The Foreign Minister, Erika Mouynes, has been invited as the main speaker during the “SALMA” Dialogue between Africa and Latin America that is being held this month in Tunisia, with the participation of delegations from more than 50 countries. This recognized platform promotes the international program that develops a positive dynamic between both geographical and political blocs. Their participation is a reflection of the gender policy promoted by President Laurentino Cortizo Cohen.
The SALMA forum (Strategic Alliances: Meeting of Latin America in Africa) is an initiative of the KAS regional program called ADELA (Alliances for Democracy and Development with Latin America), based in Panama, in collaboration with the Tunisian organization SIDE ( Sustainable Innovation, Development and Equality), which alternate venues for the meeting.
According to this year’s call, the conference in Tunis aims to establish the collaborative framework for the design, implementation and monitoring of public policies for gender equality and the exchange of good practices between associated Latin American and African countries.
Under the proposal “Gender Mainstreaming and Sustainable Development for Inclusive Strategies in Africa and Latin America”, the topics to be discussed include strategies for equality in positions of high responsibility, female leadership and female representation in economic performance.
Among the panelists participating in the bi-regional meeting are the Head of Government of Tunisia, Najla Bouden; Hildegard Müller, of the KAS board of directors and president of the Union of the German Automobile Industry; the vice president of Costa Rica, Dr. Mary Munive Angermüller; the Foreign Minister of Libya, Najla Mangoush; the president of the Latin American Parliament, Silvia Giacoppo; and the director of UN Women, María Noel Vaeza.
The event will take place in Tunis on August 29, 30 and 31. The Konrad Adenauer Foundation will bear the travel and lodging expenses of Chancellor Mouynes, who will have the support of the embassy team to attend to her agenda.
“We have taken the opportunity to make issues of current international articulation, such as gender equality, our own of the Foreign Ministry, with very positive results. Our discourse is always consistent with the actions we take”, the minister mentioned about her next intervention in the SALMA initiative, which held its 2021 Conference in Panama last November “for better representation of women in positions of high responsibility. ”.
In this sense, the Panamanian Foreign Ministry promotes several projects, such as the Panama Plan for the Participation of Women in Public Positions, which seek to generate opportunities for more professional women to join the public service.
“Every time I have participated in a forum where the lack of women in decision-making positions is evident, I have said so. This situation has to change”, stressed the Panamanian Foreign Minister, who during her speech at the last CELAC summit held in Mexico, highlighted this imbalance, sitting at the table with only four other women among more than thirty regional leaders. That determined denunciation earned her the applause of the audience, and her participation is a reflection of the gender policy promoted by President Laurentino Cortizo Cohen. nce and became one of the most reviewed moments of the meeting by the continent’s media.
The leading role of the Republic of Panama in the international gender agenda, in the search for equal equality and inclusion, was also documented by the London “Financial Times”, where the leadership of Minister Mouynes and the national strategy to balance the participation of women in leadership positions in all areas of development and social and economic growth.
“We have managed to associate Panama in a positive way with the fight for gender equality,” said the chancellor regarding the invitation from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS, for its acronym in German).
More recently, on International Women’s Day, Foreign Minister Mouynes was part of the high-level panel of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development convened by the Economic Commission for Latin America, in Costa Rica, where he focused his speech on the necessary call for attention and help in the face of the escalation of teenage pregnancies that is registered in the region and the worrying situation of young women and girls. “The truths, although hard, must be told. We are facing another pandemic, that of gender-based violence, which must also be addressed, ”she stressed together with Alicia Bárcena, who was saying goodbye to the position at the head of ECLAC.
