Women’s Affairs Ministers and other high-level authorities from the region are participating in the Sixty-Seventh Meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, inaugurated today at ECLAC’s headquarters in Santiago, Chile.

Women’s Affairs Ministers and other high-level authorities from the region are discussing a road map for the effective implementation of the recently approved Tlatelolco Commitment – which establishes a decade of action to achieve substantive gender equality and the care society in Latin America and the Caribbean – in the framework of the Sixty-Seventh Meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, which is being held at ECLAC’s headquarters in Santiago, Chile using a hybrid format.

The intergovernmental gathering was inaugurated this Monday, December 1 by José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); Bibiana Aido Almagro, Regional Director for the Americas and the Caribbean of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women); and Gabriela Rivadeneira, Director General of Technical Cooperation at the Ministry for Women of Mexico, representing the Presiding Officers’ Chair.

This two-day event is being organized by ECLAC, in its capacity as Secretariat of the Conference, in coordination with UN Women, and with the Government of Mexico serving as Chair.

“We are meeting with renewed energy: the energy and impetus of the Tlatelolco Commitment,” said José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, who also applauded the recent change to the Conference’s name in Spanish, which is now the Conferencia Regional sobre las Mujeres de América Latina y el Caribe. “This is a step that recognizes the diversity of women, adolescents and girls in the region,” he told the delegates from ECLAC’s Member States along with representatives of the United Nations (UN), multilateral bodies and civil society – particularly women’s and feminist movements and organizations.

“Today our task is clear: step up the pace. Step up the pace towards substantive gender equality and towards a care society. Stepping up the pace poses the question of the ‘hows,’ meaning how to translate this sense of urgency into a concrete acceleration of the necessary transformations. At ECLAC we think that the response to this critical question must be sought in strengthening governance and institutional capabilities, for example, on statistical issues, the political economy and in spaces for social dialogue, as well as cooperation and financing. In the case of gender equality, a cultural shift is also particularly important,” ECLAC’s highest authority emphasized. 

In the opening session, Bibiana Aido Almagro, UN Women’s Regional Director for the Americas and the Caribbean, welcomed recent progress on gender equality in the region, but stressed the need to translate political will into concrete budgets for implementing public policy. “I reaffirm our organization’s commitment to strengthening this critical intergovernmental space for advancing gender equality and the agenda on the rights of women and girls in all their diversity. We come here after very successfully holding the XVI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, just a few months ago in Mexico City. There, the region’s countries adopted the Tlatelolco Commitment, which effectively heralds a different paradigm. It is a totally visionary agreement that establishes a decade of action to achieve substantive gender equality and to move towards the care society,” she indicated.

Meanwhile, Gabriela Rivadeneira, Director General of Technical Cooperation at the Ministry for Women of Mexico – speaking on behalf of the Minister, Citlalli Hernández Mora – exhorted countries to territorialize policies for gender equality and women’s empowerment, and to avert setbacks in the region. “We are confident that this Presiding Officers can make progress on effective mechanisms for follow-up to the Tlatelolco Commitment. It is time to transform what is set down on paper into concrete actions,” she stated. “We hope that this space will not only reaffirm what was already agreed upon, but will enable all of us together to adopt an increasingly practical and pragmatic road map. Let’s make our presence – as governments, civil society and UN system organizations – ever more worthwhile.”

At the meeting of the Presiding Officers, a briefing will be held on the draft general recommendation No. 41 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) regarding gender stereotypes. In addition, a session will take place on the Initiative for a biregional pact on care between Latin America and the Caribbean and the European Union.

On Tuesday, December 2, there will be a special session for regional consultation prior to the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70), the priority theme of which will be “Ensuring and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls, including by promoting inclusive and equitable legal systems, eliminating discriminatory laws, policies, and practices, and addressing structural barriers.” After that, a report on the Regional Fund in support of Women’s and Feminist Organizations and Movements will be presented.

The Presiding Officers, elected at the XVI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean (Mexico City, August 12-15, 2025), is made up of Mexico as Chair and Antigua and Barbuda, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti and Uruguay as Vice-Chairs.