The Diplomat
The Secretary General of the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), Mariano Jabonero, and the Minister of Education of Cuba, Ena Elsa Velázquez Cobiella, have signed a headquarters agreement that will enable the opening of an office in Havana, the nineteenth of this organization in the Ibero-American region.
The agreement, signed on March 24 in the Protocol Room of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Havana, “marks a milestone for the OEI as the doyen organization of multilateral cooperation in Ibero-America,” said the institution, whose headquarters are in Madrid. Cuba has been a member state of the organization since 1985.
The opening of this new office represents “an opportunity to grow and work more and better in a committed and close way,” said Jabonero during the ceremony. The OEI office in Cuba, according to the organization, “consolidates its pre-eminence as the international organization with the largest physical presence in Ibero-America, which will contribute to the development of programs and strategies aimed at strengthening education, science and culture throughout the region.” The last OEI office to open was the one in Portugal, which opened in 2018 in the country’s capital, Lisbon.
During his institutional visit to the Caribbean country, the OEI secretary general was received by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, with whom he discussed Cuba’s role in promoting education, science and culture in the Ibero-American region. He also met with the Minister of Higher Education, José Ramón Saborido Loidi, and held a meeting with the Spanish Ambassador to Cuba, Ángel Martín Peccis.
