22 November, 2007
 UN-INSTRAW, Progressio,
Volens, the Dominican National Council for State Reform (CONARE), the Spanish
Agency for International Cooperation (AECI) and the Friederich Ebert Stiftung
(FES), organized a two-day Seminar on Gender Equality and Local Development,
November 21st to 22nd 2007 in Santo Domingo, D.R.
With the aim of strengthening the importance of gender equality and the
empowerment of women in local political and development agendas, the
conference brought together women municipal leaders from Central America and
the Dominican Republic to share their experiences on municipal management
from a gender perspective.
Participants exchanged views and experiences on topics such as municipal
budgeting and planning, the formulation of public policy with a gender
perspective, the establishment of municipal offices for women’s and gender
issues, and women’s political participation at the local level.
“With the objective to create a network of municipal women, participants from
Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, Guatemala and El Salvador,
signed today a regional agreement”, pointed out Carolina Taborga, Social
Affairs Officer of UN-INSTRAW. “This agreement is essential to strengthen the
dialogue among key women stakeholders and to work together, in order to build
more democratic societies”, she continued.
Participants at the meeting issued a declaration calling on municipal leaders
to do more to recognize and address women’s needs, views and priorities at
the local level, and to involve more women in local decision-making and
planning processes. The Declaration also highlighted the importance of
strengthening alliances between municipal women in order to carry forward the
dialogue initiated at the UN-INSTRAW Seminar and establish a common Regional
Agenda on Gender Equality.
“It’s essential that associations of municipal women be able to share
experiences at the regional level so that we can learn from the advances made
in other countries,” stated Elvia Villalobos, Mayor of San Isidro de Heredia
in Costa Rica. “This seminar has opened a space to strengthen the dialogue
among women municipal leaders, international organizations, donors and the
State,” she continued.
“The meeting was interesting because we realized that we are facing the same
difficulties and in order to overcome them, we have to join our force. In the
future, there will be several meetings to continue this network and to
identify our objectives in the medium and long term”, said Carmen Rivera,
President of the Association of Municipal Women of Honduras (ANAMMH).
UN-INSTRAW works to support women in politics and stresses the importance of
achieving gender parity in political representation. With a world average of just
17.4% of women parliamentary representatives at the national level, and
significantly less at the municipal level in Latin America, achieving gender
parity is still a significant challenge for governments worldwide.
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