St. Ann MP for Parliamentarians meeting in Mexico week-end

Member of Parliament for North West St. Ann, Othneil Lawrence, will be attending the meeting of the Parliamentary Confederation of the Americas’ (COPA) Executive Committee in Mexico this week-end.

The 22nd meeting of COPA’s Executive Committee will be held in Valle de Bravo, Mexico, March 5 to 12. The executives will address a number of issues, including the capacity of Latin American and the Caribbean governments to finance economic and social programmes needed to ensure recovery from the current global crisis, as well as environmental matters.

Mr. Lawrence has been the Jamaican Parliament’s representative to the regional parliamentary body since his election to the House of Representatives in 2007 for North West St. Ann, as a member of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). He replaced Opposition MP Dr. Morais Guy (Central St. Mary). He was elected Vice-President of COPA for the Caribbean region at the 10th General Assembly meeting last November in Mar del Plata, Argentina. This will be his first executive committee meeting since his election to that position.

COPA has been working to develop and strengthen parliamentary means of action, in the context of the hemispheric integration process and of globalisation, as well as to create a new synergy between the legislative leaders of the different parliamentary assemblies, regional Parliaments and inter-parliamentary organizations of the Americas.

It brings together the congresses and parliaments of the unitary, federal, federated and associate states, the regional parliaments and inter-parliamentary organizations of the Americas. Some 36 regional assemblies are represented.

CONTACT: BALFORD HENRY