Four years to 2030: An agenda to accelerate gender equality, racial justice, and sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean

An Urgent Challenge Four Years Before the 2030 Agenda Deadline

With only four years remaining to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, ensuring equal rights and opportunities for Afro-descendant women remains one of the region’s most pressing challenges.

Latin America and the Caribbean are home to approximately 153.3 million Afro-descendant people, representing nearly 24 percent of the regional population. Among them, millions of women face higher levels of poverty, barriers to accessing decent work and social protection, an excessive burden of unpaid and paid care work, and persistent underrepresentation in decision-making spaces.

Afro-descendant women and girls continue to face multiple and interconnected forms of discrimination based on gender, race, ethnic-racial identity, territory, and socioeconomic status, restricting their autonomy and deepening inequalities.

In this regard, Paula Narváez, UNFPA Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, stated: “This reality directly limits access to and the full exercise of fundamental rights: education, health, decent employment, political participation, sexual and reproductive rights, access to justice, and a life free from violence.”

This situation takes on particular significance in the Caribbean, where Afro-descendant populations constitute the majority in many countries and where Haiti holds a central place in regional history as the first independent state in Latin America and the Caribbean to emerge from a revolution led by enslaved people. Participants underscored that recognizing this history also requires advancing a historical reparations agenda to address the enduring consequences of slavery, colonialism, and structural racism. 

Violence, Exclusion, and Political Participation 

Gender-based violence and racism continue to affect Afro-descendant women and girls disproportionately, requiring public responses grounded in human rights, gender equality, intersectionality, and racial justice.

Gaetan Beaulière, from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), stated: “Greater participation by Afro-descendant women is essential to promote and protect their rights. Yet they continue to be excluded from decision-making processes.”

Participants agreed that the current geopolitical context—marked by the rise of anti-rights narratives, the persistence of structural racism, the weakening of democratic spaces, and growing inequalities—demands renewed commitments from States through anti-racist, intersectional public policies grounded in human rights. 

Transformative Leadership 

In the face of these inequalities, Afro-descendant women are also leading transformative responses. Through community organizations, social movements, academia, and local territories, they are advancing initiatives to defend human rights, preserve ancestral knowledge, protect biodiversity, strengthen community economies, and promote more democratic, inclusive, and sustainable societies.

Génesis Gutiérrez, from the Network of Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean, and Diaspora Women (RMAAD), noted: “We are not starting from the same point. Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean, and Diaspora women face a historical lag that requires intensified efforts to guarantee our rights.” 

Care Societies with Racial Justice 

One of the central themes of the dialogue was the construction of care societies with racial justice. Participants stressed that comprehensive care systems cannot exist without incorporating an ethnic-racial perspective that recognizes the knowledge, expertise, and practices of Afro-descendant women.

Altagracia Balcácer, from the Afro-descendant Institute for Study, Research, and Development, warned: “Afro-descendant women face an excessive burden of both paid and unpaid care work, a situation compounded by the absence of culturally appropriate health services located near their communities.”

Participants also highlighted the need to guarantee accessible, high-quality care services, promote the shared social responsibility of care, and integrate this perspective into public policies, financing mechanisms, and data production. 

Youth and Emerging Inequalities

The dialogue also addressed the challenges facing younger generations. Although increasing numbers of Afro-descendant youth are gaining access to higher education and professional training, they continue to encounter barriers to quality employment, equal pay, and leadership opportunities.

Gilma Vieira da Silva, from the Afro-descendant Youth Network of Latin America and the Caribbean (REDJUAFRO), stated: “When we analyze information through the lenses of race and gender, inequalities become even more pronounced. Afro-descendant youth face structural racism, sexism, and also adultcentrism.”

Participants also warned about emerging inequalities linked to digital transformation and called for equitable access to technology, as well as the development of technologies and artificial intelligence guided by gender-responsive, anti-racist, ethnic-racial, and intersectional approaches. 

Data to Transform Public Policies

Another key area of consensus was the need to strengthen the production of statistical information disaggregated by sex and ethnic-racial identity, as a prerequisite for designing effective public policies and monitoring progress toward the 2030 Agenda.

In the words of Rocío Muñoz Flores, UNFPA Regional Adviser on Gender and Human Rights for Latin America and the Caribbean: “We must continue emphasizing the importance of having disaggregated data. It is a key input for generating public policies and strategic actions aimed at reducing inequalities through an intersectional approach.” 

A Comprehensive Rights Agenda 

The webinar reaffirmed that accelerating gender equality requires placing racial justice at the center of public policy and strengthening ongoing dialogue among States, the United Nations System, and Afro-descendant women’s organizations.

Bárbara Ortiz, UN Women Regional Adviser on Normative Frameworks, Intergovernmental Affairs, and Civil Society, highlighted “the importance of designing public policies that incorporate the demands and proposals of women’s organizations in the territories, ensuring their participation not only in formulation but also in implementation and monitoring.” 

Priorities for Accelerating Equality and Racial Justice

With four years remaining before the 2030 Agenda deadline, UN Women and UNFPA reaffirmed the need to advance a regional agenda that positions racial justice as an indispensable pillar for achieving substantive equality and sustainable development. Identified priorities include:

• Strengthening the economic autonomy of Afro-descendant women and guaranteeing access to decent work and social protection;
• Advancing toward comprehensive care systems with racial justice;
• Eradicating structural racism and all forms of discrimination;
• Ensuring the full, equal, and meaningful participation of Afro-descendant women in leadership and decision-making spaces; and
• Strengthening sustainable financing for Afro-descendant women’s organizations and networks.

The event concluded with a call to translate international commitments into concrete transformations in the lives of Afro-descendant women, recognizing that gender equality cannot be achieved without racial justice, nor sustainable development without the leadership and full participation of Afro-descendant women. 

Every July 25, the international community commemorates the International Day of Afro-descendant Women and Girls, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly through Resolution A/RES/78/323. The observance recognizes the fundamental contributions of Afro-descendant women to sustainable development, peacebuilding, and the promotion of human rights, while calling for stronger global action to eradicate racism, racial discrimination, and other forms of intolerance that continue to affect Afro-descendant women and girls disproportionately. The commemoration continues the long-standing advocacy of the Afro-descendant women’s movement in Latin America and the Caribbean, which has observed July 25 since 1992 as the International Day of Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean, and Diaspora Women.