and resources for the region’s development projects.
“On that basis…I believe that we will be able to make progress quickly on these key instruments for social cooperation,” he said.
Among the civil society leaders who took part in the forum on social and environmental aspects of the Puebla-Panama Plan were Filiberto Penado, president of the Central American Indigenous Council; Marcos Matias Alonso, president of the Indigenous Peoples Fund; and Ricardo Sol, president of the Consultative Committee of the Central American Integration System.
Lazaro Cardenas of the Central American Commission on the Environment and Development, Jorge Zablah of El Salvador’s Foundation for Economic and Social Development, Fanny de Estrada of Guatemala’s Exporters Association and Fernando Zumbado of Circulo de Copan also participated in the talks, along with officials from the IDB, the U.N. Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean, the United Nations Development Programme, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration and the Central American Intergration System.