Marking 201 Years of Central American Independence
With a view of the Senate of Canada through the windows of the National Arts Center, Technical Assistance Partnership – Expert Deployment Mechanism (TAP-EDM) Project Manager Alexandra Reano attended a reception on September 23rd, 2022 which brought together Embassies of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua to mark the occasion of the 201st Anniversary of Independence of Latin American countries.
The reception offered Ms. Reano an opportunity to meet with various ambassadors and government representatives. This included Ambassador Sylvie Bédard, Director General for Central America and the Caribbean from Global Affairs Canada to discuss current TAP-EDM initiatives in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Ecuador.
Global Affairs Canada’s TAP-EDM, in partnership with Alinea International, works with eligible countries to provide Canadian Expertise in an area of need for the country. The initiatives all align with the goals surrounding Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI), Environmental and Climate Action (ECA) and Governance and Human Rights (GHR).
TAP-EDM projects in Latin America encompass a large range of topics. Indigenous relations and reconciliation take center stage for TAP-EDM’s initiative with Ecuador. The Government of Ecuador has reached out to Canada and a national Indigenous Organization to aid in designing and establishing a sustainable structure for regular and meaningful dialogue. In their role, the Canadian Expert would provide the technical assistance needed to design and implement long term dialogue structures.
In Costa Rica, TAP-EDM’s Canadian Expert is working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to develop a National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. The goal of the initiative is to strengthen the capacity of the Costa Rican government to include women in the country’s process for the drafting of policies related to peace negotiations, peacekeeping, humanitarian response and conflict resolution.
In El Salvador, the initiative is endeavouring to increase the use of a gendered lens in the creation of environmental policies to address specific environmental challenges faced by women and girls. Canadian expertise is being provided in the creation of an information system to collect gender data to produce well informed policies as well as formulate indicators in environmental management.
The Guatemalan government has a previously established the Secretariat against Sexual Violence, Exploitation and Human Trafficking (SVET). Unfortunately, the organization is currently acting with limited resources, and there is no practical monitoring system that can produce the data needed to guide effective policy to reduce sexual violence, exploitation and human trafficking. TAP-EDM will deploy an expert to aid in the construction of a database that will provide the Secretariat with a system to collect and analyze meaningful, disaggregated gender.
As a project manager, Ms. Reano identifies Canadians who possess extensive knowledge in the area of interest as well as an understanding of the culture, government and language of the partnered country. A relationship with the National Government Entity in the applicant country is established. From there, assistance to the country – either virtual or in person – can take place. The Canadian Expert’s work with their national counterpart to provide technical assistance will be composed of many different activities.
TAP-EDM is looking for Canadian Experts to provide their knowledge and experience, and become TAP experts. To learn more about working with TAP please visit Work with us – TAP-EDM (tap-pat.ca) .
To know more about the TAP-EDM initiatives in the Latin America region please visit: Home – TAP-EDM (tap-pat.ca)
