Forging stronger connections: citing goals that unite the countries of the Americas, Colombia calls for improving infrastructure, increasing regional partnerships, and tackling common problems.

• Author: Conaway, Janelle
• Position: Essay

In 1994, when the region's elected heads of state and government met in Miami, Florida, for the First Summit of the Americas, they proclaimed a new "Partnership for Development and Prosperity in the Americas." Now the upcoming Sixth Summit of the Americas--scheduled to take place April 14-15 in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia--evokes that idea with the slogan "Connecting the Americas: Partners for Prosperity."

Speaking to her counterparts from the region last year, Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar said her country "identifies in full" with the objectives that gave rise to the summit process, "particularly that of forging a 'partnership for prosperity' based on democratic practice and the strengthening of democratic institutions: a partnership at the highest political level for dialogue on the hemisphere's most urgent problems and the best way to resolve them; a partnership of the nations of the Americas and of their efforts to improve levels of equality and the standards of living of our peoples."

Colombia firmly believes that, despite political differences among some countries, the region can work together effectively to reinforce its strengths and address its problems, said the country's National Summit Coordinator, Ambassador Jaime Giron Duarte, who is chairing the negotiations leading up to Cartagena.

"We have to recognize that we have differences," Giron said in an interview in his office at Colombia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headquartered in San Carlos Palace in downtown Bogota--a building that was once the seat of the government of Gran Colombia, under the leadership of Simon Bolivar. "But," Giron added, "we have to recognize one thing: that democracy rules in our countries, and that with democracy comes respect for differences."

Within a framework of respect, Giron said, the countries can address pragmatic issues such as the need to improve integration particularly the physical integration of the region via roads, railways, airports, seaports, energy projects, and virtual technology. Although an initial goal of the Summit of the Americas process--hemisphere-wide trade integration--turned out to be unattainable, physical integration is something all countries can support, Giron said. "We think that infrastructure is a key element in the hemisphere's development and prosperity," he said.

Giron summed up Colombia's perspective this way: "Let's work on what unites us and not on what divides us. Let's go to the...