Lima, Nov. 22, 2004 Allan Wagner Tizón, in his opening address at the Andean Employment Conference, which started today at the Andean Community headquarters in Lima, proposed a new Andean social pact regarding employment, development, and competitiveness and involving the social forces as a whole.

The Andean Community Secretary General pointed out that “we trust that this Conference will enable us to promote an Andean employment, development, and competitiveness initiative that could lead us to a new Andean social pact that would be fundamental for strengthening our integration and that would ensure comprehensive development and an increased trade presence that would be beneficial to our nations.”

“There is no such thing as ‘drip’ development. Nor is it the market’s function to distribute equity. In order to guarantee a socially efficient economy and a state that is capable of guaranteeing equal opportunities,” affirmed Wagner, “ the economy must be harnessed to a policy designed for that purpose.”

Integration, as the representative of the CAN pointed out, is inherent to that new social pact, for it coordinates states and societies through Community objectives and interests within a context of international globalization.

While assuring the participants that integration is more than merely trade agreements, but represents a great social and political project, the Secretary General affirmed that “guaranteeing the creation of quality employment should lead us to the discussion of new development strategies that would place emphasis on closing the social gap, building more egalitarian societies grounded in solidarity, defending democracy and fundamental rights and freedoms, reinforcing our social cohesion and our governance, and substantially improving our education as the foremost instrument for generating inclusion and equity.”

He went on to add that all of these strategies should be carried out within the framework of a competitive society that would adapt to changes and innovation, as well as of a new democratic state that would promote equitable growth, strengthen social cohesion, and ensure the democratic governance of our countries.

In another part of his address, he proposed four themes as elements for discussion during the Conference:

-Social demands for sufficient and quality employment. Seven out of every 10 jobs that are created in our countries are in the informal sector, fueling the problem of exclusion.

-The extreme social instability of our countries. There are cities and towns in the Andean subregion where 63% of the urban population lives below the poverty line, while in rural areas the figure is even higher, reaching 80%, thereby revealing the rampant inequality and enormous social gap that exist.

-The poor quality of our economic growth and of our international trade presence. According to the ILO, it is the Andean countries that have moved farthest away from international trade because of the qualitative weakness of their export base.

-The absolute discrepancy between economic and social policies. It is not enough just to grow economically at a high rate; that growth must also be socially equitable.

The CAN Secretary General stressed throughout his address that our countries are on the threshold of a transcendental event: the creation of the South American Community of Nations, this coming December 8 ^th in Cusco.

“The progressive dovetailing of the Andean Community and MERCOSUR, with the addition of Chile, Guyana, and Suriname, is the greatest development project of our history and offers us a unique opportunity for the decentralized development of our countries by complementing the development of regional economies in the areas of influence of the great Integration and Development Hubs of the IIRSA project and the free trade agreement just concluded between the CAN and MERCOSUR”, Wagner declared.

“The time has come to build a strong political consensus in order to confront globalization from the vantage point of integration,” he concluded.

The Andean Employment Conference that today started its deliberations, congregates the subregion’s Labor Ministers, the ILO, the Advisory Council of Ministers of Finance, and the Andean Business and Labor Advisory Councils, and representatives of other bodies and institutions of the Andean Integration System and of international organizations.