The TI earlier had presented series of detailed recommendations to curb humanitarian issues including corruption and social asymmetries. In its recent press release it had appealed the OAS member states to urgently implement anti-corruption laws to ensure peace, security and sustainable development of the region.

According to Transparency International (TI), the anti-corruption organisation, despite the OAS being the first regional organization to adopt a convention against corruption in 1996, TI monitoring reports show there are serious gaps in its implementation. Although Insulza and other participants were able to identify the issues, it is not sure how the General Assembly – “Peace, Security and Cooperation” would translate them into meaningful action.

The Secretary General Insulza acknowledged “in Latin America there are too many poor, and we have important levels of inequality; but most Afro-descendants are poor, most indigenous citizens are poor, an important number of households headed by women are poor, and 80 percent of the disabled are poor. Therefore, poverty and inequality in our region have colour, gender and condition. It’s a reality. That is why we place such strong emphasis on the relationship between discrimination and human rights and also between discrimination and socio-economic problems.”

Latin America and the Caribbean have the highest income inequality worldwide, with five of the ten most unequal countries in the world located in the region. The two-day meet is believed to have reached an agreement on broad-based involvement from private business entities along with governments to promote democracy, social equality and responsibility, and the fight against crime.

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The report has clarified that though the term “infrastructure” could denote a wide range of facilities and systems including economic and financial infrastructure, social infrastructure and physical infrastructure, the study has centred on physical infrastructure. As per the report, the projections for the future infrastructural development have been drawn from a study by the consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton.

In a 2007 report, Booz Allen Hamilton has estimated that investment needed to “modernize obsolescent systems and meet expanding demand” for infrastructure worldwide between 2005 and 2030 was at about US$ 41 trillion. It said the North American (the US and the Canadian) share of the infrastructure needs alone would be around US$ 6.5 trillion through 2030.

While the PIR finds both involvement by public sector as in the case of China and a broad-based public private partnership (PPP) seen in India has country-specific successful models in the speedy development of infrastructural projects. The report highlights the Eleventh Five Year Plan for Energy development by the National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China as an example of one such plan which sets specific goals for the development of energy infrastructure in China. The PPP-based National Highway Development Programme of India which aims to deliver about 55,000 kilometres of highways is cited as one good example with a clearly well-defined role for the private sector.

The Positive Infrastructure Initiative was launched in 2009 in response to a clear mandate provided to the Forum at the Annual Meeting 2009 in Davos by the CEOs of the leading infrastructural organizations to ensure that the massive fiscal spending on infrastructure not only generates the employment to restart the global economy but also creates infrastructure assets that foster long-term economic competitiveness, and are environmentally and socially sustainable.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas. The official website of the WEF in its latest press release has made available details about the report.

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Whether the EU saves itself from present crisis or not, there are many things to be absorbed by the new unions in the making much before taking the plunge. Primarily the alert system, deliberated by the EU to give powers to the parent body to ‘semi-audit’ tasks to monitor budget discipline not only of national governments but also of regional and local bodies, would ensure better transparency. This could prevent governments from hiding grey areas of decentralised budget appropriations, which was partly the case with Greece that stands accused of having lied about its accounts for years.

Besides, periodical evaluation of state affairs including politics based on ground realities and pre-set stitch in time solutions should be in place to ward off the dangers of any of the member-state getting weakened beyond manageable proportions. Projections and goals have to be marked by success failing which should attract stringent punitive measures; something that Brussels is planning to impose on members whose public debt is running out of control.

Furthermore, the member-states should make constant efforts to bring down their debts, which have been proven possible by countries like Belgium and the UK in the past. Before the global meltdown, Belgium managed to reduce its debt to 84.2 percent of GDP in 2007, down from a peak of more than 130 percent in the early 1990s. Likewise, the UK had a debt peak of 300 percent of its GDP after the Second World War, which had been gradually reduced to 33 percent by 1990.

There is also much to be imbibed from the off-target response such as ‘Europe 2020′, which is looked at sceptically by the Eastern EU members and criticized by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for contrasting reasons. The objectives of ‘Europe 2020′ include fight against poverty, increase in education and employment rate.

The proposal unveiled by the European Commission in March highlighted on poverty alleviation calling for reduction in the number of Europeans living below the poverty line by 25 percent, lifting 20mn out of poverty from the current 80mn. However, such policies with progressive milestones should be included right from the beginning and should be modified time to time with ‘proper’ budgetary allocation.

The EU’s new strategy for sustainable growth and jobs, ‘Europe 2020′, comes in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades. The new strategy replaces the Lisbon Agenda, adopted in 2000, which largely failed to turn the EU into “the world’s most dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010.” Nonetheless, the new proposal puts innovation and green growth at the heart of its blueprint for competitiveness and proposes tighter monitoring of national reform programmes, one of the greatest weaknesses of the Lisbon Strategy.

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Although the utterances by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon stand in the way of improving ties between both countries diplomatic developments in the region is likely to override those differences. Clinton told last month that Fidel Castro and his brother President Raul Castro “do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States, because they would then lose all their excuses for what hasn’t happened in Cuba in the last 50 years.” In retaliation, Alarcon challenged her to lift the embargo even for a year to see whether it was in his country’s interest or hers.

When President Barack Obama assumed office last year he called for better ties with Cuba if Castro executed democratic reforms and improved human rights status, an US policy widely criticized over its double standards in dealing with China and Saudi Arabia at the same time. However, the recent election in Cuba which saw almost 95 percent of the electorate exercising their franchise, technically helps Obama to put in effect one of his poll promises.

The legislation approved by the House does not lift the overall embargo, but prohibits advance payment for agricultural sales to Cuba. Likewise, this week’s election in which Cubans was able to choose between more than one candidate also cannot be termed as a major electoral reform as it does not interfere with the top leadership of the country.

The US rice sales to Cuba declined every year after the Bush administration’s cash-in-advance rules were imposed in 2005. The new provision if ratified is expected to make the US rice and other agro-commodities once again attractive to Cuba. The US Chamber of Commerce estimates the embargo costs the country about $1.2bn a year in lost business.

All trade with Cuba, with the exception of US exports of agricultural products and some essential medicines, has been prohibited since 1962. Under George W Bush, the Cuban-Americans were eligible to travel to Cuba only once every three years and were limited to sending only $300 to relatives every three months. On the contrary, the Obama administration relaxed travel and remittances restrictions that allowed Americans with relatives in Cuba to travel there more frequently with longer stay duration and to send as much money as they want to any Cuban who is not a senior government or Communist party official.

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