Dear Dr. Gabunia,

We hope this message finds you well, it is indeed difficult time for all of us being on the front line of the fights against the Covid-19 pandemic. There is a strong belief that a positive development will be observed due to the efforts taken by Governments, we only hope that the numbers will soon stabilize and go down to the levels to allow to start weakening the quarantine measures country by country.

The reason we are writing this time is to open a discussion regarding the ways to further work as a joint EURO/ AMRO Constituency,  to provide any technical aid you need in your important role and to find the best option that suits our circumstances. Our Constituency, no secret, is quite unique and  complex, it encompasses a large geographic spam with extremely  rich context of countries that comprise it. Regardless of that fact, there are more similarities than differences as well as common interests that cluster countries into one Constituency. Most of the countries are graduating/ or have graduated and are classified as middle income (MIC), with one exception on both sides (Tajikistan and Guyana in the northern part of South America). There are, therefore, issues of mutual interests and need to be discussed within the Constituency to develop a common approach and/ or position, be it within the scope of work of Committees or the Board (respecting all confidentiality issues should those  be relevant). Just to remind, we are now represented in three Committees, including your seat in the Governance Committee.  Dr. Arsen Torosyan is in Market Sensitive Committee and Dr. Edna Batres is in the Policy and Programme Committee (which is the one that reviews technical issues and papers before they go to the Board).

In the beginning of the year, we have been considering options to organize a Constituency meeting and planned a face to face meeting using one of the upcoming events (as we thought at that time). Unfortunately, Covid-19 has reversed all plans and this cannot be made possible as all events are canceled.  However, we strongly believe there can be other options to discuss and agree. We would like to propose some platform – calls via Zoom or other method (every two months) should there be an agenda for such call or exchange of letters on as needed basis or any other platform that you might find useful for such format, please let us know your thoughts.

To resume this message, we would like to wish that countries will win the battle with the COVID-19 and will become stronger and more capable to resist and deal with emergencies such as this pandemic.

With kindest regards,  

Rolando and Ruzan