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Work Plan
Our plan by strategic area
Plan Estratégico de la CIM
CIM has adopted a Strategic Plan 2011-2016 to guide the promotion of women's rights and gender equality in five priority areas: Democracy, Human Rights, Development, Security and the work of the OAS
The mandates of the CIM are derived fundamentally from resolutions of its Assembly of Delegates, of the General Assembly of the OAS and of the Summits of the Americas. The most important guide for CIM's work is the Inter-American Program for the Promotion of Women's Human Rights and Gender Equity and Equality (IAP). The framework program provides the basis for the Commission's action plans and programs. For more information, download the full text of the IAP.
In an effort to concretize the broad mandates of the IAP and to situate them within a results-based management framework, CIM has developed a Strategic Plan 2011-2016. Based on the four pillars of the OAS' work, the Strategic Plan will serve as a guide for CIM's project development and implementation, and policy advisory and capacity-building work in key areas. Within each pillar, CIM works on specific strategic areas linked to the promotion of gender equality and the human rights of women.
Women's substantive political citizenship for democracy and good governance
Six decades after attaining their political rights, women continue to be subject to conditions that limit and hinder the exercise of these rights. The process of building full citizenship in Latin America and the Caribbean must give central consideration to more than 50% of the region's population, made up of women. A citizens' democracy necessarily depends on equality of rights in the political arena, which entails parity in political representation and in the leadership of all institutions of the state. Within this context, CIM works in the following strategic areas:
Women's political citizenship for democracy and governance
- Formulate a hemispheric policy agenda to concretize gender parity in political participation and representation at all levels
- Promote of women's leadership in decision-making processes
- Serve as a forum for dialogue and exchange among women leaders on the challenges and opportunities they face in the political realm between Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States and Canada
- Monitor women's political participation, including the fulfillment of quota laws, participation in electoral processes and the implementation of international commitments on women's political rights.
Women's human rights and violence against women
The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have gradually been adapting their national laws to the universal and inter-American legal framework on women's rights. According to the OECD Atlas of Gender and Development (2010), within the developing world, this region has made the most progress in formally recognizing the rights of women. However, in the Americas, women continue to be at a disadvantage with respect to all social and economic development indicators, with the exception, in higher-income countries, of literacy and access to primary and secondary education. This poses a significant obstacle to women’s ability to fully
Promotion of the rights of women
- Lead participatory and inclusive policy dialogue on policies to support women's rights
- Strengthen capacity for integrated monitoring of women's access to and exercise of human rights
- Promote an inter-cultural approach to human rights within a context of democratic governance
- Support the integration the Inter-American Convention for the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Convention of Belém do Pará) in Inter-American jurisprudence, and strengthen monitoring of the Convention at the national level with a particular focus on its full implementation.
Multidimensional security from a rights-based and gender-equality perspective
The failure to consider the security needs of women, on the one hand, and their absence from the spaces for decision-making and action regarding citizen security, on the other, means that the security policies of the majority of countries in the region ignore more than 50% of the population of these countries. This means in practice that women are less able, and less likely, to approach security-sector bodies about their distinct security needs. Within this context, CIM works in the following strategic areas:
- Lead policy dialogue on the democratization of the security sector from a gender perspective and negotiate a hemispheric agenda for gender and multi-dimensional security
- Promote women's rights and gender equality in OAS policies and programmes on multi-dimensional security
- Support the participation of women in decision-making processes on the issue of security
- Strengthen the capacity of civil society, in particular women's groups, to monitor the security sector from a gender perspective.
Women's economic security and citizenship
In the last three years, the economies of the Americas have been affected by one of the century's most profound financial crises, which, according to a number of studies, have had an unequal impact on women and men. These differences and inequalities in the effects of the crisis limit women's economic and social opportunities. Within this context, CIM works in the following strategic areas:
Economic security and citizenship for women
- Increase the benefit to women and include a gender and rights perspective in economic stimulation and recovery policies
- Promote new visions of trade, competitiveness and innovation with markets from a gender and rights perspective
- Spur gender-responsive labour policies from a rights-based perspective
- Advance the social valuation of unremunerated labour in the economy of care with new inputs and perspectives
For a complete overview of CIM's work in these and other areas, please see:
CIM Strategic Plans
Biennial Programs of Work
- CIM Biennial Program of Work 2011-2012 (Word)
- CIM Biennial Program of Work 2009-2010 (PDF)
- CIM Biennial Program of Work 2007-2008 (PDF)
- CIM Biennial Program of Work 2005-2006 (PDF)
- CIM Biennial Program of Work 2003-2004 (PDF)
- CIM Biennial Program of Work 2001-2002 (PDF)
- CIM Biennial Program of Work 1999-2000 (PDF)
Other plans and programs
- CIM Plan of Action on Women's Participation in Power and Decision-Making 1998 (PDF)
