Thirty years after its adoption at the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action continues to be a fundamental milestone and a reference in the international and regional human rights agenda, guiding regulatory frameworks and public policies aimed at advance gender equality.

At the sixty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69), governments, United Nations entities and non-governmental organizations from all regions of the world will discuss the review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly. The review will include an assessment of the current challenges affecting the implementation of the Declaration and Platform for Action and the achievement of gender equality and women's empowerment, as well as its contribution to the full realization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Latin America and the Caribbean has an ambitious and comprehensive Regional Gender Agenda, the result of more than 48 years in which ECLAC Member States have met at the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Regional Gender Agenda is a meaningful, progressive, and comprehensive roadmap that guides countries’ public policies to achieve gender equality, guarantee women’s rights, adolescents and girls in all their diversity, the exercise of their autonomy, and the sustainable development of the region.

The agreements of the Regional Gender Agenda were also important contributions to raising the ambition of the commitments made in Beijing. In 1994, as part of the preparations for the Fourth World Conference on Women, the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean adopted the Regional Program of Action for the Women of Latin America and the Caribbean, 1995-2001, at the Sixth Regional Conference on the Integration of Women in the Economic and Social Development of Latin America and the Caribbean (Mar del Plata). The Mar del Plata Program agreed on six strategic areas for achieving equality between men and women and the full exercise of women's citizenship. At the XV Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean (November 2022), ECLAC Member States approved the Buenos Aires Commitment and agreed to move towards the horizon of the care society, as a transformational change required to build a new style of development that places equality and sustainability at the center.

Since 2021, in an uninterrupted manner, the Ministers and High Authorities of the Machineries for the Advancement of Women have been meeting within the framework of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Women to adopt a joint declaration on the priority themes of the CSW sessions. The articulation between the main United Nations intergovernmental forum on women's rights and gender equality in the region, and the CSW, makes it possible to contribute to the global deliberations on the achievement of gender equality and women's autonomy, based on the commitments of the Regional Gender Agenda and other regional agreements.

In the Sixty-sixth meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, held from 4th to 5th December 2024, in ECLAC Headquarters in Santiago, Chile, the countries adopted the Declaration by the Ministers and High-Level Authorities of the National Machineries for the Advancement of Women in Latin America And The Caribbean For The Sixty-Ninth Session of the Commission on The Status Of Women. In the Declaration, the countries welcome the working document Action for equality, development and peace in Latin America and the Caribbean: draft regional report on the review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 30 years on, in synergy with the implementation of the Regional Gender Agenda. The countries “reaffirm the commitment to take all necessary and progressive measures so that States, as duty bearers, will accelerate the effective implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Regional Gender Agenda, strengthening gender equality institutions and architecture through the prioritization at the highest level of machineries for the advancement of women, including at ministerial or equivalent level, reinforcing their role as the governing and managing bodies of policies on gender equality and women’s rights and autonomy, and the mainstreaming of gender at the different levels and branches of the State, increasing the allocation of financial, technical and human resources, gender budgeting, and monitoring and accountability, with civic participation” (paragraph 5).

Meeting agenda will be available soon.