The central moment of the joint work was the "International Meeting on Experiences and Progress: the Importance of Adopting Care Policies”
The GIPC, Paraguay’s interagency group for driving the process of constructing a national care policy, a body comprised of 13 state institutions and led by the Ministry for Women’s Affairs and the Technical Secretariat of Planning (STP), worked with an international mission organised by the EU programme EUROsociAL+, the kick-off of the support action to the system of care in Paraguay. The activity was aimed at reflecting on and exchanging experiences in relation to the lines of the Care Policy in Paraguay in order to agree on a strategy for approaching it. In particular, the experiences of France and Uruguay were shared through the technical assistance of Frédérique Leprince and Karina Batthyany and Gabriel Corbo, respectively.
The central moment of the work week was the “International Meeting on Experiences and Progress: the Importance of Adopting Care Policies”. The Minister of Women’s Affairs, Ana María Baiardi, was in charge of opening the event, which was attended by the Minister of the Technical Secretariat of Development Planning, José Molinas; the Executive Director of the Technical Unit of the Social Cabinet, Mirta Denis; the Representative of the European Union and of UN Women in Paraguay; and operators of gender mechanisms of the three authorities of the State (central, departmental and municipal); Secretaries for Women’s Affairs of the Governorates and of the municipalities of the Central Department; technical levels of the civil service; and other special guests.
The Minister also highlighted the transcendental step the country is taking by instituting a national care policy, as “often we don’t really identify care policies because they are related to the tasks we habitually perform as part of our daily life: caring for our children, elderly relatives, a family member with special capacities […] family responsibilities that, in a very high percentage of cases are shouldered by women”.
EUROsociAL’s mission was led by Yasmina Lakmad and Francesco M. Chiodi, from the Gender and Social Policy areas of the programme, respectively, as the action is intended to support an action the two areas are carrying out jointly.
The next steps envisaged for EUROsociAL’s assistance, which will benefit in the near future from an agreement with UN Women, are the following: (i) consolidation of the interagency group (GIPC), also with the participation of civil society; (ii) alignment and convergence of the processes of defining the care policy with the process of defining the social protection policy; (iii) creation of a Framework Document for a Care Policy; and (iv) formation of the Advisory Board and Technical Boards that will undertake a diagnosis of the country’s current situation and care needs.
Área de políticas sociales / Social Policies Area. IILA / EUROsociAL+
