ABSTRACT
The creation of IIRSA in September 2000 initiated a broad, ambitious and regionwide effort to solve one of the most pressing problems the region has been facing for several decades: bolstering economic development by deepening integration and strengthening the region’s position in the globalisation process. The roads that link countries in the region with each other and world markets, and connect wide areas along these roads with markets, ports and distribution centres, are at the heart of the IIRSA Consensus Agenda. All governments in the region shared this initiative and its priorities, for an initial period of ten years (2000–2010). Subsequently, UNASUR has embedded the IIRSA initiative as part of its COSIPLAN, which was established at the third UNASUR summit in Quito, August 2009. According to its statute COSIPLAN ‘is a forum for political and strategic discussion […] aimed at implementing the integration of regional infrastructure in the UNASUR member countries’(UNASUR COSIPLAN, November 2011).
