Hemispheric challenges demand hemispheric solutions.
From the arctic edge of Nunavut to the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego, our nations confront challenges that transcend borders, from a rapidly heating planet to patterns of forced migration.
Yet until now, we have lacked a forum for leaders from across the Americas to discuss these challenges on equal terms.
The Panamerican Congress was founded in August 2024 with a mission to foster hemispheric cooperation based on “solidarity between peoples and sovereignty among nations.”
By bringing together progressive leaders from across North, Central, South Americas and the Caribbean, the Panamerican Congress aims to:
Build a community, forging bonds of trust and mutual understanding that transcend national boundaries,
Craft a vision, focusing on the common challenges that affect all peoples of the hemisphere, and
Chart a course, designing strategies for hemispheric cooperation based on dialogue, diplomacy, and sovereign equality.
DECLARATION BOGOTÁ 2024
The Declaration of Bogotá was approved by delegates present at the closing session of the inaugural Panamerican Congress in the Salón de la Constitución of the National Capitol of Colombia on Monday 5 August 2024:
The Panamerican Congress,
Acknowledging the shared fate of all peoples and nations of the Americas, bound together not only by our geography, but also by the unfinished history of our journeys from subjugated colonies to sovereign democracies;
Stressing the urgency of the crises that threaten our coexistence, floods and droughts, hunger and poverty, flows of lethal weapons and forced migration, the concentration of wealth and the accelerating risk of violent regional conflict;
Appreciating the disposition of the Government of Colombia to facilitate the present gathering in Bogotá, uniting delegates from across North, Central, South Americas and the Caribbean to redress the inequities, injustices, and existential crises that menace our hemisphere;
Calls to:
Defend our democracies, fighting disinformation and technological domination, foreign interference, and pernicious forms of ‘lawfare’; challenging the transnational oligarchy and the economic institutions that protect their interests; protecting civil liberties and the integrity, transparency, and accessibility of our electoral systems; dismantling the systems of patriarchy and structural racism; and advancing new social, economic, cultural, and environmental rights for all peoples in our nations;
Forge a lasting peace, through dialogue and diplomacy, opposing the politics of military and economic warfare that punish and displace our peoples; combating all forms of economic, political, racial, sexual, gender, and cultural exclusion; developing new and just forms to fight organized crime; advancing processes of peace that deliver justice to the victims of conflict; and constructing a hemispheric zone of peace that can resist the calls for a new Cold War;
Deliver a just green transition, combating destructive extraction from our ecosystems; defending our ancestral territories and vulnerable populations; and financing a reparative green transition that decarbonizes the economy, guarantees energy abundance, and protects the rights of Indigenous peoples, while accounting for the historic debts that the hemisphere’s developed nations owe to its developing ones;
Today, 5 August 2024, we therefore unite to:
Sustain the dialogue, forging a community of progressive legislators based on the principles of mutual respect, sovereign equality, and unwavering solidarity;
Collaborate to solve common problems, returning to our respective legislatures to prioritize the common good in a coordinated way such that the sum of our actions is greater than its individual parts.
Convene the next Congress in Mexico City, to continue deliberating the future of our hemisphere — and calling on allies to join us.
