Over the weekend, Jorge Arreaza, the recently appointed secretary of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), recalled the importance of unity among Latin American peoples to respond to contemporary global challenges.
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“For the Bolivarian Alliance, unity is not built among elites. It is based on the peoples, their real involvement, and the comprehensive satisfaction of their needs,” said Arreaza, who held important positions during the administrations of presidents Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.
Arreaza defined ALBA's continental integration project as part of the path of the “eternal return” to the idea of unity that the peoples of the global South demand.
He highlighted the historical and political nature of the organizational structure of this Latin American and Caribbean integration bloc, at a time of geopolitical disputes and the decline of many multilateral organizations as a result of the Western capitalist crisis.
Currently, ALBA consists of the following structures: the Presidential Council, which is the highest level of deliberation, decision-making and political guidance of the Alliance; the Political Council, which includes the foreign ministers of the ALBA countries; the Social Council, which is in charge of carrying out policies related to literacy and health; the Economic Council, which is a solidarity-based economic complementarity area; and the Social Movements’ Council, which gives citizen organizations a voice in the decision-making process.
This regional coordination mechanism is made up of 10 countries: Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Antigua & Barbuda, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Grenada, Dominica, and St. Lucia.
Created by a joint initiative of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, ALBA is based on political-ethical principles aimed at generating awareness of the need for a new world and the irreversible independence of the peoples of the region.
To this end, this integration mechanism maintains tools of international solidarity cooperation such as Petrocaribe, the ALBA Bank, Miracle Mission, and the “I Can” Literacy Program.