The proposal of Buenos Aires Commitment Moving towards the care society in the region not only implies regulatory changes in the countries, but fundamentally building a new paradigm that puts equality and the sustainability of life and the planet at the center, representatives agreed at the event “The Commitment of Buenos Aires and its contribution to multilateralism”, held this Friday, March 17, in parallel to the 67th period of sessions of the Commission on the Legal and Social Condition of Women (CSW67) that takes place in New York.
The purpose of the meeting was to present the Buenos Aires Compromise, as the intergovernmental agreement approved at the XV Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean (Argentina, November 7-11, 2022), as a contribution from Latin America and the Caribbean to the CSW67 deliberations at the United Nations, focusing on multilateralism as an articulated response from different actors to move towards a new style developmental.
The event was organized by the Government of Argentina -the country that exercises the Presidency of the Board of Directors of the Regional Conference on Women- together with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), as Secretariat of the Conference, and in coordination with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women).
It included words of welcome from María del Carmen Squeff, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Argentina to the United Nations; and the introduction and moderation by Ana Güezmes, Director of ECLAC’s Gender Affairs Division.
Ana Güezmes contextualized that “we are facing a development crisis that requires us to act with a sense of urgency and raise the level of ambition. We are aware of the problem but we also have several resources to contribute to the solution”. In this sense, he highlighted that Latin America and the Caribbean is “the only region in the world in which the member states of ECLAC, the United Nations System and civil society organizations, particularly women’s and feminist organizations , meet at the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean to identify progress and challenges in guaranteeing the rights and autonomy of women and achieving gender equality”.
The Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean is organized by ECLAC, as the Secretariat of the Conference, and since 2020 it has been held in coordination with UN Women.
The Buenos Aires Commitment, approved in 2022 at the XV Conference with the Argentine presidency, “proposes a bold solution, a civilizing change to overcome the development crisis. This solution is called a care society”, remarked Ana Güezmes.
The Buenos Aires Commitment recognizes care “as a growing need, mostly unpaid work, and a right of people to care, to be cared for, and to exercise self-care,” the official explained. In particular, the intergovernmental agreement calls for promoting measures to overcome the sexual division of labor and move towards a fair social organization of care. For this, it is necessary to guarantee financing through progressive and countercyclical fiscal policies, budgets with a gender equality approach and policies that stimulate the economy in key sectors for the sustainability of life, including the care economy.
The Buenos Aires Commitment also reaffirms the importance of strengthening the institutional framework and architecture for gender equality and calls for strengthening multilateralism.
“We are convinced that the care society is that transformational change that we need to build a new style of development that puts equality and the sustainability of life and the planet at the center; a courageous and civilizing response to the development crisis. That it consider, as feminists and indigenous peoples have proposed, ecodependence or human dependence on nature; the interdependence between people and various spheres such as the economic, socio-environmental and cultural spheres; and co-responsibility between the State, the market, communities, families, and between people”, summarized Ana Güezmes.
Subsequently, interventions were made by María-Noel Vaeza, Director of the Regional Office of UN-Women for the Americas and the Caribbean; Nadine Gasman, President of the National Institute for Women (Inmujeres) of Mexico; Sergia Galván, feminist activist and member of the Board of Directors of the Regional Fund to Support Women’s and Feminist Organizations and Movements in Latin America and the Caribbean; Luizianne Lins, Federal Deputy of Brazil; Nohra Quintero, Plenipotentiary Minister of the Colombian Mission to the United Nations, Verónica Montúfar, Head of Gender Equality at Public Services International (ISP); and Ambassador María Cristina Perceval, Special Representative for the Feminist Foreign Policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship of the Republic of Argentina.
“The Commitment of Buenos Aires and the XV Regional Conference on Women was a very important milestone, not only of multilateralism, but also legal”, highlighted María-Noel Vaeza, because the countries of the region are expected to enshrine the right to care in their regulatory frameworks and that guarantee adequate financing. Along these lines, UN-Women is working together with ECLAC in the region so that all countries achieve comprehensive care systems, she pointed out.
For Nadine Gasman, from Inmujeres de México, the Buenos Aires Commitment is not just a proposal related to the right to care. It is, she said, a paradigmatic break that “has to do with the way in which as humanity we respond to these crises that show us that the development system is exhausted.” In this framework, he said, Mexico is promoting a universal, progressive and sustainable national care system and they hope that progress will be seen at the XVI Regional Conference on Women, to be held in 2025 in Mexico, and that the agenda will deepen.
Sergia Galván, feminist activist and member of the Board of Directors of the Regional Fund for the Support of Women’s and Feminist Organizations and Movements, explained that “the issue of care has been at the genesis of the feminist movement because it is one of the fundamental tools of patriarchy. for the subjugation and exploitation of women and that this issue becomes relevant at a time when the feminist agenda, the women’s agenda, is under attack”.
For her part, Luizianne Lins, Federal Deputy of Brazil, stressed that “the Buenos Aires Commitment is a challenge that brings immense responsibility to governments considering the crises we are going through, especially the harmful and unprecedented effects of the COVID pandemic. -19”. The agreement, she said, “recognizes the need and recommends the development of comprehensive care systems with the proper distribution of time, power and resources as a priority for the sustainability of life and the planet.”
Nohra Quintero, Plenipotentiary Minister of the Colombian Mission to the United Nations, indicated that “from Colombia we celebrate the work of the region towards the fulfillment of the Commitment of Buenos Aires. We recognize that this commitment has set the highest ambition, not only to put care at the center of our society, but also to bring about structural transformation in our countries through our development models.”
According to Verónica Montúfar, Head of Gender Equality at Public Services International (ISP), “we are living in a moment of hope, a hope that is born in our region and that spreads to the world.” Regarding the Buenos Aires Commitment, she especially highlighted that it establishes the concept of “social organization of care”, which is born from the feminist world.
Finally, Ambassador María Cristina Perceval, representing the Argentine Government, assured that “the Buenos Aires Commitment is not a point of arrival; it is a turning point that motivates us to internationalize this vision and this approach”. “Without us, multilateralism would not exist with this vibrant will to grow in rights, not only for us, but for everyone, everyone,” she concluded.
