“The Regional Gender Agenda is a key instrument to advance sustainable and inclusive development. The Buenos Aires Commitment proposes a path to advance towards the care society, with agreements in innovative areas for a transformative recovery with gender equality and sustainability. Care is recognized as a necessity, a job and a right of people to care, to be cared for and to exercise self-care, and there is a call to promote measures to overcome the sexual division of labor and move towards a fair social organization of care within the framework of a new style of development that promotes gender equality in the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development”.
This was one of the reflections shared by the Director of ECLAC’s Division for Gender Affairs, during the event “The care society as a horizon and the Buenos Aires Commitment as a roadmap in Latin America and the Caribbean” that carried out in a hybrid way on April 25. The event was attended by representatives of the Governments of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, and the United Nations Resident Coordination Offices in those countries. The Director indicated that today there are various projects and policies in the region that constitute progress towards the construction of the care society, and she highlighted those experiences that were implemented with the support of the United Nations System.
For her part, María-Noel Vaeza, Regional Director of UN Women for the Americas and the Caribbean, stressed that it is essential to talk about the financing of comprehensive care systems to ensure their sustainability, as well as the need to ensure governance models where the women, civil society and governments. She made a call to continue advancing together in the creation of comprehensive care systems incorporating the community perspective.
Claudio Castro, Mayor of the Municipality of Renca, Chile, and Daniela Eroles, Director of Community Development of the same commune, commented on the experience of participating in the project for the Economic Reintegration of Women, implemented by several agencies of the System of United Nations in Chile. “At Renca we want to move towards a commune that cares, but that has a territorial drop to neighborhoods that care and that is the main design in which we are working these days, where the community is trained so that everyone can be caregivers, at At the same time, from the municipality, articulated with foundations, international organizations and the central government, we are able to articulate a pertinent offer that allows us to redistribute, recognize and reduce care in Renca”, highlighted the mayor. For her part, the Director of Community Development referred to the phases and projections of the project and shared some lessons learned. “This work has allowed us to order our gaze and articulate our care offer, but, above all, to make caregivers visible,” said the Director.
Paulina Calderón, Secretary of Equality and Diversity Policies of the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity of Argentina, referred to the country’s experience within the framework of the socioeconomic recovery project from the COVID-19 crisis from a gender perspective promoted by The United Nations. “For us it is a joy to reaffirm the Buenos Aires Commitment, which is effectively a roadmap that positions care as a right,” said the Secretary. Along these lines, he highlighted some government efforts, including the Interministerial Table for Care Policies, breastfeeding support packages, article 179 of the Labor Contract Law, the Care Infrastructure Network of the Ministry of Public Works, the Cuidar en Igualdad campaign, the Registered Program and the request for an advisory opinion presented by Argentina before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, so that the court can rule on care as a human right. One of the main results also of a joint project between the government of Argentina and the United Nations System was the Federal Care Map.
For her part, Mónica Bottero, Director of the National Institute for Women (Inmujeres) of the Ministry of Social Development of Uruguay, shared the country’s experience in the project to Strengthen the Socioeconomic Response to the COVID-19 Emergency promoted by the United Nations United, referring to its three components: employability and care, data, and tools to implement public policies at the local level. She highlighted the presentation of the third Uruguay Time Use Survey in March of this year, whose results reaffirmed the reality of women, who perform twice as much unpaid work as men. For the Director, this measurement is a fundamental input to continue strengthening the care system in Uruguay. “This project for us was a job that implied important learning and was an important exercise within the United Nations team, inter-governments and, in turn, among ourselves. As an exercise it was already worth it, but the most important thing is that it created public policy tools and instruments and at the same time supported numerous communities of women and children and adolescents who live in areas far from the country’s capital, where the public policies often arrive in a weaker way”, stated the Director.
Next, María José Torres, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Chile, Claudia Mojica, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Argentina, and Pablo Ruiz, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Uruguay, highlighted lessons learned from joint work between the agencies of the United Nations and government counterparts, and commented on the opportunities to advance in the implementation of the Buenos Aires Commitment in terms of care policies and systems. The representatives of the United Nations System highlighted the recovery plans during the COVID-19 pandemic implemented through interagency programs that prioritized strengthening the economic autonomy of women, whose lessons learned and good practices can be applied in the long term. term, beyond the pandemic. In this sense, they agreed that progress in the design and implementation of care policies is essential. “The ambition to move towards a comprehensive care policy points to the heart of our commitment to sustainable development,” declared the representative of the United Nations in Argentina.
In closing, Ana Güezmes highlighted the joint and concrete progress of the region towards gender equality and the need to make every effort to implement the Buenos Aires Commitment, which sets up a roadmap in terms of care for the coming years. three years. Likewise, she invited to continue strengthening cooperation and multilateralism. “I want to insist on the need to continue building bridges so as not to leave anyone behind. Let us continue advancing in the joint construction of a care society. Let’s make that civilizing change that our time demands”, concluded the Director.
