Citizen Security Theme is Focus of Forum in Colombia

Washington, D.C., September 15, 2005 (PAHO)—Latin American presidents, ministers, big-city mayors and over 600 senior officials convened in Medellin, Colombia, this week to discuss the challenges posed by violence and security in Latin America and the Caribbean.

"Peace is fundamental to human beings," said Enrique Iglesias, president of the Inter American Development Bank (IDB), which organized the forum on Citizen Security: Examining Experiences and Challenges.

"Violence is a complex phenomenon, with no easy explanations or easy solutions. It requires coordinated national and local interventions for prevention and control as well as the participation of the private sector and all citizens," Iglesias said.

The forum was also attended by Colombian president Alvaro Uribe along with mayors of Latin American capitals including Bogota, Buenos Aires, Cali, Kingston, Medellin, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and San Pedro de Sula.

Dr. Alberto Concha-Eastman, a Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) expert on violence prevention, said the forum represented yet another opportunity to look at an ongoing problem that has being discussed progressively over the last few years.

"To hold this event in Medellin and showcase the experiences of that city and those of Bogota, which have significantly reduced their violence rates and, therefore, improved the quality of living of their populations, represents a good example for attending delegates to understand that it is indeed possible to work preventively and that repression and punishment are not to be the sole politics to confront the problem".

Concha-Eastman said the attendance of Enrique Iglesias just a few days before his official retirement as the head of the IDB, sends a signal to the new president and to all Latin American and Caribbean governments. IDB, PAHO and several international agencies co-founded of the Inter American Coalition for the Prevention of Violence.

Concha-Eastman said he hopes the forum in Medellin contributed to strengthen efforts and political will to design preventive strategies against violence aimed at fostering the safety of all citizens.

Violence and public safety are integral elements of public health disciplines, he noted, since public health is the manifestation of anything that one way or another affects the health, the development and the wellbeing of all people.

"Violence leads to death, disability, illnesses, emotional turmoil, sexual and emotional traumas, and forced movement of people. Violence blocks investment and development. Public health is interdisciplinary by definition. That is why violence is a part of it", he said.

Recent data from PAHO/WHO revealed that the average rate of deaths by homicide in Latin America and the Caribbean, the second most violent region in the world after Africa, is 19 per 100.000 inhabitants. The world average is 9 per 100.00 people.

Uruguayan Interior Ministry Secretary, Juan Alfonso Faroppa, said "In a democracy it is essential to establish people's trust in the institutional capacity to solve security problems. Our lives depend on it".

Bogota Government Secretary Juan Manuel Ospina talked about the need to work in harmony to make change possible with regards to violence and security. "The challenge of creating an integral perspective consists in achieving continuity in policies in a quickly evolving and dynamic context, without falling into continuism".

PAHO was established in 1902 and is the world's oldest public health organization. It is also the Regional Offices for the Americas of the World Health Organization and works with the countries to improve the health and the living standards of the people of the Americas.