Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Patrick Manning signs the final declaration of the fifth Summit of the Americas in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Sunday, April 19. Manning was the sole signatory. The confab of 34 heads of government from within the hemisphere was overshadowed by Cuba, and Hugo Chávez, who grabbed centre stage with the unexpected presentation of a book to United States President Barack Obama that detailed Latin America's beef with the superpower over many decades.

News reports highlighted the erection of a new wall that did not entirely block the urban blight of Port-of-Spain, others wondered where was the beach amid organisational glitches at the fifth Summit of the Americas.

Now civil society groups in the Americas said Tuesday they were still awaiting the promised action and implementation plan that was supposed to have emerged from the Fifth Summit of the Americas and the Port-of-Spain Declaration.

Sole signatory

Trinidad's Patrick Manning was the sole signatory to the declaration.

The Active Democracy Network (ADN), whose membership spans 24 countries said it had expected more of a commitment on a number of issues including poverty alleviation from the western hemispheric leaders.

"In the areas where we expected assigned deadlines and responsibilities, the Summit merely adopts UN deadline of 2015 for the alleviation of poverty and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals at a time when the UN is itself reviewing that deadline - just five years away," said ADN spokesperson Dr Kris Rampersad.

Strategic actions

"The only clauses that assert accountability from governments are Clause 66, which merely 'instructs' governments to meet again in 2010 on the Inter-American Program for Sustainable Development (PIDS); Clause 90, which calls on 'the technical secretariats of all Inter-American Ministerial Meetings to inform their ministers and high level authorities of the mandates arising from this summit and to initiate strategic actions, by the end of 2009, to facilitate the implementation of our commitments."

Clause 99 instructs ministers of finance or pertinent authorities to convene a meeting in 2010 to address regional financial and economic issues.

But: "Will the financial and economic crisis wait until we reach to Clause 99 and 2010?," said Rampersad, reeling off a series of questions on the action plan post summit, Caribbean priorities, and solutions and projects identified for food, energy and environmental crises.

97 new commitments

"These are questions that remain unanswered in the Declaration. In essence, it implies that we seem to have held a Summit to instruct all attending to commit to meet again," said Rampersad.

The Port-of-Spain Declaration, she said, was no different than the some 634 mandates and commitments that governments of the region have signed on to over the last four summits, on which some 60 per cent of the governments have taken no action.

"This Summit, in fact, adds 97 more commitments to the 634 others, while leaving open the questions of who is going to implement them, given the token signing of the declaration by the Chair, Prime Minister Patrick Manning, seemingly on behalf of the meeting," said Rampersad.

- CMC