Lima, Sept. 8, 2008.- The Andean Community’s Consultative Council of Indigenous Peoples, which will enable them to participate actively in the Andean integration process, was installed today during a meeting held via videoconference. 

Indigenous delegates from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru agreed to call the meeting "historic" because it brings to an end eight years of efforts by governments and indigenous organizations to give life to an institution that will represent them and from which they can “make their voice heard.”

Ecuador’s representative, Andrés Arango Barahona, whose turn it is to head the Consultative Council, stated that the establishment and installation of this consultative institution commits them all to work to ensure that the indigenous organizations play a role of active participation in the integration process, rather than one of merely its accompaniment.    

During the opening ceremony, the CAN Director General, Adalid Contreras, underscored the importance of the event and pointed out that it is part of the strategy for broadening the participation of civil society in the integration process.  "We feel certain that its contribution within the Andean Integration System will be fundamental for the construction of the comprehensive integration on which we are embarked,” he stated. 

The Andean Community Consultative Council of Indigenous Peoples was created on September 27, 2007 through Decision 674, as a consultative institution within the framework of the Andean Integration System “to promote the active participation of the indigenous peoples in matters concerning the economic, social, cultural and political spheres of subregional integration.” 

The Council is made up of one delegate and one alternate delegate from each country, elected from among the highest level executives of the national indigenous organizations, in accordance with procedures and modalities defined by each CAN Member Country, as stipulated in the decision creating that Council. 

Its functions and responsibilities are to attend meetings of government experts or working groups concerned with its activities, and to promote the exchange, evaluation and dissemination of successful experiences and practices, organizational strengthening and, in general, cooperation among indigenous peoples and organizations, State institutions and human rights and civic organizations, among other things. 

In addition to the national delegates, the following regional organizations will be represented in this institution as observers: the Fund for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean; the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations in the Amazon Basin (COICA); the Andean Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations (CAOI) and the Continental Liaison Office for Indigenous Women in South America.