Argentina
The Government of Argentina published a decree in January 2023, announcing its intention to adopt a feminist foreign policy. Centring Argentina’s commitment to gender equality and instruments calling for it – namely the CEDAW Convention, the Sustainable Development of Goals, and the Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development – the decree named Argentina’s existing commitments under its multilateral and constitutional law regimes. The decree notes that Argentina aims at coordinating its external actions and internal policies through a feminist foreign policy lens, affirming the language of policy coherence. It centres gender mainstreaming at the local, state, national, and international levels – including diplomacy. Argentina’s intention to adopt a Feminist Foreign Policy is also headlined by its engagements with other countries that have adopted such policies of their own.
The Argentinian government has also established the role of a Special Representative for Feminist Foreign Policy, appointing Professor Maria Cristina Perceval, former Permanent Representative of Argentina to the UN and Undersecretary of Human Rights to fill the position. This position comes under the ambit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade, and Worship, and is on par with the position of a Secretary, by way of hierarchy. The details of the Special Representative’s functions are presented in a separate annex, and includes, among other things, representing Argentina and its position on its Feminist Foreign Policy in international, multilateral, and bilateral diplomacy and forums, and communicating the actions, programs, and policies of the Government of Argentina to advance the rights of women and girls.
Affirming its focus on coherence in action, the Special Representative shall also be responsible for coordinating actions with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade, and Worship, alongside the National Public Administration and the Ministry of Women, Gender, and Diversity. By mainstreaming a feminist approach throughout Argentina’s external action, the Special Representative is expected to mainstream a feminist approach in all of Argentina’s external actions, while building collaborations and avenues for joint engagement to achieve and advance gender parity and promote advocacy and strategic alliances on gender equality and the rights of women and girls (Decreto, 2022).
The Argentinian government also followed up its decree with the 2023 Action Plan, to implement the strategies identified in the decree. Argentina’s intention behind adopting a feminist foreign policy was to develop a coherent institutional framework within which national policies that seek to recognize, protect, and guarantee gender equality find reflection in all the nation’s actions, initiatives, and definitions of foreign policy; and, to reaffirm its commitments to the human rights of all women, adolescents, and girls, and gender equality (Thompson et al., 2023). The Argentinian government recognizes the transformative power and potential of feminist foreign policy, and considers its own feminist foreign policy an ethical, political, and institutional commitment to mainstream gender in all its outward facing engagements.
The Argentinian government’s feminist foreign policy aims at focusing on six key priority areas:
Building a care society, with the Buenos Aires Commitment and the Global Care of Alliance serving as key agents in implementation
Facilitating economic autonomy, grounded in the UN Global Compact’s Women’s Empowerment Principles
Achieving sustainable development, while working to encourage other states to strengthen and ratify of Escazú Agreement,
Centring scientific knowledge and technological innovation, and pursuing the inclusion of women and girls in science and technology and centring ethical engagements in cyberspace in light of new and evolving technologies like artificial intelligence,
Moving toward a world without violence and impunity, by centring disarmament and the inclusion of women and feminist organizations in doing so, and
Prioritizing democracy by implementing gender parity.
It aims to achieve this through a matrix management strategy (Thompson et al., 2023), by creating thematic groups and coalitions within the scope of the Chancellor’s Cabinet of Ministers to implement the strategy. All steps to implementation intend to be developed and implemented in close consultation with civil society and feminist movements.
Argentina has a rich track record of working toward gender equality. It centers trans feminism in its domestic and foreign policies, has a gender-inclusive abortion law, and even has a Special Representative for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, a post held by a trans woman Alba Rueda, the highest ranking trans official in Argentine history. However, in light of upcoming elections in October 2023, there is reason to be wary of the realities changing, given that a right-wing candidate has threatened to eliminate ministries of gender and labour.
References
Decreto 881 / 2022, DCTO-2022-881-APN-PTE (2022). https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/decreto-881-2022-377538
Thompson, L., Ahmed, S., Silva, B., and Montilla, J. (2023). Defining Feminist Foreign Policy: The 2023 Edition. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RTA4rbtXh5fkilcjm0cLMGSH_vZaOfre/view
