Brussels, 24/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - Participants at the second meeting of civil society representatives from the EU, Latin America and the Caribbean held on 19 April in Madrid, adopted a declaration for the attention of the summit of Heads of State and Government from the same regions scheduled for 17-18 May. Participants outlined a number of individual initiatives in three different fields: 1) Human rights: Particular attention needs to be paid to the rights of migrants, indigenous peoples and the rural poor, as well as to gender equality; 2) Trade and information society: Small and medium sized businesses can be instrumental in job and wealth creation, access to credit and new technologies does, however, need to be improved; 3) Social dimension: Participants are calling on the Madrid summit to make a concrete commitment to move quickly towards reducing or eliminating the regions' foreign debt and facilitate co-operation between the regions to help integrate the growing number of migrants finding a home in Europe. The complete text can be found on the European Economic and Social Committee website: http://www.esc.eu.int ).