ORU Fogar assembly is moved to COP25 in Chile

The annual meeting of ORU Fogar, which was to be held in Cordoba, Argentina, as part of the V Global Forum on Local Economic Development, has moved to Santiago, Chile, to encourage the presence of the members of the organization at COP25 (United Nations Climate Change Conference 2019).

Considering Argentina's economic, political and social situation, the National and International Committee of the Local Economic Development Forum, of which ORU Fogar is a member, decided to postpone until 2020 the holding of the Fifth Forum to be held in Córdoba, Argentina. (please, find attached the communiqué made public).

The surprising electoral result of the Argentine presidential primary elections on August 11, with a defeat beyond the expectations of President Mauricio Macri, triggered an economic crisis, with soaring inflation and a significant devaluation of the national currency. With this situation, the Cordovan governor Juan Schiaretti was the first to warn about the difficulties of holding the forum in this context and to demand a postponement for 2020, when a new national government will be in place and the situation stabilized.

At first, there was talk of postponing the Forum to the beginning of 2020, more specifically to March. Seeing the situation in Argentina and being attentive to the messages coming from Cordoba, it became clear that this commitment could hardly be fulfilled, so the ORU Fogar Bureau decided to separate its assembly from the Forum and hold it within the framework of the COP25 in Santiago de Chile. The National Association of Regional Councillors of Chile (ANCORE) will be supporting the event.

ORU Fogar's assembly meeting is maintained on December 1, taking into account that COP25 will begin on December 2 and end on December 13. Thus, as planned in Argentina, all the contents of that assembly will be transferred to Chile. For this reason, in Santiago de Chile, the prizes of the V Contest of Regional Good Practices will be awarded by UNDP and ORU Fogar, and the elections of the president and the ORU Fogar Bureau will also be held.

After the COP24 in Katowice, where the Polish host was in favor of continuing to exploit coal and where the United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement, it is predicted that the Santiago Summit will re-launch the fight against Climate Change. Both the United Nations and the Chilean government propose that this be the COP of citizen participation, with young people having a leading role. In this context, regional governments can present themselves as the articulators of citizen action in this global battle.