The Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation (DECO) at the Organization of American States, together with the Art Museum of the Americas (AMA), will jointly launch a photo contest to celebrate the OAS’ 50-year anniversary of elections observation in the Americas.

Both OAS electoral observers and members of the general public are invited to submit original, unpublished photos that capture the “essence of democracy” and to personally interpret what elections mean to them. The contest is open to both amateurs and professionals. However, electoral observers and members of the general public will be judged as separate categories.

Watch the fourth joint report by AQ and Efecto Naím, which analyzes the relationship between race and education in Brazil.

Brazil is a diverse country and an unequal one. That inequality begins in the school. Afro-Brazilian students attend consistently inferior schools in terms of infrastructure and security than their Caucasian-Brazilian counterparts. The same students underperform in national tests relative to their Caucasian-Brazilian fellow students.

This report looks inside Brazil’s education system and examines the intersection of racial and socio-economic factors such as the access to quality schools that have sustained this inequality. The report also explores what policymakers can do to improve the prospects for social mobility in Brazil.

Efecto Naím is a weekly television news program broadcast by NTN24 and hosted by international news commentator Moisés Naím, offers a unique insight into how our world is changing. The show airs Sunday evenings on channels in the U.S., Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.

Watch the full report:

Gender Equality: Political Backrooms, Corporate Boardrooms and Classrooms – Americas Quarterly Summer Issue Launch

Friday, August 17 - Americas Society and Council of the Americas launched the Summer 2012 issue of Americas Quarterly, "Gender Equality: Political Backrooms, Corporate Boardrooms and Classrooms."

Panelists offered  new perspectives on advances in gender equality across the region as well as the continuing challenges for women’s rights. As noted in the latest issue of AQ, despite impressive achievements in access to education and political representation, barriers for women remain across sectors.

Speakers:

Within Peru and outside, clashes between community leaders and mining companies have often been portrayed as the outcome of inevitable tension between satisfying global markets’ demand for natural resources and fulfilling the environmental and political rights of the communities where those commodities are found.

Yet framing it as such “misses one of the crucial elements that underlies the conflict,” writes AQ Editor-in-Chief and AS/COA Senior Director of Policy Christopher Sabatini. In a piece published Friday by CNN’s Global Public Square, Sabatini argues that local governments have an important role to play in managing and directing the revenues generated by mining activities to meet social demands.

Americas Quarterly course packets are now available for your classroom! With AQ, teachers and professors will find an indispensable classroom tool for studying policy issues in the Americas or overall international development.

Custom course packets are available on topics including the economic development, human rights, immigration, crime and security, the environment, social policy, and other areas that are critical for students’ understanding of political, social and economic trends in Latin America and the Caribbean. Authors include leading policymakers like former President of Chile Michelle Bachelet and Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim, and scholars like Paul Farmer, Osvaldo Rosales, and Matias Spektor. Articles range in length from 2,000 to 4,000 words and have been edited for accessibility for undergraduate and graduate students.

Click here for the AQ course packet catalogue, or view it below. To order specific articles or for more information please contact aqinfo@as-coa.org or call (212) 249-8950.

Watch the third joint report by AQ and Efecto Naím, which analyzes Brazil’s readiness to host two upcoming major sporting events: the 2014 Soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.

Historically, large events such as the World Cup and the Olympics have provided an opportunity for countries to showcase themselves to the world. Many believe this is Brazil’s turn to demonstrate its rise on the international scene.

According to the report, however, almost 40 percent of the projects—in infrastructure, housing, transportation, and security—currently being carried out by the Brazilian government to prepare for the millions of tourists that will visit the country for the events have not been completed.

Under Agenda 21 of the International Olympic Committee, host countries’ responsibilities not only refer to meeting appropriate standards for the games, but also entail improving the country’s socioeconomic conditions, conserving and managing resources for sustainable development, and strengthening the roles of youth and women. To date, Brazil is also lagging in these regards.

Poor infrastructure and people’s right to housing are among the main concerns for Raquel Rolnik, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, who has denounced forced evictions and the lack of consultation with communities that are affected by the infrastructure developments associated with the events.

Efecto Naím, a weekly television news program broadcast by NTN24 and hosted by international news commentator Moisés Naím, offers a unique insight into how our world is changing. The show airs Sunday evenings on channels in the U.S., Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.

Watch the full report:

Mosquita y Mari will have its New York premiere at Cinema Village theaters starting this Friday, August 3. The film, which originally debuted at the Sundance International Film Festival in January 2012, is a coming-of-age story about the complex relationship between two Chicana teenagers growing up in an immigrant neighborhood in Los Angeles.

Read a profile of filmmaker Aurora Guerrero in the latest issue of Americas Quarterly magazine.

“The time for women’s empowerment has arrived,” writes Susan Segal, president and CEO of Americas Society/Council of the Americas and publisher of Americas Quarterly, in a new op-ed in The Miami Herald. Segal writes that in Latin America, though women and girls have achieved gender parity in access to education and health care, they have not yet achieved political and economic parity. Segal emphasizes economic empowerment in particular as a key to poverty alleviation and the eradication of gender-based violence.

Latin America Still an Unfair World for Women
Susan Segal

One of the most pressing issues facing the hemisphere and the global community today is gender equality and female economic and political empowerment. How will we ever fully unleash the potential of our hemisphere as long as we fail to meaningfully engage half of its population?

In Latin America, women have achieved parity in access to education and healthcare, but have yet to attain political and economic parity. Women account for only 10.5 percent of board positions globally, approximately 16 percent in the U.S. and 7.2 percent in emerging markets. In Latin America, the percentage is even smaller. According to Catalyst, only 39 Fortune 500 companies boast female chief executives — and in most Latin American countries, the number barely rates a mention.

Gender Equality: Political Backrooms, Corporate Boardrooms and Classrooms

Gender equality and girls and women’s empowerment have been pushed to the top of domestic and foreign policy agendas in the Americas.  The Summer 2012 issue of Americas Quarterly, released on Thursday, July 26, looks at how women and girls are faring in education, labor markets, politics, and the private sector, and why—politically, economically, and morally—achieving equality and parity is essential.

In the Summer 2012 AQ, former president of Chile and UN Women executive director Michelle Bachelet discusses why violence against women is a development issue, and the importance of empowering women economically to break those patterns.  U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer writes how and why the State Department has made women and girls’ development a strategic foreign policy objective of the U.S. government. And Joan Caivano and Jane Marcus-Delgado explain how international and local advocacy groups and the courts are changing reproductive rights laws (in both directions) in the hemisphere.  The issue also presents a timeline of milestones in women’s achievements, and AQ’s signature “charticle” graphically portrays and compares women’s representation on corporate boards globally and how it increases profits. 

Other articles address individual aspects of gender equality.  Magda Hinosoja of Arizona State University writes that while election quotas in favor of women have sparked greater representation of women in national legislatures, local levels and party politics remain male bastions.  Cedric Herring of the University of Chicago at Illinois describes why women’s participation in business improves profitability and what Latin American companies and governments need to do to catch up. 

As always, this issue of AQ also has articles and departments on a variety of other topics.  Haiti expert and Partners in Health founder Paul Farmer traces the rise of cholera in the hemisphere and the risk of a new pandemic; Lourdes Melgar muses on the future of PEMEX in the next sexenio; and Matias Spektor analyses the shifting views in Brazil on humanitarian intervention in the wake of Libya and Syria.

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