On April 8, a working group of OAS member states held the second of seven planned meetings in Washington to review legal and operational systems of disaster cooperation in the Americas.
This group – drawn from the membership of the OAS’ Permanent Council and its Permanent Executive Committee of the Inter-American council for Integral Development -- was formed as a result of the adoption by the OAS General Assembly of a resolution in 2009 calling for a “process of joint assessment of existing legislative and coordination mechanisms in the natural disaster and humanitarian assistance areas.”
For its second meeting, the working group invited representatives from multilateral agencies, humanitarian organizations, and bodies that finance humanitarian aid to identify key instruments and share their experiences of the strengths and weaknesses of coordination systems in the region.
Jan Gelfand, Head of Operations for the International Federation Zone Office for the Americas in Panama, represented the IFRC. He emphasized the potential importance of the IDRL Guidelines to states in the Americas. “IDRL can help states ensure that international aid reaches the beneficiaries more quickly and more efficiently” he noted. He also urged that measures to expedite customs clearance, visa procedures, transport permissions and tax exemptions for humanitarian assistance be made a priority both at the national and regional levels.
Future meetings of the working group will look in greater depth at potential next steps for the OAS in the development of the normative framework for disaster assistance in the Americas.