Lima, Sept. 27, 2007.- The Decision approved this Wednesday by the Foreign Ministers of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru to establish the Andean Community Consultative Council of Indigenous Peoples to replace the Andean Working Group on Indigenous Peoples strengthened indigenous participation in the Andean integration process. 

The Decision was adopted as a part of Community legislation by the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers at a meeting held this Wednesday in New York during the United Nations General Assembly.   

On his return to Lima from New York, Andean Community Secretary General Freddy Ehlers stated today that the establishment of the Consultative Council of Indigenous Peoples will mark the beginning of their active participation in subregional integration matters.   

"This Council will be just as important as the advisory bodies of entrepreneurs and workers have always been in the Andean Integration System and is indicative, once again, of the boost being given to social aspects within the framework of the comprehensive integration process,” he pointed out. 

The Andean Community Consultative Council of Indigenous Peoples will be made up of an indigenous delegate and alternate from each of the Member Countries, to be elected from among the highest-level officers of the national indigenous organizations, in accordance with procedures and methods to be defined by each Andean country individually.

In addition, the following regional organizations will have one representative each, as observers: the Fund for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin American and Caribbean; the Coordinating Body for the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA); the Coordinating Body of Andean Indigenous Organizations (CAOI) and the Continental Network of Indigenous Women of South America.

Its functions will be to state its opinion to the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers, the Commission or the Andean Community General Secretariat and, when summoned by decision of the Member Countries, to attend meetings of government experts or of working groups associated with its activities.