The Dialogue has carried out its work on women’s leadership under the auspices of the Women’s Leadership Conference of the Americas (WLCA), a hemispheric network of women leaders. The group has worked to assure that women’s concerns are specifically addressed in international forums; to monitor progress that countries are making to address women’s issues; and to hold governments accountable.

 The WLCA was instrumental in getting women's concerns on the agenda of the first Summit of the Americas in Miami. Published as Communiqué to the Presidents of the Americas, the recommendations of the WLCA led to the inclusion of a women's initiative in the summit's final Plan of Action. A second Communiqué was issued before the Santiago Summit in 1999.

 In 2001 prior to the third Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, Canada, the WLCA issued a report card, Women and Power in the Americas.

 The Dialogue also monitors women’s leadership beyond electoral politics. The report Women and Global Leadership assesses progress that women have made in international organizations and in national foreign policy agencies. With the Simmons School of Management, the Dialogue published Women on the Verge: Corporate Power in Latin America to document women’s presence in the Latin American business world.

Recent Dialogue Events

1/23/2009 Women Leaders in the Peace-Building Process
On Friday, January 23rd, four women leaders from Bolivia and Colombia discussed the role of women in promoting a culture of non-violence and peace-building in the region. The panelists included Juanita Roca, consultant and researcher with the UNIR Bolivia Foundation; Maria Eugenia Rojas, the executive director of the Women's Councilors' Association of Bolivia; Emiliana Bernard, journalist, feminist leader and human rights activist from Colombia; and Evelyn Garrido Rodríguez, a political scientist with the Universidad Javeriana in Colombia.

3/14/08 Women and Justice in the Americas
Supreme Court Justice Elena Highton of Argentina, Minister Priya Devi Manickchand of Guyana, and Cynthia Bendlin of the International Organization for Migration in Paraguay shared their experiences promoting women's rights in such areas as domestic violence, trafficking of women and children, civil and penal code reform, access to justice for women, and mediation.

1/24/08 Addressing Security Challenges in Colombia
Four Colombian women - President of the Senate Nancy Patricia Gutiérrez, Senator Marta Lucía Ramírez, Deputy Minister of the Interior María Isabel Nieto, and María Emma Wills of the Historical Memory Commission - analyzed the current political climate in Colombia.

3/28/2007 Women Political Leaders Probe Achievement
The Inter-American Dialogue, Inter-American Development Bank, League of Women Voters of the United States, Inter-American Foundation, and Organization of American States convened in Washington a small group of women political leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss the dramatic advances achieved by women seeking public office in the past ten years-and the special challenges currently facing women in electoral politics. Click here for more information on the Women in the Americas: Paths to Political Power conference.

1/18/07 Promoting Women in Politics and the Colombian Peace Process

Current Publications

Latin American Women in Movement: Changing Politics, Changing Minds. Joan M. Caivano and Thayer Hardwick, in Civil Society and Social Movements: Building Sustainable Democracies in Latin America, ed. Arthur Domike. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank, 2008.

Women in the Americas: Paths to Political Power. A Report Card on Women in Political Leadership, January 2008. Please click here to read more about the Women in the Americas: Paths to Political Power conference.   

Women on the Verge: Corporate Power in Latin America. Report of the Women's Leadership Conference of the Americas. April 2005.
   
The statements and conclusions by Latin American women executives cited in this study are drawn from over 120 personal interviews contained in the seven country case studies commissioned for the project.

Women and Global Leadership. Report of the Women's Leadership Conference of the Americas. April 2004.

April 1, 2001: Women and Power in the Americas: A Report Card. April 2001.

Click here for all women's leadership publications.