The South American Presidents met for the first time on August 31 and September the 1st of 2000 in Brasilia, Federative Republic of Brazil. In this historical and pioneer meeting the regional leaders agreed to take joint actions to promote the process of political, social and economic integration of South America, addressing an agenda of priority issues. The Brazilian Communiqué shows the agreements that were reached for each of these issues and it became a very important document, setting a milestone in the process of regional cooperation, that has been strengthen from this meeting until the present days.

First Summit Meeting of the South American Presidents (Brasilia, 1 de September de 2000)

In particular, on the matter of infrastructural integration, the Presidents agreed on the creation of the IIRSA Initiative, with the central goal of advancing in the modernization of the regional infrastructure and the adoption of specific actions to promote the integration and social and economic development. This commitment is transformed into an Action Plan 2000-2010formulated at the meeting of Southamerican Ministers of Transport, Energy and Telecommunications, held in Montevideo on December 2000 which established the main lines of action of IIRSA and became a framework for the development of IIRSA´s activities