Santo Domingo. President Luis Abinader highlighted on November 17, the Dominican Republic’s capacity to respond to natural phenomena at the Fifth Meeting of Ministers and High Authorities of Social Development of the member countries of the Organization of American States (OAS).
He indicated that “thanks to the articulation of the Social Protection System in conjunction with disaster management institutions, we have increased the capacity to respond and prepare for disasters with adaptive instruments to respond to emergencies, being able to identify those affected in a short time”.
He referred that, since the beginning of the Government and in the middle of the pandemic, “we have reacted immediately to emergency contexts, from Quédate en Casa, as well as the Bono Familiar to mitigate the inflation produced in the middle of this year 2022 and the Bono de Emergencia for the recent hydrometeorological event Fiona”.
According to the President, the Dominican Republic has already been an example in the region, thanks to the responses that we have been implementing through adaptive social protection, explaining that these experiences have been shared in forums of this type in counterpart countries and joint plans have been coordinated for the prevention and mitigation of disasters.
Activities of the nature of this ministerial meeting are intended to provide a forum for substantive public policy dialogue among member states on issues of hemispheric interest, according to the Secretary for Access to Rights and Equity of the Organization of American States, Maricarmen Plata.
These dialogues seek to identify common trends and priorities for regional cooperation, enable the exchange of experiences and best practices on policy development and implementation, and identify opportunities for cooperation, in order to establish the OAS work agenda to support Member States in advancing these priorities.
For this reason, the coordinator of the Social Policy Cabinet, Tony Peña Guaba, in highlighting the importance of sharing experiences, emphasized that the institution he heads has more than 12 projects of high dimension, among which he highlighted Supérate; Opportunity 14-24 for educational reinsertion, employment and support for youth entrepreneurship.
He also mentioned “Transformando Mi País” (Transforming My Country), dedicated to rebuilding homes, providing family and housing bonds and donating high-cost medicines, and the implementation of study programs and university internships, among others. “Distinguished colleagues, there are no individual solutions to this health, economic and social crisis, the solution must be collective,” he said.
The event was attended by the Assistant Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Néstor Méndez; the Deputy Minister of Multilateral Foreign Policy, Rubén Silié; the General Coordinator of the Social Policy Cabinet, Francisco Antonio Peña Guaba; the President of the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CIDI), Ambassador Yolande Smith, and the Secretary of Access to Rights and Equity of the Organization of American States, Maricarmen Plata.
Also present were the Minister of Labor, Luis Miguel de Camps; the directors of Supérate, Gloria Reyes; of the Social Plan of the Presidency, Yadira Henríquez; of Adess, Digna Reynoso; of Inaipi, Manola Santana; of the Economic Canteens, Edgar Féliz; of the Community Technology Centers, Isidro Torres; of the Presidential Commission for the Support of Neighborhood Development, Rolfi Rojas; of SeNsA, Santiago Hazim, among others.
