Latin American And Caribbean Women To Get IDB Funding Boost To Increase Political Participation
Funds will finance projects including development of networks for contacts and academic research
The Inter-American Development Bank approved a regional grant of up to $2.25 million to support initiatives to increase political participation by women from Latin America and the Caribbean, especially Afro-descendents and indigenous women.
The grant, which comes from the new IDB Multidonor Gender and Diversity Fund created in May 2009, will finance a variety of initiatives over a three-year period in order to achieve this goal in Latin America. Public calls for projects will be announced to select and finance initiatives that best promote gender equality and women’s access to politics.
The grant will also finance initiatives to help create exchange networks; facilitate the transfer of ideas, strategies and resources; and develop awareness of why it is important for women to participate in decision-making. In addition, the funds will finance academic research about women’s leadership, modernization of the State and mechanisms to strengthen women’s leadership and participation though public policy and multilateral banking operations.
Entitled “New Horizons: Toward Increased Political Participation by Women,” the project has been approved by the IDB at a time when women have gained access to the region’s highest political posts. Michelle Bachelet was elected president of Chile in 2005, the following year Jamaica made Portia Simpson Miller prime minister, and in 2007, Cristina Kirchner became president of Argentina by popular mandate.
In barely two years, from 2005 to 2007, the number of women holding posts as ministers in Latin America rose from 15 per cent to 24 per cent of the total. Chile became the first country in the Americas and the third in the world—after Spain and Sweden—to have an equal number of women and men in cabinet positions.
The presence of women in the legislative branches has also grown in a sustained way, in part because 12 countries in the region have adopted a quota system for candidate slates that sets a minimum for women. The number of women congressional representatives in Latin America and the Caribbean has climbed from 7 per cent in 1990 to 19 per cent in 2009.
Yet despite these advances, gender equality is far from being a reality, as shown by a recent IDB study that found wide salary gaps between men and women, as well as among the region’s various ethnic groups. Also, the growing number of women in public positions does not include indigenous or Afro-descended women, even in countries where these groups represent a substantial proportion of the population.
“This project will make it possible to finance strategic measures aimed at strengthening effective participation by women in areas of decision-making that affect their lives and the lives of their families,” explains IDB project team leader Gabriela Vega.
Topics: academic research, equality, funding, Governance, government, IDB, Inter-American Development Bank, Latin America, politics, Women
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