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Why women’s leadership?
Women have the right to participate fully and exercise their leadership in all spheres of life, including the economic, social, political, technological and cultural spheres. Greater diversity in decision-making and leadership has also been shown to positively impact productivity, innovation, legitimacy and responsiveness.
The 2030 Agenda has created opportunities for the effective empowerment of girls and women, however there are many objectives that still need to be met. Women’s full participation in decision-making is a prerequisite for overcoming inequalities and finding more equal and inclusive responses.
Initiatives
“A call to action to boost women’s leadership and parity democracy in the Americas” is a policy paper published by the Inter-American Task Force on Women's Leadership, which highlights the commitments already approved by the States regarding women’s political participation, including a call to action to accelerate efforts to reduce representation gaps and advance parity in decision-making.
This repository is an initiative by the partner institutions of the Inter-American Task Force on Women’s Leadership. It is aimed to provide a mapping of the initiatives and experiences implemented and addressed to promote and strengthen women’s leadership as well as their participation and equal representation in decision-making, in order to recognize and disseminate the efforts carried out throughout the Americas and the Caribbean, and boost the multiplication of commitments and actions from all of the key stakeholders in achieving the target 5.5 of the Sustainable Development Goal 5. In addition, the repository contains a data bank of specialized publications on topics related to women’s leadership at different ambits in order to provide knowledge products on this matter.
Featured Events
High-Level Panel “Women’s leadership: advancing gender equality and democracy in the Americas”
Los Angeles, USA. June 9, 2022
Women Leaders from the region and international and Inter-American organizations call for action to boost women’s leadership and parity democracy...
Women’s leadership for an inclusive future pact
April 8, 2021
As a result of the event, Vice Presidents and leaders of multi-lateral organizations called on the Ibero-American States to ensure the equal participation of women in all areas of decision-making....
The event brought together important leaders from the Americas, who were unanimous on the need to ensure women’s participation in decision-making as a requirement of democracy...
The event brought women leaders who are confronting the pandemic as well as experts in gender and health, who addressed the challenges and opportunities for women’s leadership during the COVID-19 crisis.
Dialogue on women's leadership in the private sector
Santiago, Chile. January 30, 2020
With this event, the Task Force seeks to promote that both public administrations and companies engage with specific measures aimed at increasing the number of women who participate in management positions in the public and private sectors.
Global Summit: “Her Power: Women's Voices, Global Impact”
Washington DC., October 15, 2019
The Summit brought together more than 250 representatives from the government, the diplomatic community, the private sector, expert groups and NGOs, along with academia and the media.
Dialogue with Permanent Missions to the OAS
Washington DC., October 1, 2019
This dialogue was an opportunity to discuss how Member States can actively participate in the initiatives being promoted by the Task Force and, likewise, to explore good practices of the countries that can serve as references points for the actions that will be promoted...
Partners
Who We Are
Reference documents:
The Task Force
The Inter-American Task Force on Women's Leadership is composed of key inter-American and international institutions with recognized experience and programming in areas related to women's leadership: the Organization of American States, through the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), ParlAmericas, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UN Women, the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), IDEA International, together with two civil society organizations: Caribbean Women in Leadership (CIWiL) and the Committee of Latin America and the Caribbean for the Defense of Women's Rights (CLADEM).
Pursuant to OAS General Assembly Resolution AG/RES. 2928 (XLVIII-O/18), the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) serves as Technical Secretariat of the Task Force.
Who We Are
Our history
During the VIII Summit of the Americas (Peru, April 2018), the leaders of the Americas created the Inter-American Task Force on Women's Leadership, charged with promoting gender equity and equality and the empowerment of women through greater cooperation and synergies between international and inter-American institutions.
Since its creation, the Task Force partners have held dialogues with governments and other stakeholders, seeking to define a road map that aligns and harmonizes efforts, through multi-sectoral alliances, to promote women’s leadership in various sectors and at multiple levels in the Americas.
Goals
Main objective
The main objective of the Inter-American Task Force on Women’s Leadership is to position the Americas as the leading region in achieving SDG 5.5. We aim to contribute to accelerated commitment and actions across all sectors and advance women's leadership in power and decision-making.
Target 5.5: Ensure women's full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life.
Goals
Specific goals
- Improve the coordination and coherence of initiatives in pursuit of women´s leadership undertaken by international, intergovernmental, and inter-American institutions and other regional stakeholders.
- Scale-up existing initiatives led by Task Force members and leverage opportunities to make them more accessible to historically excluded groups.
- Create opportunities for women leaders to acquire knowledge, skills, and networks to support their continuous personal and professional growth.
Goals
Mission and Vision
Our Mission: Enhance the commitment of key actors and harmonize our efforts to promote and support women’s leadership in decision-making throughout the Americas.
Our Vision: Women leading decision-making on strengthening democracy and sustainable development in the Americas.
What We Do
Areas of engagement
To achieve our goals, the Task Force will work in three specific areas of engagement:
- Multi-stakeholder engagement
Effectively advancing women’s empowerment and leadership is only possible through multi-sectoral partnerships with stakeholders in the region, with whom we will seek to combine synergies to contribute to the empowerment and leadership of women. - Analysis of evidence for a better understanding to close gaps
We want to shed light on existing data on women’s participation in decision-making, as well as on the barriers to their empowerment and the initiatives to secure their right to participate in spaces of power, deepening these analyses and learning from evidence for more effective policy and decision-making. - Tools to support women leaders
We aim to support actions that promote and strengthen women's leadership, providing them with practical resources to improve their leadership skills in order to increase their empowerment in the areas in which they participate.
What We Do
How we work
- Knowledge sharing:
- Generating, disseminating and using knowledge on women’s leadership in different sectors to facilitate the identification of gaps and optimal strategies to address them.
- Reporting on our collective learning on the state of women’s leadership in the region.
- Coordinating our actions
- Implementing joint initiatives and disseminating the results of our work.
- Advocacy
- Advocating for greater prominence of women’s leadership as a policy topic within international and regional meeting agendas, declarations and at the individual leader level.
- Building alliances and partnerships across a wide range of actors to generate awareness and sustained change.
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