Feminism as a thread that unites regions and challenges inequalities
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH. WEAVING THE BI-REGIONAL CARE PACT FOR FEMINIST AND JUST COOPERATION
Feminism as a thread that unites regions and challenges inequalities
Nora Goren and Cecilia Gofman
During the XVI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean (CRM), celebrated in August 2025 in Mexico CityThe event took place “Weaving the Bi-regional Care Pact”, which addressed the need to move towards a care society from a bi-regional perspective, between Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe.
The meeting focused on debating the substantive axes of the Bi-regional Care Pact, aimed at recognizing care as a right, a collective responsibility and a pillar for democratic sustainability.
Within this framework, the voices of civil society, feminist movements, and various institutional actors were brought into dialogue, contributing to strengthening a common agenda capable of guiding transformative public policies.
Driven by feminist networks, trade unions and civil society organizations, including the Braiding Care Network, of which it is a part CLACSOThe meeting provided substantive elements for the debates that will take place in the III CELAC-EU Summit (Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the European Union), which will take place between November 7 and 10, 2025 in Santa Marta, Colombia, where the discussion will take place on the Bi-regional Care Pact.
This process has been developed and strengthened within the framework of the Regional Conference on Women (RCM), where progress was made in the coordination between actors from both regions and in the debates around the commitments that will feed the political debate of the Summit.
The initiative, supported by UN Women and the EU-CELAC Foundation, brought together representatives from both continents to discuss the political, economic and cultural challenges facing the care agenda, highlighting the voice of civil society in a context of crisis and democratic setbacks, and reaffirming that there will be no equality or sustainable development without a care society.
A debate on cooperation, rights and democracy
The discussion began with a shared diagnosis: the world is experiencing a care crisis that is intertwined with economic, environmental, and democratic crises. Participants agreed that care must be recognized as a human right, as work, and as a fundamental pillar for the sustainability of life; and that public policies must move beyond mere assistance and become structural strategies for redistribution and shared responsibility.
It was emphasized that there will be no care systems without democracy, nor without the guarantee of sexual and reproductive rights, and that the Bi-regional Care Pact must become a concrete tool to redistribute power, time and resources, strengthening the voice of those who have historically sustained life: women in all their diversity, especially paid and unpaid care workers, as well as migrants.
Financing and co-responsibility
One of the central themes of the debate was the need to ensure sustainable, progressive and multi-stakeholder financing mechanisms that involve the public, private, community and cooperative sectors, as well as the creation of specific care funds that guarantee the institutionalization of comprehensive policies.
It was also proposed to incorporate environmental justice, sexual and reproductive rights and the situation of migrants into the pact, recognizing that care is a global issue that requires cooperation, innovation and full participation of civil society.
In this regard, it was emphasized that without adequate funding and genuine shared responsibility, commitments risk remaining mere declarations. Furthermore, it was stressed the importance of preventing investment in care from leading to privatization or commodification, which would perpetuate inequalities and place the burden of care once again on women, especially those from low-income communities.
Towards a care society
The debate reaffirmed Latin America and the Caribbean's leadership in building the paradigm of a care society, which emerged strongly from the Buenos Aires Consensus and is now proposed as a shared horizon with Europe. This approach seeks to replace the logic of welfare with a new form of social, political, and economic organization based on interdependence, solidarity, and the sustainability of life.
In this context, the opportunity was highlighted for the EU-CELAC Summit to incorporate an explicit commitment to the right to care and self-care, and for the Bi-regional Care Pact to become a bi-regional instrument of cooperation and social justice, capable of guiding transformative public policies.
At the same time, warnings were issued about the need to prevent bi-regional agreements from leading to processes of privatization or commodification of care, or to new forms of precarity, where the burden continues to fall unequally on women, especially the poorest.
The participating organizations emphasized that the pact must strengthen public and social responsibility for care, ensuring that it is not treated as a commercial service or as an individual burden, but as a collective right, a common good, and an indispensable condition for the sustainability of life.
A new political horizon
The interventions agreed that the Bi-regional Care Pact represents much more than a technical agreement; it constitutes a civilizational proposal that redefines the relationship between regions, promotes inclusive multilateralism, and recovers the political meaning of feminism as an engine of social transformation.
This process does not end at the negotiating table, but rather projects a political route towards the EU-CELAC Summit, which will take place between November 8 and 10, 2025 in Colombia, where civil society and feminist movements will seek to consolidate real commitments and bi-regional monitoring mechanisms.
The Bi-regional Care Pact is proposed as a transformative commitment, not only to redistribute power and resources, but to redefine international cooperation from a feminist, popular and Latin American perspective.
In a context of democratic setbacks and growing inequalities, the voices gathered at the CRM reaffirmed that care is not a sectoral or welfare issue, but a matter of justice, democracy and the future.
Ultimately, forging this pact is about weaving a collective hope. A bi-regional alliance that places life, equality, and dignity at the heart of politics, and that resists any attempt to commodify, fragment, or empty this feminist horizon of transformation of its meaning.
