MEDELLÍN DECLARATION
Communication, integration and development
We, the participants in the High-Level Forum
on “Communication, Integration and
Development,” organized by the Andean
Community General Secretariat and held on
April 24 and 25, 2006, state that the
reinforcement of regional integration and
development processes calls for the
following:
1. The States need to attribute due value to
and to strengthen economic, political,
social and cultural initiatives and
integration processes that are underway and
are being furthered by societies. To do
that, it is necessary to retrieve the ways
to make exchanges and to build
relationships, so that these processes can
be made self-developing and more competitive
on the world stage.
2. The participation of civil society in
building regional citizenships is both a
challenge to and a need for the region’s
integration and development. An Andean and
South American regional citizenship,
involving the full exercise of rights in any
of our countries, but also with a feeling of
belonging and of responsibility to each of
our nations will become a driving force for
the integration and social and economic
development processes in our region.
3. Integration processes must help, with the
encouragement of the State and of actors
from civil society, to construct collective
integration-oriented elements and
identities, so that these processes are
reinforced and citizens appropriate the
Andean and South American integration
project as their own.
4. Communication must be made to serve as a
link between integration and social
development processes in the Andean region
and in Latin America in general, in order to
allow for spaces to be opened up for
intercultural dialogue, based on a
recognition of and respect for differences,
the common adoption of collective elements
and ways of being, and thought for the
construction of agreements to generate or
strengthen development processes.
It is, therefore, important for governments
to report their decisions about national
integration policies in a timely and
transparent manner. As a result, it is
essential to design and implement concerted
communication policies aimed at informing
citizens, promoting public debates and
collecting proposals from the different
sectors of the citizenry, by coordinating
the local with the national and the regional
Andean.
5. Means of communication are needed to
build regional visions and new journalistic
narratives that will make it possible to
draw closer and narrate news events and
happenings of human and social interest, so
that integration is not only a matter for
governments and businessmen (as it is in
fact), but also for citizens.
In this effort, it is fundamental to
strengthen the construction of alliances
with communication and collective networks
of civil society.
It is also important to continue efforts to
create spaces and ways to exchange
information, analyses and opinions among
different communication media, through
business alliances and the creation of
common radio, television and written press
spaces.
To conclude, we call upon the Governments of
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and
Venezuela to concentrate their efforts on
reinforcing that which enriches us and
endows us with a series of potentials, like
the Andean Community and, in the near
future, a great South American Community,
within a world that is increasingly both
more globalized and exclusive of the
developing countries.
FOR ANDEAN AND SOUTH AMERICAN INTEGRATION
WITH DEVELOPMENT AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION!
Medellín, April 25, 2006
