GUYANA’S participation in the May 30 summit of 12 South American nations was both timely and historic.
It followed similar summits by G7 leaders in Hiroshima, Arab leaders in Jeddah and Central Asian leaders in Beijing, and it preceded Thursday’s emergency European leaders’ summit in Moldova.
The leaders represented the interests of over 400 million South American citizens in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam and Venezuela.
World leaders have been busy discussing current pressing global events, including the Ukraine and Sudan wars, tensions in the Korean Peninsula, increasing threats to peace between Palestine and Israel, repercussions of recovery from inflation and looming recession on both sides of The Atlantic, rising tensions in Kosovo, new global health threats, increasing hunger and worsening Climate Change.

The North is uniting to assert its global dominance and the South is healing old wounds, as between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the return of Syria to the Arab League and other similar developments that can contribute to the ending of the wars in Yemen and Syria.
The South American leaders ended their meeting with a “Brasilia Consensus,” through which they committed to boost trade and investment and strengthen regional value chains.
The Presidents “reaffirmed the common vision of South America as a region of peace and co-operation, based on dialogue and on the respect for the diversity of our peoples, committed to democracy and human rights, sustainable development and social justice, the upholding of sovereignty and non-interference.”

They concurred that “the world is facing multiple crises, in a context of climate crisis, threats to peace and international security, pressure on food and energy chains, the risk of new pandemics, increase in social inequalities and threats to institutional and democratic stability.”
They also agreed that “regional integration should be part of the solution to the common challenges of building a peaceful world, strengthening democracy, promoting social and economic development, fighting poverty, hunger, and all forms of inequality and discrimination and promoting gender equality.”

The presidents agreed on “managing migration in a safe, orderly and regular manner as well as “tackling climate change, including through innovative financing mechanisms for climate action, fostering ecological and energy transition through clean energy,” while also “strengthening health capacities and combatting transnational organised crime.”
The South American leaders committed too, “to work towards increasing trade and investment among the countries of the region, improving infrastructure and logistics, strengthening regional value chains, effectively implementing trade facilitation and financial-integration measures, reducing asymmetries, eliminating unilateral measures and increasing market access through the network of economic complementation agreements…”

They together “recognised the contribution of the different South American integration mechanisms, including UNASUR,” and “reaffirmed the shared objective of having an inclusive, effective and permanent South American platform of dialogue and co-operation, capable of promoting and maintaining the South American integration process and projecting the voice of the region in a multipolar world.”
The presidents “decided to establish a High-Level Contact Group,” to “evaluate the experiences of South American integration mechanisms and draft a roadmap for the integration of South America.”

They also agreed “to promptly promote South American co-operation initiatives open to the participation of all interested parties, with a social and gender approach, in areas that concern the immediate needs of citizens, in particular the most vulnerable, including Indigenous peoples, such as health, food security, food systems based on traditional agriculture, the environment, water resources, natural disasters, infrastructure and logistics, energy interconnection and clean energy, digital transformation, defence, border integration and security, and cybersecurity.”
Surely, this Brasilia Consensus will boost South American continental co-operation.