Olade and SELA agree to cooperate in regional energy development and integration

This Olade release was published using machine translation.

The Latin American Energy Organization (Olade) and the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA) signed a memorandum of understanding, with the aim of cooperating on integration and regional energy and socioeconomic development.

The document was signed by the Executive Secretary of Olade, Alfonso Blanco, and the Permanent Secretary of SELA, Clarems Endara Vera, within the framework of the VII Energy Week, held in Panama from December 12 to 16.

The priority focus is placed on areas such as complementarity, information and statistics, training, studies and projects, and research. It will focus on topics such as the development of renewable energy sources; hydrocarbons; electricity; energy, environment and economy; socioeconomic and energy policies and planning; regulatory and institutional framework; energy efficiency and its socioeconomic impacts; sustainable development; risk diagnoses in energy systems; energy and port development, among others.

“For Olade, the establishment of agreements with the regional integration platforms is of crucial importance. In this case, SELA –with whom Olade shares almost the same membership of member countries- represents one of the platforms in the region with a broad spectrum. It is also a space to expand the political actions of an organization like Olade and reach a broader field of international relations with a message from the energy sector," said Olade's executive secretary, Alfonso Blanco, who stressed that the role of Olade to assist and support the construction of energy policies and elements of integration between the countries of the region.

For his part, the Permanent Secretary of SELA, Clarems Endara Vera, explained that SELA has the mandate to carry out its activities without duplicating functions with regional organizations, especially specialized ones.

“We have a mandate from our countries to move forward with an energy agenda. Already this week we had a meeting of all the regional integration mechanisms, where one of the axes was infrastructure and energy. We believe that a specialized entity like Olade is of great support to have a regional agenda that is promoted not only from the specialty desk but also as a state policy to be able to work on integration and convergence”, he commented.

Endara Vera predicted that joint work will result in agendas that contribute to the countries.