10th ALBA Summit begins in Ecuador

The 10th Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) began on Thursday in the Ecuadorian city of Otavalo to discuss regional integration and development.

The summit is aimed at seeking inclusion mechanisms for natives and Afro-descendants to apply intercultural and multi-nationality principles, official sources said.

About 300 representatives from Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Cuba, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and San Vicente and the Grenadines will discuss and issue different policies.

Ecuadorian Minister of Peoples, Social Movements and Citizens Participation Alexandra Ocles said the summit will seek to identify the common political lines to consolidate a new mode of plural-national and intercultural state.

This summit should not be of "declaration" but to give "materials" to the "authorities for them to use in their countries," said Ocles.

The major conference of the summit will be centered on an "Analysis of the Colonial State Transition to Models of Multi-cultural, Intercultural and Plural-national States."

The summit will have four working tables: exercise of the inter-culture in public function, exercise of the economic, political and social rights against the racism and discrimination, public initiatives towards climate change, and exterior trade among peoples.

A declaration of common interests is expected to be signed at the end of the two-day summit.

Source: Xinhua