They stress the importance of investing in policies and comprehensive public care systems aimed at achieving gender equality and promoting their financial sustainability

For more than four decades, the member states of ECLAC have agreed on the Regional Gender Agenda, aimed at guaranteeing the rights of women, advancing towards the achievement of their autonomy and generating the bases to build societies with equality. Within this framework, the government delegates and specialists attending the XV Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbeanwhich takes place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, today stressed the importance of investing in comprehensive public care policies and systems aimed at achieving gender equality and promoting their financial sustainability, during the presentation of the document Financing of care systems and policies in Latin America and the Caribbean: contributions for a sustainable recovery with gender equality.

The report, prepared jointly by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), was released this Thursday at a panel high level of the XV Regional Conference on Women by Lucía Scuro Somma, Senior Social Affairs Officer of ECLAC’s Division for Gender Affairs, and Cecilia Alemany, Deputy Regional Director for the Americas and the Caribbean of UN-Women and ai Representative in Argentina.

The panel was moderated by María Inés Castillo, Minister of Social Development of Panama, and commented on the document by Mayra Jiménez, Minister of Women of the Dominican Republic; Gina Magnolia Riaño, General Secretary of the Ibero-American Social Security Organization (OISS); Rania Antonopoulos, Senior Scholar of the Gender Equality and Economics program at the Levy Economics Institute; and Fabio Bertranou, Director for the Southern Cone of Latin America of the International Labor Organization (ILO).

In her introduction, Minister María Inés Castillo remarked that “we are aware that the construction and promotion of comprehensive care systems would generate multiple positive effects, both in social and economic terms, as presented in this document,” she indicated.

For her part, in her presentation of the report, Lucía Scuro recalled that since 1977, when the Regional Gender Agenda began to be built, there have been milestones related to the financing of care in each of the agreements that the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean have reached.

“Protecting social spending and public investment and strengthening collection and improving the progressivity of the tax architecture is crucial to moving towards the care society in the region,” he emphasized.

Meanwhile, Cecilia Alemany highlighted the five basic components of comprehensive care systems: creation and expansion of services, regulation of services and working conditions, training of people who care, information and knowledge management, and communication. to promote cultural change.

“Investing in care systems generates a virtuous circle. It is a smart and sustainable investment,” she explained.

Mayra Jiménez, Minister for Women of the Dominican Republic, pointed out that the strengthening of the financial system with a gender approach must include accountability and monitoring of investments, to identify how the various sources and financing strategies contribute to equality and well-being in equitable way.

In her speech, Gina Magnolia Riaño, Secretary General of the OISS, indicated that there is a general and broad consensus on the need to advance in care systems. “The challenge is how to make it possible and how to finance that care,” she declared.

For her part, Rania Antonopoulos, Senior Academic of the Gender Equality and Economics program of the Levy Economics Institute, highlighted the region’s progress in terms of analysis for the financing of care policies and pointed out that the proposals in the document are innovative and timely for essential care policies.

Meanwhile, Fabio Bertranou, Director for the Southern Cone of the ILO, declared that “beyond the programs and policies mentioned in the document, it is necessary to have a care sector, which, like any other sector of the economy, requires a financing matrix, productive policies and resource mobilization, including with the private sector. We must comply with the desire to close the decent work gaps.”

The Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean is the United Nations’ main regional intergovernmental forum on women’s rights and gender equality. The meeting, which this year celebrates its 45th anniversary, has the participation of representatives of governments, United Nations and intergovernmental organizations, academia and civil society, particularly women’s and feminist movements.

Follow the meeting with the hashtags #XVConferenciaMujerALC and #SociedadDelCuidado