Sustainable commitment.

• Author: Ochoa, Gina
• Position: OAS - Declaration of Santo Domingo

Ministers and other authorities on environmental matters from OAS member states met in November in the Dominican Republic and adopted the Declaration of Santo Domingo. The Declaration establishes, among other things, a commitment to continue promoting sustainable development through cooperation and solidarity in various areas including human resource training, institutional capacity building, the transfer of ecologically rational technologies, and the effective mobilization of financial resources.

In the context of the Second Inter-American Meeting of Ministers and High-Level Authorities on Sustainable Development, supported by the OAS Department of Sustainable Development (DSD), the experts made progress and exchanged experiences on strategies their countries have adopted to face the challenges of climate change and to move forward on related issues for the region, such as forest and water management, disaster risk reduction, agriculture, and sustainable tourism.

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In the opening ceremony of the meeting, the OAS Deputy Secretary General Albert R. Ramdin stated that it was time "for natural disasters to be a political priority for OAS member states," and he encouraged greater investment in...