CIM Vice President, Hon. Dr. Virginia Albert-Poyotte calls for Greater Inclusion of Caribbean Member States in the oldest Multilateral Agency for Women’s Rights
By Department of Home Affairs and Gender Affairs
Since her election as the Vice President of the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) in May 2022, Saint Lucia’s Minister for the Public Service, Home Affairs, Gender Affairs and Labour, Minister Virginia Albert-Poyotte has been working diligently to ensure that the Caribbean’s gender priorities are equitably reflected within the key program and policy areas of the CIM. In preparation for the First Executive Committee meeting of the CIM scheduled for Tuesday, September 27, 2022, Caribbean delegations met last Friday September 23, 2022 to discuss how they could negotiate a unified position on a Caribbean-specific core of issues within the five -year Strategic Plan to be considered as part of the agenda.
Honourable Dr. Virginia Albert-Poyotte, convened this high-level virtual meeting attended by her colleague Caribbean Ministers of Gender Affairs and the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) delegates.
Honourable Dr. Virginia Albert-Poyotte,
Saint Lucia’s Minister for the Public
Service, Home Affairs, Gender Affairs and Labour and CIM Vice President
The virtual meeting also comprised CARICOM Missions to the OAS, and a representative from the CARICOM Secretariat, to strategize for a unified regional position for the Caribbean within the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM). The organization is the oldest inter-governmental women’s organization in the world. Gender Ministers from Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, as well as senior officials from the gender ministries in the Caribbean Member States of the Organization of American States, participated in this first-of-its-kind-meeting which was amply represented by most of the 14 CARICOM Member States.
Ambassador Lou-Anne Gilchrist, the Chair of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States, was also in attendance along with Caribbean Ambassadors from states such as: the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia, and Grenada.
As Minister Poyotte shared: “The Caribbean has some specific concerns and issues that are not the primary focus of the broader meeting and therefore we see the Caribbean as a sub-grouping within the CIM….so we needed to discuss how to leverage our relationship in the CIM and how to improve it and make it more mutually beneficial.”
Minister Albert-Poyotte’s priorities for the Caribbean during her tenure as one of two Caribbean Member States on the CIM Executive Committee include: resource mobilization for the Caribbean to assist in its national and regional projects for gender equality; institutional building for the national gender mechanisms through training and capacity-building for gender mainstreaming; strengthening alliances between the CIM and regional and international bodies in the Caribbean, for women’s political and economic leadership; and similarly, addressing the scourge of gender-based violence against women and girls. Lastly, a top priority is to elevate women’s agency and leadership in climate change and disaster risk and reduction efforts.
The meeting was also addressed by Ms. Ann Marie Williams, Deputy Programme Manager for the Council of Human and Social Development, CARICOM Secretariat, who analyzed the synergies between the CARICOM and the CIM; Hon. Dr. Vindhya Persaud, Principal Delegate of Guyana to the CIM and Minister for Labour and Social Services in Guyana who provided her perspectives on the CARICOM engagement with the CIM. Mr. Jamie Sanders, Principal Delegate of Antigua and Barbuda to the CIM and Director of the Directorate of Gender Affairs in Antigua and Barbuda gave a comprehensive analysis of the programming for the Caribbean within the CIM’s Strategic Plan 2022-2026.
