| |
Central America & The Spanish Speaking Caribbean
 |
On December 13th, 1991 the Tegucigalpa Protocol was signed thus creating the Central American Integration System (SICA for “Sistema de Integración Centroamericano). This all-encompassing legal and institutional integration framework for Central America was signed by Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Belize is part of many instances acts as a Central American state and in others as a member of CARICOM.
The Dominican Republic and Cuba sometimes partake in decisions with Central American countries.
The SICA gives the responsibility of ensuring the execution of all |
agreements in the area of health to the Central American Health Ministers' Council (COMISCA for “ Consejo De Ministros de Salud De Centroamerica”).
The Ministers of Health of Central America and the Dominican Republic have been meeting yearly since 1956, since 1985 under the name of RESSCAD (“Reunión del Sector Salud de Centroamérica y República Dominicana”). The 2005 meeting took place in Belize. PAHO acts as technical Secretary for this meeting. There also exists a Forum of Central America and the Dominican Republic for water and sanitation (FOCARD-APS), as well as a Technical Commission for Follow-up and Evaluation (COTSE for “Comisión Técnica de Seguimiento y Evaluación”) of the health component of the Mesoamerican Initiative for Human Development under the Puebla-Panama Plan between Mexico and the Central American countries.
The US-Central America Free Trade Agreement, commonly referred to as "CAFTA", was signed late May 2004, and the Dominican Republic became an additional party to it in August 2004, hence the name "United States-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement" or US-DR-CAFTA. It is a wide-ranging agreement regulating, among other things, agriculture, telecommunications, investment, trade in services, intellectual property, and the environment.
|
|
