OAS and LASPAU Launch Collaboration to Address Regional Challenges

For the last 50 years, the Inter-American Agency for Cooperation and Development (IACD) of the Organization of American States (OAS) has sponsored one of the largest scholarship programs in the region, with some 200 new grants per year. While thousands of scholarships have been provided to citizens of OAS member states to study at the undergraduate and graduate level at universities throughout the Americas, the need for educational exchange resources continues to grow.

This need has led to a new collaborative effort between the IACD and LASPAU: the OAS Americas Leadership Fellowship Program. The program selects and supports outstanding individuals from the Americas for study and training critical to addressing issues such as the struggle against poverty and inequality, consolidating democracy, and achieving integral, just, and sustainable social and economic development. The initiative is central to the mission of the IACD in that it is designed to fortify the disciplines and institutions most important to building a strong future in the region.

L. Ronald Scheman, director general of the IACD, commented, “The agreement between LASPAU and the IACD addresses one of the most important needs of the member states of the OAS: to increase the number of promising professionals who can obtain advanced education and training. The OAS member states will obtain the benefit of LASPAU’s exemplary work in the field of higher education, and, together, we will expand LASPAU’s extensive contacts with the universities of the Americas.”

The IACD manages the program’s outreach and selection processes. LASPAU provides technical support for these areas and collaborates in the placement of fellows and the administration of their academic programs. Both the IACD and LASPAU are working with their respective networks to develop new funding partnerships for the program among universities, foundations, governments, and corporations throughout the Americas.

This is LASPAU’s third collaboration with the OAS. The Fulbright-OAS Ecology Initiative, which began last year, greatly increases the number of scholarships in the field of ecology for individuals from Latin America and the Caribbean. A recent collaboration between LASPAU, the Leo S. Rowe Pan American Fund of the OAS, and Ecuador's Fundación para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FUNDACYT) has expanded FUNDACYT's efforts to provide advanced training for Ecuadorians in areas of science and technology.

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