The Summits of the Americas are periodic meetings that bring together the democratically elected Heads of State and Government of the Americas to discuss and make decisions on issues of relevance for the region.
Nine Summits and two Special Summits of the Americas have taken place:
The participants of the Summits of the Americas Process are the Heads of State and Government of the hemisphere and their delegations. In addition, the heads of the member institutions of the Joint Summit Working Group (JSWG)participate as observers. The institutions comprising the JSWG are: the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United Nations Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the World Bank (WB), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the International Labor Organization (ILO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Special guests include social actor representatives (civil society organizations, youth, indigenous peoples, workers etc.) academia, the private sector and the media among others.
The next Summit of the Americas will be held in the Dominican Republic in 2025.
To analyze and discuss the problems and challenges that the Americas face in order to jointly seek solutions and improve the quality of life of the citizens of the Americas. The Summits of the Americas Process is a “commitment to hemispheric integration and national and collective responsibility for improving the economic well-being and security of our people” (Quebec City Declaration).
The Chair of the Summits of the Americas Process is the host country of the next Summit.
The decisions made at the Summits of the Americas are reached through consensus by the Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG) .
The Member States of the hemisphere, represented by the National Summit Coordinators, comprise the Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG). The SIRG is the political body responsible for following-up on Summit mandates, coordinating the Summit agenda, and preparing for future Summits. The SIRG meets on average three times a year; one of these meetings is at the ministerial level, in the framework of the OAS General Assembly.
Government representatives discuss political, economic and social issues at the Summits of the Americas. The issues discussed reflect hemispheric concerns introduced by the various countries.
The Summits of the Americas Secretariat is part of the institutional mechanisms of the Summits of the Americas Process and serves as the institutional memory and technical secretariat of the Summits of the Americas Process and all its organs. In this capacity, it advises and assists the Chair of the Process and the States in all phases of the Summits Process, including the follow-up and implementation phase of Summit mandates and in the preparation of future Summits. It is the technical secretariat of the Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG), the main executing body of the Summit Process. It also fosters strategic alliances and coordinates the participation of the international, regional and inter-American system entities that make up the Joint Summit Working Group (JSWG) in support of state implementation efforts; and strengthens and promotes the participation of civil society and social actors, and other interested sectors, in the Summits of the Americas Process. The Summits Secretariat was established as a result of a mandate from the Second Summit of the Americas (Santiago, 1998) in which the Heads of State and Government mandated the OAS to serve as the institutional memory and technical secretariat of the Summits of the Americas Process.
International organizations provide support to governments in the implementation and follow-up of Presidential mandates. Additionally, through the Joint Summit Working Group (JSWG)chaired by the OAS, international institutions coordinate their activities in support of the Summit Process and report on their actions in the implementation of mandates. In the preparation and negotiation for the Summits, international organizations provide technical advice in their respective areas of expertise, to the countries that require or seek such assistance.
The Summits of the Americas Process initially began as a process of negotiation between governments and has evolved to incorporate diverse social actors. Today, there are several ways to participate in the Summits of the Americas Process, whether through participation in activities that provide recommendations, or through forums and seminars organized by the Summits of the Americas Secretariat and other partners within and outside the OAS. The term Social Actors currently includes civil society organizations, indigenous peoples, youth, private sector, labor and academia, among others.
You can obtain information through this website, which is the official information source for the Summit Process and compiles its institutional memory. You may also request additional information by email: [email protected] or via the following mailing address: Summits of the Americas Secretariat Organization of American States 1889 F St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20006.
Website: www.summit-americas.org
The Summits of the Americas Secretariat offers a limited number of non-paid internships to undergraduate and graduate students from different universities in the Americas. Students should be knowledgeable about the areas covered by the Summits Process. Internship applications should be sent to OAS Internship Program. The application should specify that you are applying for an internship at the Summits of the Americas Secretariat of the OAS.
There are many ways to stay informed and up to date on what is happening in the Summits Process. To follow us on social networks, visit us on Instagram, Facebook y en Twitter.
You can also follow us on Instagram or participate in the Summits Virtual Community. You can also subscribe to receive our newsletters entitled
SubscribeThe Summits of the Americas Follow-up System (SISCA) was established as an online tool to show countries' progress in implementing Summit mandates. The information contained therein has been provided directly by the participating States of the Summits Process and the entities of the Joint Summit Working Group. In recent years, since 2019 there has been a virtual platform for the Mechanism for Follow-up and Implementation of the Lima Commitment: Democratic Governance against Corruption (Eighth Summit, Lima 2018), adopted by the States in the framework of the Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG), which based on follow-up indicators for each of the 57 mandates of the Lima Commitment, the States and entities directly report the degree of implementation of the mandates. All this information is available for public. More recently, and within the framework of the Ninth Summit of the Americas (Los Angeles, 2022), the States also adopted, within the framework of the SIRG, the methodology for the follow-up and implementation phase of the Summit mandates through the establishment of Ad Hoc Technical Groups for each of the five thematic pillars of the adopted mandates. The progress of this process, which also includes contributions from civil society and social actors, is also available through the SISCA platform.