December 11, 2024 – The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), in coordination with UN Women and with the support of the joint GIZ/ECLAC program on the Care Economy, organized the "Working Meeting on Guiding Principles for Care Policies from a Gender, Intercultural, Intersectional, and Territorial Perspective." The aim of the meeting was to reach an agreement regarding the contents of the document to be presented at the XVI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, to be held in Mexico in August 2025.
The meeting took place from December 11 to 12 at the Training Center of Spanish Cooperation in Montevideo, Uruguay, and brought together specialists from national and subnational governments, including the Undersecretary of Social Services of the Ministry of Social Development and Family of Chile, Francisca Gallegos; the Minister of Women, Gender Policy, and Sexual Diversity of the Province of Buenos Aires, Estela Díaz; the District Secretary for Women of Bogotá, Colombia, Laura Tami; and the Mayor of Municipality B of Montevideo, Uruguay, Silvana Pissano, represented on this occasion by Beatriz Rocco, Advisor. Nohelia Millan, director of Gender and Equity of the Municipality of Canelones, Uruguay, also attended the event.
In addition, representatives of networks of academic organizations, women's and feminist organizations in the region, as well as specialists from international organizations such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), joined UN Women and ECLAC in contributing to the dialogue and the exchange of experiences.
The regional dialogue addressed a wide range of topics, including governance; subnational competencies; regulatory and institutional frameworks; multilevel and intersectoral coordination mechanisms; the restructuring, adaptation, and innovation of infrastructure and proximity services; the challenges of interculturality and intersectionality in designing care policies with a territorial focus; strategies and instruments for financing care in the territory; and the generation and strengthening of data, information, and knowledge for designing and implementing care policies at the local level, among others.
The discussions focused on identifying the necessary transformations regarding care and defining tools, coordination mechanisms, and information systems to effectively integrate the territorial perspective within care policies.
The opening session featured remarks by Ana Güezmes, director of the Division for Gender Affairs of ECLAC; José Luis Pimentel, General Coordinator of Spanish Cooperation in the Southern Cone; and Cecilia Alemany, Deputy Regional director of UN Women for the Americas and the Caribbean. The session was moderated by Lucía Scuro, Senior Social Affairs Officer at the Division for Gender Affairs of ECLAC.
The meeting sought to fulfill one of the commitments approved by governments during the XV Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in November 2022 in Buenos Aires: "To entrust the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, in its capacity as Technical Secretariat of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, in coordination with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and other United Nations agencies, funds, and programs, with the task of preparing a document on guiding principles for the design of care policies from a gender, intercultural, intersectional, and territorial perspective within the framework of human rights" (Buenos Aires Commitment, paragraph 43).
This meeting represented a fundamental step in the preparatory process for the XVI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will take place from August 12 to 15, 2025, in Mexico. Under the central theme "Transformations in the Political, Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Spheres to Promote the Care Society and Gender Equality," this conference aims to consolidate regional agreements and strategies to advance care policies at the local level.
