The intergovernmental meeting brought together representatives of the countries of the region, the United Nations System and regional and international organizations at the ECLAC headquarters. In it, an assessment and evaluation of South-South and triangular cooperation was carried out, opportunities for international cooperation for development were reviewed in terms of multi-actor strategies, especially with a view to Future Summit to be carried out in September 2024 and reported on the project “Strengthening Feminist Foreign Policy and Feminist International Cooperation through a community of practice between Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Germany and ECLAC” presented during the 25th call of the Regional Fund for Triangular Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean of BMZ/GIZ and which was recently launched in Salvador de Bahía in May, within the framework of the VII Regional Conference on Trilateral Cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean 2024: “Overcoming obstacles , building bridges.”
The event was inaugurated by the Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Luis Yáñez – representing the Executive Secretary, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs – and by the Director General of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship of Argentina, Mateo Estremé, in his capacity as the country’s Presidency of the Board of Directors of the Conference. Among the high-level officials, the event included the participation of representatives from Germany, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Spain, Guatemala, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay.
In this context, the Director of the Gender Affairs Division of ECLAC, Ana Güezmes, reported on the project “Strengthening Feminist Foreign Policy and Feminist International Cooperation” (CoPEF) focusing on three main points: the intergovernmental framework in the one in which the initiative was registered, the sense of urgency with which it originated and its four lines of action. It was previously presented in Salvador de Bahía on May 22, 2024.
At the intergovernmental level, he noted that the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean recognize that South-South and triangular cooperation is essential to face the challenges of sustainable development without leaving anyone behind. This is considering the cascading crisis that impacted the progress that the region had been making towards the Sustainable Development Goals, and the consequences derived from the pandemic, which deepened structural gender inequalities. In this way, the Director recalled the words of the Executive Secretary of ECLAC, pointing out that it is necessary to act with a sense of urgency, raising the level of ambition and scale of joint and collaborative efforts, especially those that the region already has. In this sense, she highlighted that Latin America and the Caribbean is the only region in the world that has a Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, a subsidiary body of ECLAC, where the member states have approved a Regional Gender Agenda, which has been built from multi-stakeholder efforts, with the participation of civil society, women’s organizations, feminist, academia and increasingly more international partners. To this she added that specifically at the last Regional Conference on Women, the countries agreed on the Buenos Aires Commitment, promote subregional, regional and multilateral cooperation programs through North, South and Triangular cooperation modalities, with the aim of advancing gender equality. In addition, he noted that at the First Meeting of the Regional Conference on South-South Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean held in May 2023, the Presiding Officers adopted in the Resolution 1(I)that the subsidiary bodies of ECLAC strengthen synergies in the areas related to bilateral, multilateral, South-South, triangular and humanitarian cooperation, sustainable development and gender equality, particularly in the identification of common criteria that guide the evaluation and assessment of these cooperation modalities, as well as their impacts.
In this way, he pointed out that the CoPEF triangular project emerged in that context, as a community of practice between the three countries in the region that currently have a Feminist Foreign Policy. So Chili, Colombia and Mexiconext to Germany and ECLAC joined together to present this initiative to the BMZ/GIZ Regional Triangular Cooperation Fund, with the aim of advancing strategies to achieve substantive equality. Along these lines, the project proposes strengthening the capacities of both the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the international development cooperation agencies, in the design and implementation of this type of policies that allow us to move up one notch in the ambition that all countries of the region have to move towards gender equality through collective learning. In order to achieve this goal, the project has four lines of work. The first is to develop institutionality within the framework of the foreign ministries, political, regulatory, and operational frameworks, under the leadership of Chile. A second line related to the idea of cooperation and guidelines, guidelines, practices and methodologies, in charge of the four countries, in a community of practice hosted at ECLAC. A third line led by Colombia, associated with the training of the public service and which aims to generate an understanding about what we are talking about when we use the concept of gender equality in the public sphere. Finally, a fourth line in charge of Mexico in relation to data, which aims to advance measurement with a gender focus, for example, establishing comparable indicators on women in diplomatic careers or in international negotiations. Considering the above, the Director of the Gender Affairs Division of ECLAC, expressed that the CoPEF project represents a milestone for both ECLAC, BMZ/GIZ and the partner countries, since it is the first triangular cooperation measure. on gender equality and feminist cooperation, with a response developed from the Global South. The initiative was presented as innovative because it is a triangular cooperation based on the principle of horizontality of the partners, which in a certain sense is more circular than triangular, since Germany will participate both through the alliance with BMZ/GIZ and ECLAC, but also from a liaison role with associated Ministries. Another key point highlighted was that the project not only seeks to respond to the framework of countries that have a Feminist Foreign Policy, but also to be a voice from the Global South that can serve as inspiration to other countries that decide to initiate this transformation.
Finally, the Director of the Gender Affairs Division of ECLAC recalled the development of a guide for mainstreaming the gender perspective in statistical production, in the context of the Statistics Conference at the CEA and the recent gender mainstreaming decision in it Escazú Agreement at the last COP. Likewise, within the framework of the CoPEF project and in accordance with these advances and with what has already been discussed in the First South-South Cooperation Conference of 2023raised the idea of moving towards a guide for mainstreaming the gender perspective in international development cooperation, which would serve to guide the entire project cycle – including the stages of formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and development of data and systems. of information.
After the Director’s intervention, the delegates approved an agreement with six points, in accordance with what was discussed during the meeting. Regarding the quantification of South-South cooperation to mobilize funds for the Sustainable Development Goals, the Presiding Officers agreed that this measurement be led by UNCTAD. On the other hand, it was requested that ECLAC develop a guide for the mainstreaming of the gender perspective in international development cooperation programs and projects. This document must include an action plan that contains an analysis and assessment of South-South and triangular cooperation, in synergy with the measurement led by UNCTAD. In addition, it must include multi-actor strategies for cooperation, with the aim of serving as input for the Second Meeting of the Regional Conference on South-South Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will take place in 2025.
It should be noted that the preparation of the gender mainstreaming guide in international development cooperation will also allow us to contribute to the III Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policies (Mexico, 2024) and the XVI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean (Mexico, 2025).
Related links:
Informative Note First Meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on South-South Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean was held at the ECLAC headquarters.
Informative Note Launch Event and Presentation of the Project “Strengthening Feminist Foreign Policy and Feminist International Cooperation through a community of practice between Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Germany and ECLAC.
Informative Note COP 3 reinforced commitment to the mainstreaming of the gender perspective and the full and effective participation of women in the implementation of the Escazú Agreement.
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