LA ANTIGUA, Guatemala – The head of the Ibero-American General Secretariat (Segib), Rebeca Grynspan, urged the region Tuesday to contribute its experience and form the necessary alliances to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (ODS) of the UN Agenda 2030.

During her opening speech at the 2nd National Coordinators Meeting for Cooperation, the Costa Rican executive said that this meeting is the continuation of the work done in Madrid this year in preparation for the 26th Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, to be held in November 2018 in La Antigua.

That event, with a slogan calling for a “prosperous, inclusive and sustainable Ibero-America,” will begin to garner a huge volume of aid to back up the UN’s work on Agenda 2030 “from an Ibero-American point of view,” without duplicating efforts, but rather “gathering, choosing and developing alternative projects to add to the international agenda.”

That will be “a contribution that makes us a community,” she said with reference to the project’s aim to create a better world by eliminating poverty, hunger and inequality, preserving the environment, ensuring inclusion of all “in terms of gender, indigenous peoples, those of African descent,” and so much more.

During these two years when Guatemala exercises its temporary leadership of Segib, it will hold more than 30 high-level meetings and forums on different subjects. Grynspan seeks to achieve cooperation that is “pubic-spirited, horizontal, with multiple leaders and multidimensional.”

The Costa Rican executive also called on people to develop ideas, exchange experiences, establish synchronized public policies and strengthen the region’s institutions.

During this Tuesday and Wednesday, the representatives will analyze the role of Ibero-American countries in strengthening cooperation and the state of current projects, along with the presentation of the 2017 Report on South-South Cooperation in Ibero-America.

This document, to be released this Wednesday, is the jewel in the crown of regional cooperation, since it gives an account of the number of projects of bilateral and triangular cooperation being organized among the countries.