Following a two-day meeting held at the National Assembly of Panama, on 15 April 2011 the Secretaries General of sixteen parliaments of Latin America and the Caribbean agreed to establish the Exchange Network of Parliaments of Latin America and the Caribbean with a view to strengthen cooperation among the parliamentary administrations of this region. The meeting elected the first Executive Commttee, composed of the Secretaries General of the Parliament of Barbados, the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil, the National Assembly of Nicaragua, the National Assembly of Panama and the House of Representatives of Uruguay. It also designated the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil as the host of the Secretariat of the network. The cooperative platform of this new mechanism of inter-parliamentary cooperation is already visible at www.ripalc.org.