This success prompted other countries within Latin America to create regional initiatives of their own now that they saw how much progress had been made in the Southern Cone.  In fact, in 1998 the World Health Assembly was so satisfied with the progress made with the SCI, that it “acknowledged the decision of the Andean and Central American countries to launch similar initiatives” (WHO, 80).  Both the Andean Initiative and Central American Initiative were initiated in 1997.