Inter-American Academic Dialogue in the Framework of the OAS General Assembly

The Summits of the Americas Secretariat in conjunction with the Office of Education, Science and Technology of the Executive Secretariat for Integral Development of the Organization of American States (OAS) announce the Academic Round Table and the Conference on Clearing the Paths to Growth: Expanding Credit to Create Jobs and Alleviate Poverty, to be held in Fort Lauderdale as part of the Inter-American Academic Dialogue in the Framework of the OAS General Assembly.

The results and recommendations of the mentioned events will be presented to the Foreign Affairs Ministers at the Civil Society meeting taking place on Sunday, June 5^th within the General Assembly. It is also expected that the inputs from this Inter-American Academic Dialogue would feed the preparatory process towards the IV Summit of the Americas.

The Academic Round Table is being sponsored by the Academic Forum of the Summit of the Americas (AFSA), the Inter-American Network of Academies of Sciences (IANAS), the OAS Office of Education, Science and Technology (OEST), and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The Round Table will bring together leading academics from the hemisphere to discuss and agree concrete and practical ideas on how governments could move forward the accomplishment of some of the goals within the Summit of the Americas Process and how to improve the current interaction between the Summits, the OAS, IADB and CEPAL. This event will be held in the afternoon of Friday, June 3^rd at the Sun-Sentinel Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale.

The Conference on Clearing the Paths to Growth: Expanding Credit to Alleviate Poverty is being sponsored by the Summit of the Americas Center of Florida International University (FIU), the OEST, and CIDA.  The discussions of this Conference aim to be a defining step toward the IV Summit by illustrating options for public policy makers to create jobs and alleviate poverty by promoting expansion of low-cost banking services.  This conference is open to the public by registration and will be held all Saturday, June 4^th at the Museum of Modern Art of Fort Lauderdale.